Assessment
and Measurement: Creating a Road Map to Success
"If we practiced medicine like we practice
management— based on hunch, intuition, and ideology-we
would have much more malpractice and a lot of mortality
and morbidity."
-Dr. Jeffrey C. Pfeffer
Professor, Organization Behavior
Stanford University
Ongoing changes in our business environment are making assessment
and measurement more critical than ever. Among the most pressing
concerns is an impending shortage of labor, including leadership.
As talent becomes increasingly scarce, internal selection
systems must become equally adept at identifying, placing,
and deploying key talent.
The American workforce's shift from a focus on labor to a
service orientation has created new sets of challenges as
well. As companies look to the future, they are discovering
that many old assumptions no longer apply in an evolving environment.
Organizations must create or adapt to a new culture and identify
new skills and competencies required to succeed.
As Dr. Pfeffer implies, leadership needs to be more diagnostic
and scientific in selecting, developing, and retaining talent.
By defining skills and competencies required for given roles
within the organization and linking them to overall business
strategies, a company can reap many benefits.
William Rothwell, professor of education at Penn State, defines
competencies as "the behaviors that describe the difference
between a star and an average performer."
Link these competencies to business strategies, and the result
is your strategic workforce capability. Competencies then
become the standards for work activities, and selection criteria
and development plans can be designed to measure and improve
the skills that will ensure success.
Using assessments to determine a person's level of competence
helps an organization focus on the critical gaps between star
performance and merely adequate performance.
For example, assessment results can help in the creation
of development plans for incumbents.
Training departments can prioritize development investments
to gain the best return.
Hiring personnel can better assess skills during the selection
process, and Human Resources can create performance standards
to help managers coach their direct reports to become star
performers.
These performance standards can also help managers be more
objective when conducting performance reviews.
Properly designed assessment instruments can help a company:
-
Hire success: the right people for the right jobs
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Hire honest, hard-working, reliable, drug-free employees
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Reward and encourage employee performance and improve
retention
-
Provide employees with effective training
-
Help managers set employee goals and implement metrics
to measure success in meeting those goals
-
Help managers become more effective coaches
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Promote people to positions where they will succeed
-
Allow interviewers to obtain more and better information
during interviews in order to make better hiring decisions
-
Reduce employee relations problems, employee turnover,
and workplace stress, tension, and conflict
-
Reduce overall human resource expenses
Strategic
Enhancement Group can help you prepare for the future.
We have the experience and expertise to:
-
Help you define the critical skills employees need today
and in the future to ensure your company's long-term success
-
Develop and implement custom or brand assessment centers
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Develop and conduct 360-degree measurements
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Create and conduct customer and employee surveys
-
Develop interviewing protocols for more effective and
successful hiring
-
Train interviewers to obtain information that will help
you make the right hiring decisions
-
Identify a person's natural abilities and determine their
best application to critical job functions
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