The Value of Employee Assessment (Part 3 of 5)

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Last week’s post made the point that including assessments in the selection process adds value. How much value depends on several actions you can take, and I’ll outline a few of these best practices in this week’s post.

1. Success profile. Build an accurate profile of the job by specifying the KSAs and personal attributes most important to success. Understand the goals of the organization and how they impact the jobs being staffed. For example, what skills are critical to the organization today, and how will that change over the next few years?

2. Selection tools. Based on the success profile, choose the selection tools that will provide the data needed to make sound hiring decisions. With respect to assessments, decide whether you should obtain good, valid tools from a vendor or develop your own. Aim for more assessments rather than fewer. Cost-benefit studies consistently show that even if a selection tool only marginally increases predictive validity, it will yield a very high ROI.

3. Selection process flow. Organize the tools in a logical way that will be effective, efficient and reduce costs. The graphic below illustrates the "selection funnel" approach to selection.

Assessments are typically very fast and relatively inexpensive. Tools that are fast and low cost are used early in the process to screen out less qualified candidates. The more time consuming and costly tools, such as interviews and assessment centers, are used later in the process.

4. Administration. Ensure that consistent practices are followed during the selection process, particularly with respect to how assessments are administered. Inconsistent administration can lead to lower utility and legal problems. Read and carefully follow the instructions in the manual.

5. Adverse impact. Examine whether or not the assessment adversely impacts protected groups. (Is the minority group selection ratio less than four-fifths of the majority group's selection ratio?) This is more often found in instruments measuring reasoning or cognitive ability. Use the instrument if it's a valid predictor of job performance, and a better, less adverse instrument cannot be found.

6. Follow-up validation. After some time on the job, collect performance-related data (as well as other indices like turnover and employee attitudes) and compare it with scores from the assessment. Use the results to make any necessary adjustments to the selection process.

With next week’s post, I’ll shift gears a bit and focus on the employee development side of things.