A happy employee is a productive employee, right? While it sounds logical, scientific studies show that while job satisfaction is important for employee well-being and other outcomes, it is only weakly related to performance. This may come as a surprise, but it illustrates why scie ntific research is so valuable in HR decision-making. In this article, we’ll outline four straightforward steps to help you find and use scientific research in HR decisions, along with some useful, free resources to help you along the way. Obviously, science isn’t just lab rats and cool laser experiments. It’s a way of thinking that aims to collect information in a systematic way, so that we can explain and predict things that happen around us. Looking at science is relevant for your HR job Scientific research in fields like management, organizations, and psychology sheds light on HR topics such as: Recruitment methods that best predict the performance of a new hire Characteristics of training that make it m