SIOP Executive Board Approves New Strategic Plan

The SIOP Executive Board is pleased to announce the adoption of a new Strategic Plan to guide SIOP through the coming 3 years. The new plan was approved at the recent SIOP Executive Board meeting and will be rolled out over the coming weeks and months as the 3-year term of the plan begins in January.

In this plan, SIOP sets its sights on creating more internal diversity and external relevance for the organization and the profession, and supports that vision with specific goals and objectives.

Past strategic planning initiatives for the Society have resulted in major achievements, including the Principles revision, updated Guidelines for Education and Training, development of the SIOP advocacy function, and much more. But with SIOP’s last strategic plan revision back in March 2015, it was time for a refresh. This new plan has been nearly a year in the making and was created through information and perspectives gathered from member interviews and a series of strategy sessions with the Executive Board, facilitated by Stephanie Kusibab and Emily Hendershot, consultants from Essentiam.

The strategic planning team considered the current state of the I-O profession, the needs of the SIOP membership community, and areas of emphasis and investment to move the organization forward. Despite Covid-19 delaying the plan development and launch timeline, excitement remained high as SIOP leadership envisioned what could be next for the Society, even amid the uncertainty of the pandemic and economic unknowns.

"We are excited to share this new strategic focus with the membership and are grateful for the many members, volunteer leaders, and staff whose insights and ideas came together in the collaborative plan development process. This plan will guide our energies and efforts as a Society to become a more inclusive organization focused on using I-O science and practice to improve the world around us and on inspiring the next generation of I-O professionals," said SIOP President Georgia Chao.

The core elements of SIOP’s new Strategic Plan are the vision, mission, values statement, goals, and objectives. The Society has adopted this new vision:

Science and practice transforming work that builds effective organizations and promotes worker well-being.

While retaining its current mission statement:

Our mission is to enhance human well-being and performance in organizational and work settings by promoting the science, practice, and teaching of industrial-organizational psychology.

In pursuit of this vision and mission, SIOP has selected four new strategic goals, focused on:

1. collaboratively confronting real-world problems
2. building a diverse, inclusive, and agile organization
3. strengthening our ability to gather, energize, and convene
4. guiding education and lifelong learning for the future of I-O

Each strategic goal includes 4–5 objectives describing how the goal will be realized. Action steps to implement the objectives are currently being developed by SIOP volunteer leadership and staff to ensure the plan is actionable, measurable, and achievable. More will be shared as the action steps are finalized and elements of this ambitious plan begin to activate.

The full wording of the strategic goals and the objectives under each goal, along with the Society’s new values statement and all plan materials, are available at https://www.siop.org/About-SIOP/Mission.