Personnel selection

This popular but ineffective approach to injury prevention is based on the intuitive notion of accident proneness. The strategy is to identify aspects of accident proneness among job applicants and then screen out people with critical levels of certain characteristics. Accident proneness characteristics targeted for measurement and screening have included anxiety, distractibility, tension, insecurity, beliefs about injury control, general expectancies about personal control of life events, social adjustment, reliability, impulsivity, sensation seeking, boredom susceptibility, and self-reported alcohol use. 

Although measuring and screening for accident proneness sounds like a quick fix approach to injury prevention, this method has several problems you will readily realize as you read more in this Handbook about the psychology of safety. Briefly, this technique has not worked reliably to prevent workplace injuries because 

The instruments or procedures available to measure the proneness characteristics are unreliable or invalid. 

The characteristics do not carry across settings, so a person might show them at home but not at work or vice versa. 

A person with a higher desire to take risks (such as a sensation seeker) might be more inclined to take appropriate precautions (like using personal protective equipment) to avoid potential injury. 

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Personnel Selection and Training. The quaHty of operating personnel is of paramount importance to the safe operation of a chemical plant. Operators must be intelligent and emotionally stable. Excessive use of alcohol and dmgs affects reHabiHty and can thereby render workers more susceptible to certain types of toxic exposure. Thorough medical screening is essential to avoid damaging exposures to susceptible individuals, eg, people with respiratory ailments should not be employed in areas where corrosive atmospheres could occur. 

Experienced and qualified people are essential to a company s performance level. Successful tolling operations may show evidence of proper personnel selection, career planning and advancement. 

Experienced and qualified people are important to the performance level of a company. Proper personnel selection and career planning are therefore complimentary to the success of a company. 

In prescription, as in the other areas of clinical management, doctors - key decision-makers in the health system - are to be provided with the necessary incentives, information and infrastructure to take clinical decisions in a cost-effective way. When possible, appropriate personnel selection, valuing not only skills but also attitudes, can compensate for the characteristic weakness of incentives in the health sector. This focus on selection as an organizational... 

Schedule interviews at a convenient time for each witness. Make appointments with witnesses through the appropriate charmels, such as with union and contract personnel. Select a schedule that minimizes contact between witnesses to minimize the sharing of stories between witnesses. For example, schedule each initial interview for 30 minutes. Allow 30 minutes between interviews to complete the documentation of the last interview and prepare for the next one. This gap minimizes contact between witnesses. Adjust the schedule and interview list based on data as they appear. 

Of much wider relevance to human behaviour, however, is the model of preferences that underpins the Myers-Brlggs Personality Type Indicator (Myers, 1980). The indicator is a questionnaire which diagnoses your personality type on the basis of four fundamental preferences. It is increasingly being used as a tool for diagnostic purposes in personnel selection, counselling and management development. 

Training, or arranging the training, of all personnel selected to be internal auditors. 

Maintenance of an impeccably clean storeroom and good physical organization that are essential for the preservation of the fabric collection is impossible without qualified personnel. Selection of a caretaker (not to be confused with the person responsible for the upkeep of the museum building) is likely to be very difficult. As the museum fabric field is not an established professional area, it is best to train an individual according to his or her ability and development. At the outset, he must be sensitive in touch and vision, have a strong sense of cleanliness and neatness, and also an ability to tolerate tedious routines. The position should not be filled casually by any job applicant who comes along. 

Personnel selection can take place in one of two ways, depending on the management culture. One way is for the executive/management board to make top-down decisions. However, a structured selection process can also be used in which each company nominates two or three candidates for each position, and these candidates are then interviewed by their respective supervisors and by the human resources director. Very often, some human resource consultants are involved in the process as well. The evaluation is ideally performed along defined criteria and should be as objective as possible. 

Administrative controls include policies and procedures which address the human elements which can impact the frequency of accidents and injuries. Supervision, personnel selection, training, and scheduling policies are examples of administrative controls. 

Borman, W. C. and Motowidlo, S. J. (1993). Expanding the criterion domain to include elements of contextual performance. In N. Schmidt and W. C. Borman (eds) Personnel Selection in Organizations. San Francisco, CA Jossey Bass. 

Cook, M. (1998). Personnel Selection Adding Value Through People (3rd edn). Chichester, UK John Wiley and Sons. 

Cooper, D. and Robertson, I. T. (1995). The Psychology of Personnel Selection. London Routledge. 

Robertson, I. T. and Smith, M. (2001). Personnel selection. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 74 441-72. 

When search and evaluation are completed, the innovative project under consideration is either dropped or promoted to project status. This requires a project manager. The most critical personnel selection problem in a new business life is probably the selection of the first project manager. He is the... 

Osburn, H. G. (1987), Personnel Selection, in Handbook of Human Factors, G. Salvendy Ed., John Wiley Sons, New York, pp. 911-933. 

Scroggins, W. A., Thomas, S. L., Morris, J. A. (2(K)9). Psychological testing in personnel selection, part HI The resurgence of personality testing. Public Personnel Management, 35(1), 67-77. 

Borman, W. C., Motowildo, S. J. (1997). Task performance and contextual performance The meaning for personnel selection research. Human Performance, 70(2), 99-109. 

Personnel selection and job fitness Cognitive task analysis yields a specification of information-processing resources (e.g., speed, accuracy) required for task performance. This specification can be used in combination with measurements of the available resources an individual possesses. Assessing performance resource sufficiency provides a basis for selecting personnel and determining if injured, rehabilitated personnel are sufficiently recovered to safely return to work. 

Cataldo, M., Carley, K., and Argote, L. (2001) The Effect of Personnel Selection Schemes on Knowledge Transfer. (URL http //www.casos.cs.cmu.edu/publications/papers/ marcelo paper.pdf). 

Systems analysis was also an integral part of the U.S. nuclear navy. The stringent standards imposed by Admiral Rickover to do with both nuclear safety and personnel selection have been a critical factor in the navy s continuing record of zero reactor accidents. 

Personnel selection, professional training, and access to work ... 

Hazard/risk assessments Work methods Personnel selection Supervision Personnel motivation Training... 

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