1. SCREENING OR JOB FIT: “Assessment tests, when used as part of the hiring process, provide employers with an effective way of deciding which candidates are the most qualified for a specific job. Though it may seem that selecting talent would be easy in the present climate, hiring managers have their work cut out for them with many more résumés to weed through.”
2. GET A BETTER READ ON JOB APPLICANTS: “Assessment tools provide managers a more in-depth read on the individual seeking employment, leading to more accurate and long-lasting hiring decisions. Assessments go beyond the typical means of analysis to highlight candidate qualities that might not be evident during a more basic interview process.”
3. REDUCE TURNOVER & SAVE MONEY: “… losing an employee is costly. ….replacing valued performers can reach more than two times an employee’s salary for high-level or specialized positions. Even replacing entry- to mid-level employees can be expensive, once training and recruitment costs are taken into account.
4. IMPROVE FAIRNESS OF YOUR HIRING PROCESS: “… assessment testing provides the ability to improve fair hiring practices by standardizing the hiring process. Assessments, when properly created and validated, should treat all applicants in the same, non-subjective manner and should not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, religion, disability or age.”
5. CORPORATE CAREER & SUCCESSION PLANNING: “Assessments can be used for employee development to determine a person’s best role. …workers’ roles and responsibilities change over time …Testing … allows organizations to move workers into roles that make the most of their unique qualifications.

Ms.Shadday goes on to cover other subjects in her article that are also very well presented. For the full text of the article, please refer to Assessments 101: An Introduction to Candidate Testing at www.workforce.com.
Posted by: KJ Danderfer February 1, 2010

Lynne emphasized the importance of not hiring those people who are the poorer performers.

The Adler article notes that:

“Assuming the duds and the stars represent 10% of your total hires, it’s what you do with the other 90% that really matters.

To get a sense of the enormous financial impact of shifting people from the bottom half into the top half, first categorize the 90% into three big buckets — the Best, the Not Quite Best, and the Least-best. Based on these definitions they should be of equal size:

1. The best, or upper-third. These people represent the foundation of your company or organization. They work hard, frequently exceed expectations, do more than asked, achieve high-quality consistent results, can always be counted upon, need little direction, never make excuses, work extremely well with everyone, and can take over projects even when they have less expertise than normal. ……
2. The not quite best, or the middle-third. These are the partially competent. Generally they’re strong technically, but missing a key ingredient or two. On the other hand, they get the job done with limited direction, can be counted on in a crisis, work reasonably well with others, and get promoted when there’s no one else around, but they’re generally not the first choice. Sometimes they get hired because they seem safe.
3. The least-best, or the bottom-third. These are the people who just don’t fit somehow. Sometimes they’re good people in the wrong jobs. They need extra coaching and supervision to achieve average results. Often they cause unnecessary conflict. They are often hired because they interview well, are enthusiastic and affable, and have the requisite experience. If this group represents more than a third of your workforce, you have a real problem.

What’s surprising about the middle and bottom groups is that when they were hired they all seemed fully qualified. They all had the right experience, the right academics, and the right skills. Many of them even had the right behaviors and competencies specified on the job description. However, something happened after they were hired that caused a great many of them to underperform. This is typically due to lack of interest in the work, weak relations with the hiring manager, lack of team skills, poor cultural fit, and inconsistent work habits.

The cost of hiring these least-best people is enormous.”
Adler goes on at some length to try and quantify the cost based on examining average profit per new employee. But the real lesson in my mind for most of us should be the point made by Lynne Wallace. Lynne’s article simply concludes that we should make a real effort to make sure we Never Again hire “The least-best”.

The Lou Adler article concludes the best way not to hire the Least-best is to focus more attention on hiring “The best”. Although that is laudable and it certainly won’t hire to focus more effort on seeking people who will perform in the “upper-third” the article fails to emphasize the saving realized from not hiring “The least-best”.

By Peter Straszynski

This article should be of interest to anyone who has to draw employment agreements. It has some very good suggestions on how to deal with some situations that can become very difficult and expensive for employers.
Managing disability in the workplace remains one of the most challenging areas of employment law for managers, HR professionals and lawyers alike. A common — and difficult — question is how long can an employee be off work due to illness or injury before an employer can safely terminate the employment relationship without liability?
Absence from work due to legitimate illness or injury is non-blameworthy conduct and will never constitute just cause for dismissal. There are circumstances, however, where an absence due to disability can frustrate the employment contract.
What is ‘frustration?’
A contract is frustrated when it becomes impossible to perform through no fault of either party. A frustrated contract terminates without liability. Whether or not an employee’s absence and incapacity will result in frustration of an employment contract depends on a careful assessment of the relationship between the severity and scope of the incapacity and the terms of the employment contract.
To determine whether a contract of employment has become frustrated due to disability, Canadian courts consider several factors that originated with the English Court of Appeal decision of Marshall v. Harland & Wolff in 1972 and were affirmed by the British Columbia Supreme Court in Yeager v. R.J. Hastings Agencies Ltd in 1984.
The terms of the contract, including any provision for sick pay: An employment contract will not be frustrated during a period of time for which the contract provides “sick pay” or “weekly indemnity.” Sick pay should not be confused with disability benefits (under an insurance plan) for this purpose. If contractual disability benefits do not commence for a fixed waiting period — typically three to six months — it is not likely the employment contract has been frustrated during the waiting period, as this would unfairly deprive the employee of access to the benefit.
While some Canadian judges have opined an employment contract cannot become frustrated during any period where an employee is entitled to receive disability benefits, the better view, expressed by the British Columbia Supreme Court in 2005 in Wightman Estate v. 2774046 Canada Inc., is the mere presence of disability benefits does not preclude a finding of frustration.
The length of the contract: If a contract is of a short or fixed duration, it is more easily frustrated by a serious illness or injury than a contract of indefinite duration.
The nature of the employment: If an employee holds a key position in an organization, prolonged absence due to disability could more likely result in frustration than in the case of a lower level employee performing functions similar to other employees whose roles may be seen as interchangeable.
The nature and duration of the illness or injury: The greater the degree of incapacity and the longer a period of time over which it has persisted or is expected to persist, the more likely an employment contract has been frustrated. An obviously permanent disability resulting in the inability of an employee to return to work will frustrate a contract. A temporary illness or injury will rarely do so.
If the severity of a disability and prognosis for recovery are less than certain, an employer must act on medical evidence available at the time it asserts frustration of the contract. The evidence must demonstrate an employee is either unable to return to work in the foreseeable future or can only return in a capacity that is radically different than the one originally agreed to.
The period of past employment: An employment relationship of short duration is more easily frustrated than one of long duration.
Tips for employers
It is risky to take the position an employment relationship has been frustrated in the absence of timely medical evidence meeting the legal test. Aside from exposure to liability for payments in lieu of notice, an employer may be exposed to human rights liability for failure to accommodate a disability to the point of undue hardship. However, an allegation of failure to accommodate can be successfully defended if an employer can show accommodation is impossible due to frustration.
Frustration of an employment contract does not necessarily result in forfeiture of statutory termination entitlements. Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, for example, specifically excludes frustration due to “an illness or injury” from the types of frustration that would otherwise disentitle employees to termination and severance pay under that act.
Older forms of employment contracts — particularly for more senior positions — contained clauses deeming employment to be terminated after a fixed length of absence due to illness. These clauses have more recently been struck down as a violation of human rights legislation.
Employers sometimes make the mistake of confusing a denial or termination of long-term disability benefits with evidence of fitness for return to work, demanding an employee’s return and asserting abandonment when she fails to do so. The fact an employee’s illness or injury does not qualify for benefits does not mean she is necessarily fit to return.
Employers should make an educated assessment of the nature and extent of an employee’s disability, exercising the right to request adequate medical information supporting her continued absence. In this regard, employers should maintain direct contact with employees on leave and require updated medical information be provided on a reasonable, periodic basis.
For more information see:
• Yeager v. R.J. Hastings Agencies Ltd., 1984 CarswellBC 768 (B.C. S.C.).
• Marshall v. Harland & Wolff Ltd., [1972] 2 All E.R. 715 (N.I.R.C.).
• Wightman Estate v. 2774046 Canada Inc., 2005 CarswellBC 2480 (B.C. S.C.).
Peter Straszynski practises labour relations and employment law at Torkin Manes in Toronto, representing both private and public sector employers. He can be reached at (416) 777-5447 or pstraszynski@torkinmanes.com.

The best way to get e-mails skipped over: Bury the important info. Key points should go where recipients are most likely to see them — the subject line.

The subject line should include specifics, and if applicable, an action step. People will be more likely to open an e-mail if they know there’s something they need to do. And if they don’t, they’ll at least see the most important point without opening it.

Some pointers for the body of the message:

1. Put the key stuff first — Once the e-mail’s opened, no one will keep reading if the beginning is full of fluff.
2. Use lists – When you have a lot of ideas to get across, it might be easier for the audience if they’re broken down into bullet points.
3. Be careful with the “urgent” flag — If that label is used too often, it quickly loses its effect. Recipients will remember.
4. Proofread — This is an important step that’s easy to forget. A good way to remind yourself: Don’t fill in the “To” field until the e-mail’s done. That way you won’t accidentally click send until you’ve finished and read over the message.

These tips were published January 5, 2010 by Sam Narisi in HR Morning and
posted in: Communication, HR Tech, In this week’s e-newsletter – Tech

With great care we create a Prevue benchmark that factors in all of the abilities, personality traits et al that we saw in Bob to identify the job related characteristics of a top performer. But when we start hiring people against our benchmark, we, not surprisingly, discover that everyone is a little bit different and it is difficult to find applicants who are a perfect match (90% to 95% job fit) to the benchmark.  Although we improve upon our hiring decisions, we haven’t hired a lot of Bobs.

So – how do we take our Prevue based hiring process to the next step?

Take a moment and reflect upon your workforce. What if you took a look at your existing employee base and divided them into three distinct groups:

Now – ask one question in relation to this grouping:  What is your objective in the hiring process?

I expect that, like the vast majority of employers, your answer will be – to hire somebody in the top third = your top performers.  Like – a no brainer – right.

Well – No – I would argue that you should give equal time to insuring that you never again hire somebody in the bottom third. Think about it – I expect that you, like most managers, are quite prepared to coach and develop the people in the middle group, but in all likelihood spend much of your time with the bottom third – with little return. So maybe we need to revise our objective to never again hire someone in the bottom third. As recruiters, we make decisions to hire candidates who are not an ideal fit in order to meet our objectives of filling vacant positions with the best candidates we can find. It would be unrealistic to always wait until we found the perfect fit. What we need to be careful of is that we don’t make an accommodation that crosses over the line on one of the behavioural attributes and, in fact, gives us someone who we know will not work out based upon our previous experience. So what does that mean to the hiring process and Prevue benchmark development?

Start by identifying the key issues that you’ve had with the bottom third – create a profile(s) of problem employees who historically haven’t succeeded in this job. In all likelihood you will identify several common themes of behaviour. Now, armed with this insight, you can add new dimensions to your decision making around applicant suitability and:

1. make more effective use of the critical hiring range (red zones) on your benchmark to place more emphasis on the importance of those results when you get to the interview; and

2. better understand the significance of applicant results that fall off the benchmark.

You will now be armed with information on those variances from the benchmark that you can’t live with.  So – when you have less than an ideal fit (90 to 95%) to the desired benchmark, you now have much greater insight into what you can or cannot succeed with should you make the hire decision.

Try this out the next time you are creating or reviewing a benchmark for a job and you will have taken the first step to improving your hiring process and never again hiring someone in the bottom third. Oh – by the way, as time goes by and your workforce average performance goes up, you will still be able to segment the employees this way with each review of the benchmark – to give you the opportunity to continually improve the workforce as the requirements of the position evolve.

Moral to this story – don’t take the first benchmark you develop for a position as the ultimate end game – keep raising the bar as your hiring results improve – in all likelihood the position will be redefined with changing expectations for performance as the position evolves and you increase the ratio of effective performers. You will always be able to divide your employees into three groups and raise the bar by defining a benchmark that identifies both of the profile of your most effective performer as well as the characteristics you don’t ever want to hire again.

Written by contributing author, Lynne Wallace

Lynne Wallace is the managing director of The Assessment Coach, an authorized Prevue Distributor with offices in Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada.

Is There a Future for Work/Like Balance?

Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, created a stir at the SHRM conference in New Orleans this year by stating: “There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.”

Organizations worry about being perceived as offering a good balance between work and personal time.

Many career sites and recruiters stress the ways the organization addresses this through flexible work policies, family-friendly HR polices, child care, and so on. And, for many job seekers, finding a company that offers this magic blend is the Holy Grail.

While Jack was addressing women specifically and speaking about their opportunities for promotion and growth within traditional corporate America, he was reinforcing this assumption. He was heavily criticized for talking to women in this way, even though it is an accurate reflection of the thinking in most of traditional corporate America.

My problem is not with Jack as much as it is with the assumptions that work/life balance is based on.

We assume that work and family should be separated and that there should somehow be an equal division between the two, which is implied in the word “balance.”

The concept of work and life being somehow distinct from each other is a recent construct. There was no work/life balance in the 17th, 18th, 19th, or for most of the 20th centuries. Work and life were integrated and no one would have even thought to separate out what portion of farm life, for example, was “life” and what portion was “work.” Wives and husbands and children worked together as family units, producing food, clothing, or operating a small family business. Roles were assumed and cast off as needed and whoever had the ability or skill needed at a particular time did what was needed to be done.

In most of the world this is still the case. It is only in developed nations that these artificial distinctions arose to meet the needs of factories where everyone had to be in a physical place for certain time frames in order for things to be made. It took England and the United States decades to get people accustomed to going to work at a particular time and staying for a fixed amount of time. The way we work today has never been an organic or natural way, and our fixation recently on work/life balance is only the latest manifestation of an old issue.

Where I think Jack was misguided was in not recognizing how rapidly the traditional corporate world is crumbling. Organizations like Facebook, Mozilla, and hundreds of other emerging firms are organizing in radically different ways. They are focusing on interdependence, on building networks and fostering relations between workers, vendors, and customers. Innovative firms realize that flat structures and open communication improve creativity.

So the good news is that many organizations are moving back into the world where work and life are integrated and where entire families may be part of the “team.” Technology makes this possible, and as high definition video, faster connections, and touch capabilities improve it will be easier and easier. At the most exciting startups, people are already seamlessly integrated into projects where roles frequently change as needs change and leadership rotates as project requirements evolve. Workers are able to be at home with their kids or spouse. They can be outdoors or indoors. And very often they can be physically far removed from the “office” whatever that is coming to mean. The emerging concept is that being in a certain place for a specific time is less important than achieving results and accomplishing goals.

While Baby Boomer managers are locked into the concept of physical space and time as keys to assessing contribution, younger workers have a different view. They realize that for personal as well as environmental and energy reasons, working from home is going to become the norm.

I am not downplaying how difficult it is to change the Baby Boomer attitude, but I am optimistic that as younger managers appear, as environmental pressures increase, and as younger organizations begin to generate significant revenue and employ more people, attitudes about work will change rapidly.

There will always remain work that requires physical presence — whether it is making something, caring for an ill person, or fixing your drainpipe. But less and less work requires a physical presence, and what remains may be done with greater flexibility and personalization than it is today. Our entire world rotates around an 80+ year-old concept that work is something done away from home, for a set amount of time, and should not be fun. Work is assumed to be only the means to have another life and as little of it as possible is good. The flip side to that is an assumption that work is what makes life meaningful and to do it with your partner, friends, or family is good. How many hours it takes to do it or where it gets done are far less important than the engagement and accomplishment.

Jack Welch was absolutely right if we are thinking about 20th century corporate life. However, Gen Y and those who follow are forging new territory and reinventing work — making it the engaging experience it should be where friends and families interact together all the time, teach each other, share workloads, and find emotional connections that have been purged from corporate life as we have known it.

This recent decision of the US Supreme Court takes a new view of the prohibition of disparate impact legislated under Title VII of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964  and the EEOC’s  four-fifths or 80% rule  that provides a measure of disparate impact. The decision deserves attention because the sensitivity of the subject matter addressed in the case will make some serious waves in both the USA and other jurisdictions. Although most jurisdictions outside the US have not codified disparate impact to the extent of the US legislation, the four-fifths rule has become a standard measure of disparate or adverse impact that is often cited in human rights decisions in most common law jurisdictions.

The basic facts of the case are as follows:

• The New Haven Fire Department in Connecticut developed and then administered written and oral examinations to 118 applicants for promotion to either Lieutenant or Captain. Details of the content of the exams are limited but they appear to have been mostly of a cognitive nature. The pass rate for black and Hispanic candidates was approximately half that of the white candidates. The top scorers for both positions did not include any blacks and only two Hispanics. As a result no black candidates and at most two Hispanics were eligible for promotion.
• The City officials fearing they would be sued by the black or Hispanic test takers threw out the test results and promoted no one, citing a desire to avoid violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
• Ricci and sixteen other white test takers, plus one Hispanic test taker (all of whom had passed the examinations) sued the City and Mayor John DeStefano claiming that by discarding the test results, the City and the named officials had discriminated against the plaintiffs based on race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Two lower courts threw out the claim advanced by the plaintiffs, including a three judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeal that included Judge Sonia Sotomayor (currently a somewhat controversial nominee to the US Supreme Court).

The Supreme Court, by a five to four vote that broke along conservative and liberal lines, reversed the lower court decisions, effectively requiring the City to be bound by the exam results. Although it was clear that the examination results had a “disparate impact” on both the blacks and the Hispanics there was nothing before the court to show the tests themselves were flawed for not being job related and consistent with business necessity or that there was an equally valid but less-discriminatory alternative available to the City. The Court found that the City, looking at the racial makeup of the exam results, could not decide to throw out the results simply because it feared a discrimination lawsuit from the groups who did not pass the exams. The Court said that the City has to have “a strong basis in evidence” to believe the exams were discriminatory under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. As the evidence did not support a decision that the tests were inherently flawed the City’s action in discarding the examination results was a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights against the plaintiffs.

So what does this mean for the world of testing/assessment?

• Well there is the obvious conclusion that statistics generated from the use of a test or other selection procedure are not by themselves enough to show disparate impact, even though they may violate the EEOC 80% rule. If you’ve used a test or other hiring process that is job related, you can’t ignore the results to the prejudice of any group who took the test. But that conclusion is not really new because at least in theory there has always been an exception to the 80% rule where the employer can show the selection process in question is job related and any resulting disparate impact cannot be reduced by some other equivalent process.
• More importantly the case makes it clear the stated exception to the EEOC 80% rule is in fact a real exception, as long as the test is not inherently flawed. So if you use properly validated tests like the Prevue Assessments that have been shown in detailed studies not to adversely impact protected minorities, you do have a defensible position, regardless of the statistics that may be generated from the use of the test.
• Probably the most significant impact of the case is that it will likely be repeatedly cited as confirmation that under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the EEOC 80% rule, one cannot discriminate against the majority in pursuit of protecting minorities. The case will generate a lot of discussion in both the HR and legal worlds. It should eventually produce a better, more workable definition of disparate impact.

A copy of this article and the explanatory documents referred to in the footnotes will be posted on the Prevue blog at http://www.prevueassessments.com/blog/. We would like to hear your thoughts and opinions about this decision and this article.

Written by Ken Danderfer
July 23, 2009

References:
1 A very Short History of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
2 EEO: Disparate Impact from hr-guide.com
3 Averse Impact Analysis/ Fourth-Fiths Rule

“The most credible assessment protocols meet the following criteria:

• reliability – selection procedures and decisions are applied consistently with consistent results;
• validity – selection decisions are justified based on a demonstrated relationship between selection procedures and job performance, and ensures legal compliance of the system;
• relevance to business needs – the selection system needs to reflect the behaviours that differentiate the organization’s business from the competitor’s business
• data-based – evaluation of candidates is based on objective data from validated selection procedures and is thoroughly documented; and
• practicality – processes are time and cost-efficient, and straightforward to implement.

Response:  The Prevue Assessments were developed specifically for business applications under the direction of a leading psychometric team from the UK led by Dr. Patricia Lindley and Professor David Bartram.  The Technical Manual for the Prevue Assessment provides extensive support confirming the reliability, validity and fairness of Prevue Assessments. Copies of the Technical Manual are available from your authorized Prevue distributor.

The cornerstone of Prevue reports is the validated benchmark development process that uses objective employment data to identify the behavioral requirements for any position within the unique culture or environment of each business.

Prevue Assessments can be administered to job applicants simply and efficiently through our state of the art Prevue web platform.

• “One of the most accurate ways to predict how a candidate will perform on the job is to combine an assessment of personality traits and cognitive ability with the job sample type of the assessment.”

Response:  Prevue Assessments provide an assessment not only of the personality traits and cognitive ability of job applicants, they also examine each applicant’s interests/motivation. Applicants are compared to a Prevue job benchmark that is developed for each position. The benchmark identifies the abilities, personality traits and interests/motivation evident in top performers in any given position.

• “Job sample tests are often customized to the organization in the specific job.  While previously these have been ‘low-tech’… more recent iterations have taken advantage of technology…

Response:  Prevue Assessments are supported by a unique computerized benchmarking process that identifies and distinguishes the characteristics that are evident in top performers in any particular job in any particular work environment.  This fast and efficient benchmark design process will be demonstrated by your authorized Prevue Distributor on request.

• “The advantage of a technology-based job sample test is that the organization can build in scenarios related to the job, the values of the organization and the culture the organization has or is trying to develop.”

Response:  The Prevue benchmarking technology includes a process that uses a management survey to identify a success profile for any particular job in the company, and that process factors in cultural or business changes that a company wants to implement. Your authorized Prevue distributor will be happy to demonstrate this process to your company on request.

• “The best selection processes are the ones that can link each step of the recruitment process to a well-defined profile.  And don’t let the advent of technology override the old-fashioned approach of talking to the candidate.  Getting to know them can be a useful way to validate the results from the assessment.”

Response:  This point very properly notes that assessments are a valuable addition to the selection process, particularly where other sources of information are limited or of questionable accuracy.  But assessments are an addition that enhances the selection process, not an alternative to established selection procedures.   All Prevue Assessment reports caution that the information derived from the Prevue Assessments should be given a weight of no more than one-third of the selection process. Your authorized Prevue distributor will show you how easy it is to administer Prevue Assessments through the Prevue web platform and how you can use Prevue Assessments in your screening and selection process.

• “Research shows that adding some form of assessment into the selection process improves the predictability of on-the-job performance.  In fact, authors Hough, Oswald and Ployhart, in a 2002 article in the International Journal of Selection and Assessment, reported that adding personality, cognitive and job sample assessments increases predictability of success by 36 percent.  This improvement in selection benefits the organization by increasing confidence in data for selection purposes, reducing recruitment costs and increasing productivity by getting the right employee in the right place quicker.”

Response:  What more can we say?  If you want to be sure you are using a reliable, valid, relevant, practical and data-based assessment, then you should contact your authorized Prevue Distributor for a free demonstration.

If you would like copies of any of the information sources referred to in this article, just email your request to support@prevueassessments.com . If you are interested in reading more about the standards that credible assessment products should meet, we recommend you review chapters 3, 5 and 8 of the US Department of Labor’s “Testing and Assessment: An Employers Guide to Good Practices”.

Reference material:

1. “Assessments can reduce failed hires…”, Mary Marcus, Canadian HR Reporter, February 28, 2005.

2. US Dept of Labor “Testing and Assessment: An Employers Guide to Good Practices”.

3. “Determinants … in Personnel Selection Procedures….”, Hough, Oswald and Ployhart, International Journal of Selection and Assessment, Volume 9, 2002.

Written by:

Ken Danderfer

July 3, 2009

Best Organizations first develop an assessment strategy or action plan to ensure their use of assessments is effective. The following issues or subjects should be considered in the development of an assessment strategy:

1. Identify the organization’s weaknesses or pain points in talent acquisition and talent management procedures and then consider where and how assessments can address those pain points.

2. Define metrics to monitor the assessment strategy. Two/thirds of Best Organizations take the time to develop measures to monitor and manage their assessment strategy while only one/third of average or underperforming organizations do so. Developing solid metrics enables an organization to determine the effectiveness of its assessment action plan by comparing actual results to a baseline of key performance indicators.

3. Standardize procedures to assess job applicants and employees. This not only enables organizations to make objective hiring decisions, it also allows for more legally defensible hires that reduce the risk of litigation.

4. Benchmark top performers to identify and define what makes a top performer successful. Best Organizations are two to three times more likely to implement this procedure than their competitors because it provides a benchmark that identifies the required skills and behaviours for both job applicants and incumbents. The implementation of this procedure encourages improvement of both recruiting and development programs. At the same time it assists in gaining buy-in from supervisors, hiring managers and even IT personnel on the use of assessments by involving them in the process.

5. Identify employee prospects for promotion to key positions in the organization. Best Organizations are twice as likely to use assessments for succession planning as average or underperforming organizations. “Making educated promotion decisions not only reduces recruiting costs, it also improves morale and job satisfaction because it sends a message of fairness and equity”.

6. Use assessments not just for pre-hire screening and selection decisions but also for post-hire development and training. Best Organizations develop a candidate assessment database to share with supervisors and managers on an on-going basis. The database allows the organization to maximize the benefit of their assessment programs by providing management continuous access to valuable employee job fit information that supports on-going coaching and development programs.

The Prevue Life Cycle graphic set out below exhibits the benefits of using assessments throughout an employee’s entire career with the organization.

Best Organizations go on to support the implementation of their assessment strategy by:

• Developing a standardized assessment process throughout the organization.
• Gaining buy-in from all levels of the organization including leaders and executives, supervisors and hiring managers to ensure the results and data are used effectively in making both pre-hire and post-hire decisions.
• Establishing a baseline or benchmark of skills, knowledge, abilities and behaviours required for job competency. Assessments are used to identify the gap between the candidate’s profile and the benchmark of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours preferred for the position.
• Developing profiles (benchmarks) of top performers in each position. Defining the profile of top talent gives an organization a target against which to assess its employees. The benchmarks can also be used to design development programs for individual employees.
• Your authorized Prevue Distributor can help you to design and implement an assessment program for your organization to make your company a Best in Class organization with a Best in Class system.

If you would like a copy of the Aberdeen study, “Assessment in Talent Management”, please contact support@prevueassessments.com.

This is the second part of a two part series of articles prompted by the publication of the Aberdeen Group study. A copy of the study can be obtained by email request to support@prevueassessments.com.

Written by Ken Danderfer, Chief Operating Officer, June 11, 2009

Prevue Assessments Inc.
100-10551 Shellbridge Way
Richmond, B.C V6X 2W9

e: danderfer@prevueassessments.com

p: 888.277.3883 ext 24

Typically, adverse impact is determined by using the four-fifths or eighty percent rule.  The four-fifths or 80% rule is described by the guidelines as “a selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than four-fifths (or 80%) of the rate for the group with the highest rate will generally be regarded by the Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact, while a greater than four-fifths rate will generally not be regarded by Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact.”  Since the 80% test does not involve probability distributions to determine whether the disparity is a “beyond chance” occurrence, it is usually not regarded as a definitive test for adverse impact.  Instead, other statistically significance tests, such as the standard deviation analysis, may be used for this purpose.

Example of the four-fifths (or 80%) rule

In the following illustration, there are 135 applicants: 72 non-minority compared to 63 minority and 84 male compared to 51 female.  Seven of the 72 non-minority applicants were hired, which is a 9.7% hire rate compared to the hire rate for minorities of 4.8%.  The 80% rule states that the selection rate of the protected group should be at least 80% of the selection rate of the non-protected group.  In this example, 4.8% of 9.7% is 49.5%.  Since 49.5% is less than four-fifths (80%), this group has adverse impact against minority applicants.  In the second illustration for males versus female hires, the male hire rate is 91% of the female hire rate.  Since it is greater than 80%, there is no evidence of adverse impact.

If your employment process reveals evidence of adverse impact, it is important that you are able to justify your personnel processes and decisions.  The presence of adverse impact does not require the elimination of the procedure (e.g. selection, promotion), but rather its justification as being job-related or a business necessity.  Business necessity means that using the procedure is essential to the safe and efficient operation of the business — and there are no alternative procedures that are substantially equally valid and would have less adverse impact.

According to the Guidelines “Each user should maintain and have available for inspection records or other information which will disclose the impact which its tests and other selection procedures have upon employment opportunities of persons by identifiable race, sex, or ethnic groups…in order to determine compliance.”

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