Meet SIOP Member Caitlynn Sendra
Name
Caitlynn Sendra
Position/Employer
Sr. Research Scientist at SAP SuccessFactors
How many years have you been a member of SIOP?
10 years
What roles have you had within SIOP?
- Professional Practice Committee – Communications subcommittee lead
- Professional Practice Committee – Practitioner needs survey subcommittee member
Interest Area(s)
- Employee Motivation/Satisfaction/Job Attitudes
- Human Resources
- Organizational Culture/Change/Development/Performance
What sparked your interest in I-O psychology?
I was always interested in psychology but never felt like Clinical was the correct path for me. I attended university for my undergraduate degree at DePaul University in Chicago where, as a part of my orientation as a psychology major, I sat down with one of the faculty members of the psychology department to discuss my interests and options. That faculty member just happened to be Dr. Jane Halpert, one of the professors of the I-O psychology program. Having never heard of I-O psychology before that day, she encouraged me look into the field and see what I thought. I immediately fell in love with the practicality of the field and the idea of making work a more positive experience and I never looked back.
What role do you see I-O psychology playing in the future of work?
Although I may be biased being an I-O psychologist actively working as a researcher on a future of work research team, I feel as though I-Os play an immensely important role. Blogs, articles, podcasts, and LinkedIn posts from people with strong opinions and loud voices are a dime a dozen. However, it is our training and skill set as I-Os that enable us to critically evaluate meaningful trends from “noise” while leaning on our knowledge of fundamental psychological theories and research to predict downstream impacts.
What work trends are you seeing and hearing about and how can I-O psychology practitioners, researchers, educators, and students impact these trends?
Surely, AI is still the hot topic that many people are sick of discussing, but I think the I-O opportunity is quite compelling. Every business is looking to evaluate and redesign work and roles to incorporate a new tool, AI, in this case. While the specific tool might be new, this kind of work is extremely familiar to many of us. I can’t think of another discipline that is as well positioned as I-O psychology is to take on this work, and to take it on in a way that doesn’t simply allocate all possible tasks to AI with humans left to pick up the scraps.
What advice would you give to students or early practitioners?
I think it’s an extremely difficult time to enter a career, I-O or otherwise. There’s a lot of uncertainty and businesses are changing rapidly. I think my advice would be not to have blinders on towards these changes. Like it or not, you will probably come across a hiring manager that asks how you have leveraged AI to help you in your work. Critically consider your position on this in advance so you are prepared to discuss your perspective on responsible uses of AI within the realm of I-O psychology, and how you work to ensure your work outputs always reflect your unique human expertise and judgement.
What is one of your favorite SIOP Annual Conference memories/highlights?
Introducing my graduate school cohort to Chicago deep dish pizza during the 2019 SIOP Annual Conference in Chicago definitely stands out as a highlight.
Please share one non-I-O-related bit of information about yourself.
I started studying Japanese in high school and continued to take it as my double major in college and even now just as a hobby. I’ve always found it to be incredibly fun and interesting. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to use it in my career, but now working for a global organization I have had the incredible experience of traveling to Japan for work and meeting with many Japanese organizations to share my team’s research.
Is there anything you would like to add?
Aside from my job and my volunteer work, I also run the IO Psychology discord. Unaffiliated with SIOP, we have 1,500+ members consisting of practitioners, academics, graduate students, and those just interested in the field. Every year for the last 4 years we have held an annual meetup at the SIOP Annual Conference, and it’s been great to see so many new and familiar faces each year. Anyone interested can join using this link: https://discord.gg/cCjtcVuftt.
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