ASSESSMENT CENTERS

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ASSESSMENT CENTERS

• The Most Effective Tool to Measure SOFT SKILLS
• Karen Coffee
• California State Personnel Board

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Presentation Outline

• Introduction Succession Planning and Building
  our Future Workforce
• What is an Assessment Center
• When to use an Assessment Center
• Advantages and Disadvantages of an Assessment
  Center
• What Kinds of Competencies can be Measured?

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Presentation Outline

• How are Competencies Measured?
• Cost and other Administrative Considerations
• State Programs and Resources
• Questions?

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Factors Affecting Succession Planning

• Age need to replace an abundance of workers in
  the coming years
• Diversity need to recruit increasingly diverse
  replacement workers
• Competencies replacement workers need the
  skills required for future jobs

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What is a Competency?

• A cluster of knowledge, skills, abilities and
  other work behaviors that share a common theme
• May apply to many types and levels of jobs
  however, how the competency is used on the job
  and how it is assessed is tailored for every job
  or job family

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Competencies Gap Analysis

• Identify competencies needed in the future
• Develop strategies to recruit future employees
  with these competencies
• Measure the competencies possessed by the current
  work force
• Identify the competencies gap
• Develop strategies to bridge this gap

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Can Competencies be Measured?

• Yes!
• It is possible to determine whether an individual
  currently possesses competencies and at what level

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Can Competencies Be Developed?

• Possible to determine the amount and quality of
  competencies at a certain point in time
• Can an individual effect significant competency
  improvement?

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Administrative/Interpersonal Competencies

• Lend themselves to development
• Example communication skills, willingness to
  delegate, risk taking, initiative

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Personal Qualities

• Probably do not lend themselves as well to
  development
• Examples flexibility, willingness to tolerate
  uncertainty, cognitive competencies (problem
  analysis, judgment, planning and organization)

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What is an Assessment Center?

• An Assessment Center is one of THE MOST EFFECTIVE
  TOOLS to measure the competencies of potential
  employees
• An Assessment Center is one of THE MOST EFFECTIVE
  TOOLS to measure the competencies of the current
  workforce, to identify the competencies gap, and
  to provide a foundation for individualized plans
  to bridge this gap

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What is an Assessment Center?

• A variety of testing techniques designed to
  enable participants to DEMONSTRATE, under
  standardized conditions, the competencies that
  are most essential in a given job.

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What is an Assessment Center?

• Not a place!
• Participants are put through a series of
  individual and group exercises, interviews, and
  tests designed to simulate the most essential
  conditions of the job, and to provide an
  opportunity for observation of key competencies.

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What is an Assessment Center?

• Participants behavior is OBSERVED by trained
  raters, evaluated, categorized and scored (if an
  exam)
• Raters pool individual observations to arrive at
  an overall estimate of potential, or score
• Participants are provided with oral and/or
  written feedback regarding their performance and
  potential
• Training and developmental plans can be formulated

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History of Assessment Centers

• First used by the Germans in WWII
• Used by large companies in the 1950s to identify
  management potential
• 1975 Federal IPA grant to adapt AC methods for
  use in the public sector
• Today, widely used in the private, federal, and
  local government sectors

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When to Use an Assessment Center

• Selection, career development, or succession
  planning
• Most common for managerial or supervisory jobs
• Jobs where competencies include focus on soft
  skills
• Promotional process where developmental
  opportunities are maximized
• Where other methods have failed

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AC for Selection

• Objective provide an opportunity for
  participants to demonstrate competencies relevant
  to successful performance on the job.

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AC for Career Development/Succession Planning

• Objective provide an opportunity for
  participants to identify competencies requiring
  further development that are then addressed
  through a carefully prepared career development
  plan

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Advantages of an Assessment Center

• Comprehensive evaluation
• Valid better predictor
• Less adverse impact
• Training effect for raters
• Training effect for candidates
• Multiple uses
• More information for decision-making
• Participants like it!

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Inadequacies of Other Assessment Methods

• Written Tests expedient, appear objective,
  inexpensive, easy to administer, but research
  shows they are not adequate for evaluating soft
  skills
• Interviews questions regarding the predictive
  power of interviews, information about
  competencies cant be observed
• Supervisory Appraisal opportunities for bias

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Disadvantages of an Assessment Center

• Requires expertise to develop
• Developmental time can be lengthy
• Requires high ratio of raters to participants
• Requires multiple rooms for administration

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Disadvantages of an Assessment Center

• Time consuming
• Costs more (time and dollars)
• Involves more people
• Still somewhat removed from the job
• Difficult to administer for large groups
• Hard to reschedule (appeals)

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Standards and Ethical Considerations for
Assessment Center Operations

• www.assessmentcenters.org/pdf/00guidelines.pdf
• Standardized evaluation of behavior
• Multiple inputs
• Multiple trained observers (raters)
• Must include some simulations
• Judgments are pooled

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NOT an Assessment Center

• Panel interviews or a series of sequential
  interviews
• A single assessment technique
• Paper and pencil measures only
• Single rater assessments
• Process without pooling of data

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Competencies That Can Be Measured

• Vitally important
• Simple, not complex traits
• Definable
• Observable
• Stable over time

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Examples of Competencies

• Decisiveness
• Leadership
• Productivity
• Flexibility
• Organizational skill
• Judgment
• Problem analysis
• Planning

• Initiative
• Oral communication
• Written communication
• Managing change
• Valuing diversity

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How many Competencies

• Private Sector as many as 50
• Public Sector usually 5-10

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How are Competencies Measured?

• Written Exercises
• Oral Exercises

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Written Exercises

• Letter Writing
• Report Writing
• Proposal Analysis
• In-Basket

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Oral Exercises

• Oral Presentation
• Leaderless Group Discussion with assigned roles
  (competitive)
• Leaderless Group Discussion without assigned
  roles (cooperative)
• Interview
• Role Play
• Command Problem

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Adapting Assessment Centers to Public Sector
Constraints

• Industrial model 3-6 raters observe 6-12
  candidates over three days
• Public Sector Model 6 raters observe 12
  candidates over one day
• Retains validity but reduces administrative costs

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Cost

• Cost more than other measurement methods
• Take more time to develop and administer
• A superior process
• An Assessment Center costs far less than one bad
  hire

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Compatibility with Other Measurement Tools

• Often used with an application review or a
  written test
• The last part of the process for finalists
• Use only selected exercises
• Administer the in-basket first to determine who
  completes remaining exercises
• Administer over time using different raters

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State Service Program

• Pairs of Departments
• Each department identifies participants and a
  team of raters
• Raters evaluate individuals in other department
• Generic AC to evaluate 1st line supervisory
  competencies
• 3 day model
• Extensive feedback reports solely for
  participants benefit

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Selecting First Line Supervisors in California
State Civil Service

• 1998 Report
• Competencies for 1st Line Supervisors from HR
  Manager
• Job Analysis questionnaire
• Definition and sample measurement instruments
• Validity, cost to develop and administer, ease
  and objectivity of scoring
• Size of developmental group
• Ordering information

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QUESTIONS?