What to Do When Your Assessments Aren't Working

Is your assessment program working?Are you utilizing it in the correct manner?This article will provide you with an assessment program checklist that will help you determine its true effects on your business.Whether you're an executive, a manager or a team leader, the following information will be beneficial to you.

Is your assessment program working?Are you utilizing it in the correct manner?This article will provide you with an assessment program checklist that will help you determine its true effects on your business.Whether you're an executive, a manager or a team leader, the following information will be beneficial to you.

Recent conversations with assessment users and providers have indicated it is probably worthwhile to visit this issue.If your assessment program appears to be having less effect than you anticipated or no effect - or worse, a negative effect, it is time for a thorough checkup!

Here is a list of questions for your assessment program checkup:

Do you actually have a program?

Examine the process your business is using to administer and apply assessments.Are the procedures written, consistent and used as designed?

Are you using the assessment results to affect your decisions?

Too often, close examination of the usage of assessment information exposes a simple fact: Results are simply being ignored, underweighted or "explained away" by the people on the front lines of the decision process.

A simple analysis of a prescreening program, for example, will often reveal there is simply no significant difference in the assessment results of those hired and those not hired after assessment.(It's not being used!) In these cases, the front-line decision makers may well believe they are using the information and will often passionately defend the reasons for not using the assessment information in specific decisions.

Is each assessment being used appropriately?
In the Department of Labor's (DOL) Testing and Assessment: An Employer's Guide To Good Practices, this is a cardinal principle.Use assessments as they were designed to be used and for purposes tested in the validation process.

Are your outcome measures job-related, specific, measurable and repeatable?
The selection of outcome measures is critical to the success of your program.The less subjective your outcome measures, the more likely you will be to properly implement, adjust and maximize your program.

Beware of "fuzzy" measurements such as managers' opinions of effectiveness, self-scoring of variables like happiness and satisfaction and correlations with other variables with low or no established reliability of their own.

Are you using a "whole person" approach?
Referring to the DOL once more, this is a crucial question.Assessment programs are, at the most basic level, simply intended to provide information.Information, from any source, is subject to error.It is important to have information from a variety of reliable sources, and any single assessment's information should be combined with information from other sources to minimize error and increase the probability that a good decision will result.

Complete this checkup now and repeat it at regular intervals.

Designing and implementing an assessment program is a process, not a single action.Constant review, continuing measurement and an open mind are the hallmarks of an assessment program that works!

Assessment programs can be used to match people with the work they do.By measuring the essential factors that mark the difference between success and failure in specific jobs, your organization put the right person into every position, allowing them to utilize their talents without limitations.This leads to greater job satisfaction and improved morale because your organization is staffed with a workforce of people who are highly productive, skilled and committed to doing their very best.

By uncovering clues as to why some employees perform at extraordinary levels and some at only average levels, your business will be able to solve many organizational challenges.Assessment programs give you the power to reduce turnover, effectively promote the best employees, increase productivity, identify essential skill sets, improve communication, eliminate stress, create successful managers and develop new leaders.

About the Author

Jim Sirbasku is co-founder and CEO of Profiles International, a leading provider of human resource management solutions and employment assessments for businesses worldwide.

Learn more about how assessments can help your organization - visit our website.

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