Throughout 2010 we intend to develop Prevue online training modules to help users learn about our products when it’s convenient for them.  We welcome your feed back as the modules are released and in the meantime we would like to share with you what we discovered about the field of e-Learning.

There is a vast body of literature that confirms e-learning has not only seen a phenomenal growth in the past few years, but will continue to transform training and development for today’s profit and non-profit organizations in all sectors.  It isn’t just the promise of impressive technology that is driving people to e-learning.  Rather, organizations have urgent needs to convey rapidly changing information to large numbers of widely dispersed individuals faster, better and more cost effectively than ever before.

What is e-Learning?

E-learning is an innovative approach to distance education in which computer based training (CBT) is transformed by the technologies and methodologies of the World Wide Web, the Internet, and Intranets.  E-Learning presents live content, which can be modified at will, in a structure allowing the self-directed, self-paced instruction in any topic.

What is driving e-Learning?

Learning is a continual process which can take place anywhere and anytime and does not necessarily take place in a scheduled event.  There is a demand for just-in-time training that can be used to train globally distributed workforces.  There is also a growing population of Generation Nexters who are independent, mobile, multi-taskers who engage in self-learning using mediums such as Google and You Tube or other programs of edu-tainment.

Internet is becoming a standard at work and at home.  There is a growing selection of e-learning products and services available to develop media-rich content that can be delivered off better delivery platforms than were previously available.

e-Learning in the Workplace

The article “Building a Case for eLearning” by geo Learning (http://www.e-learningguru.com/wpapers/building_case.pdf ), highlights the key benefits of e-learning:

• The convenience of availability
• Just-in-time training opportunities and accessibility to refresher training
• Cost savings
• Reduced time away from the job
• Centralized knowledge management
• Built in student enrollment and course management through the use of Learning Management Systems (LMS).

Prevue Training Modules:

Training modules will be developed on the following topics:

1. Prevue Online training videos and help materials
2. Psychometric Testing:
   1. Validity
   2. Reliability
   3. Fairness/Discrimination
   4. Personality Tests
3. Understanding Prevue:
   1. Scales
   2. Report Families
   3. Benchmarks
4. Prevue Distributor Training

If you would like to provide feedback on the list above or offer suggestions, please write to info@prevueonline.com.  Please provide your company name, contact details and your authorized Prevue Distributor’s name and email address in your correspondence.

Sharing knowledge is a powerful thing, but making it easily accessible is even more powerful!

So here are seven simple suggestions for better meeting management:

1. Reduce the number of meetings by finding other ways to address business. If it’s simply information-sharing or reviewing project status, for example, consider email.
2. If you’re undecided whether or not you need a meeting, ask yourself: do I need the input of other people. If not, you are probably just looking for an audience. If so, then invite the right people. If participants aren’t key to achieving a goal, they shouldn’t be there.
3. If you allow people to be systematically late or arrive unprepared, you are sending out a message that your meetings are unimportant.
4. Send out an agenda in advance so that participants can be fully prepared. Be sure it is action-oriented. Request that somebody take notes and highlight the decisions and follow up actions.
5. If you hold a meeting to solve a problem, start with a brainstorming session first to stimulate creativity; write ideas somewhere visible in the room.
6. Give participants brief summaries of more complex topics where necessary. DO NOT hand out lengthy documents. If people are flipping through a document, they’re not listening.
7. Close with a plan of action and circulate it at the end of the meeting. Ensure everyone leaves knowing what is expected of them.

I gleaned these seven suggestions from a longer list that appeared in the BDC newsletter of 2/16/2010. You can obtain a copy on request to support@prevueassessments.com.

The results of the December 2009 Prevue Newsletter survey are now in and have been tabulated. There were 70 respondents to the survey who provided over 100 suggestions.

The question given the most consideration by respondents was, “What HR topics are you most interested in hearing about?” The responses were both diverse and interesting. We divided the responses into the following subject matters:

SUBJECT MATTERS	PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL RESPONSES
Recruiting/Selection	21%
Talent management (general)	11%
Legal matters and issues (presumably relating to testing)	10%
Return of investment (approving Prevue works)	9%
Retention	8%
Engagement	7%
Compensation/benefits	7%
Coaching/training	6%
Hot topics (book reviews, etc.)	6%
More about using Prevue – various uses and administration	6%
Leadership development	4%
Teams and team development	4%

The responses to the other questions in the survey were statistically less significant but did provide the following direction:

• The responses were generally favorable towards the form, content and direction of the newsletter.
• There were several requests for more product information webinars addressing subjects such as understanding Prevue scales, interpreting Prevue scores, other applications for Prevue Assessments and more case studies and examples. You will see that our 2010 webinar series will put more emphasis on these types of subjects.

You will no doubt remember that we offered prizes to one out of every 10 respondents to the survey. The winners chosen at random are Leonard Wood (Canadian Natural Resources Limited), Derek Cunningham ( No Sleep), Kieran Killick (Shore Gold Inc.) , Paul Vandenberg ( Elgin St. Thomas Public Health), and Bob Wark (Assante Capital Management).

Finally and on a lighter note, a couple of responses that gave us a smile were:

• To the request for additional feedback - “I adore Mary and will do whatever I can to support her business”
• To the request for webinar suggestions – “Whatever Bob comes up with”.

Thanks to all of you who did participate. We will put your advice to good use.

Otto von Bismarck said that “people never lied so much as after a hunt, during a war or during an election”. If Otto had lived in the 21^st century he would likely have added “on submitting job applications” as a fourth category for circumstance where people lie.

I think we all know applicants are likely to put their “best foot forward” when drafting a resume but lying in job applications is more common and more blatant than you might think. In fact a six month study conducted in 2006 by resumedoctor.com found that 42.7% of 1,000 resumes submitted for positions ranging from entry level to executive positions had one or more significant errors (or maybe we should be truthful and call them misrepresentations).

That study and others like it should have made us cautious about relying on resumes, but of course we always had the option of checking out resumes and references before we relied on them. Now even that option is in doubt with the appearance of a new online resume/reference service that adds quite a new dimension of deceit to the job application process. CareerExcuse.com actually offers job seekers the following services:

• You choose your career history, your start and end date and your salary!
• We provide a real company just for you, a real address for that company, a website for that company and a real 800 phone number!
• We will have our operators standing by!
• We will email you every time someone calls!

According to kens5.com in San Antonio, Texas, the operator of CareerExcuse.com, one Mr. William Schultz, contends that “since a resume is not a legal document, people can lie without legal ramifications”. I would question that conclusion from a legal point of view because a false statement of fact (and particularly one that is fraudulent) made by one party to induce another party to enter into a contract (in this case a contract of employment) can entitle the deceived party to rescind the contract and possibly claim damages. It appears Mr. Schmidt is aware of this legal risk because the site does make one thing very clear to its customers – if you get caught you are on your own.

Of course employers aren’t really interested in pursuing legal actions against their employees for contract termination or damages. Employers simply want to hire good people and get on with their business. So how do you address deceitful resumes and references? We suggest you consider implementing the following strategies:

1. First and most obvious is that if you are going to rely on the information contained in a resume you had better be prepared to take the time to check that it is correct. If you don’t want to call references or check credentials for all applicants (which could be very time consuming), you should at the very least ask the finalists for the position some very specific questions about the aspects of their resume or references that you found compelling.
2. Second, you should not just rely on resumes and references in making hiring decisions. Astute screening questions and the use of job fit assessments like the Prevue Assessments not only provide information that allows you to examine job fit but also provide you with measures to compare the applicants for the position. There is of course an issue as to whether the person responding to online questionnaires and assessments is in fact the applicant but this can be verified in the interview simply by asking the finalists for the position some of the same questions they were asked in the questionnaires or assessment they completed.
3. Third and easiest is to make sure applicants are made legally responsible for the information contained in their resumes and the references they provide. You simply require all applicants to certify the information they submit in the course of applying for a position is true and correct. This is easy to incorporate into written applications and even easier to include in online applications made through online applicant processing systems.

Written by: Kenneth Danderfer

February 12, 2010

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”.

Let’s start with the economy and its impact on employee recruiting activity. Based on reading way too many economic forecasts we concluded that the USA will continue to show signs of recovery with some, but not a lot of recruiting activity beginning in the second half of 2010. The UK and other parts of Western Europe will continue to hope there is a recovery that will start sometime in 2010 and Canada, Australia and South Africa will all see some pretty good but not robust hiring activity.

There will be two major problems for those who are fortunate enough to be hiring in 2010. In most cases there will be too many applicants for new job postings that will require extra time and cost to screen or filter down to find those who are actually qualified for the position – but despite the larger numbers of applicants it will still prove difficult to find top talent. On the other hand there are some fields like health, financial services and IT where the biggest issue will be trying to find applicants, let alone talented applicants.

There are many reasons for the dearth of top talent in almost all occupations – such as changing demographics with the retirement of baby boomers, attitudes of the Generation X and Y groups, the rising cost and declining quality of educational institutions (or facilities) and many more. We can’t individually do anything about those problems in 2010 but we can do things to perform better within the constraints that have been imposed upon us by the recession.

We believe that if you want to hire good people you will have to respond to job applicants more quickly and more effectively. Not only are there large numbers of people now seeking work there are several recent studies that confirm there are equally large numbers of people who will be looking to change jobs as soon as the job market warms up. So there will be lots of people to choose from and some good opportunities to find top talent but if you want the best you will have to move fast to identify and hire them. If you don’t, you will be making your hiring decisions out of the second best applicants and maybe even the third best.

So what can you do to become more effective and efficient in hiring new employees? We believe there are two objectives you should set:

• First is to develop a hiring process that is more effective without costing the moon;
• Second is to use tools and online facilities that reduce staff time, increase speed of response to applicants and help focus your available time on the best applicants to make sure you are hiring top talent.

And how do we propose to help you to meet those objectives? Our answer for 2010 is to encourage you to examine and implement the following;

• Take the time to examine your hiring process. Do you have a good understanding of what you are looking for in your labor force, both short term and long term? What talent do you already have on board who may not currently be in the right seat? Do you really know what you are looking for in your new hires – i.e. do you have good job descriptions for your positions? Are you seeking applicants from the right sources? Are you using your Prevue Online hiring facilities as effectively as you should be? Your authorized Prevue Distributor can help you to find answers to these and other questions that will help you improve your hiring process. Take advantage of their talent.
• If you are not already using online applicant tracking or applicant processing facilities then get on with it – now. These systems are not expensive and the benefits are innumerable. Prevue will be offering a range of these services through 2010 that will provide Prevue customers with larger numbers of qualified applicants for each job opening, identify the best applicants more quickly, simplify the use of Prevue testing, reduce response time to applicants and reduce overall time to hire – all of which will assure that Prevue customers are making better hires.

We would like to hear your thoughts and feedback on what you see in the way of recruitment issues and solutions for 2010. Don’t be shy; we will only publish your response on the blog if you give us permission to do so, unless of course you would like to become a feature article.

Written by Ken Danderfer

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

1.         “While selecting the best people is an important goal in itself, a parallel goal of no less importance is screening out undesirable candidates. The consequences of choosing the wrong people are substantial, as they lead to increased turnover rates, recruitment costs, and training expenses, along with lost productivity and decreases in morale. The high costs associated with replacing poorly performing individuals make it all the more important to identify and select the best performers in the first place.”

2.         “…. there are in fact many widespread selection techniques that provide little more than chance estimates of who will succeed in a given position. Some examples include education level, training and experience ratings, and academic achievement, which are all common selection methods that nonetheless provide minimal predictive utility. Other popular selection methods, such as unstructured interviews, vary considerably in their effectiveness and are far from optimal.”

3.         “Why, then, are ineffective selection techniques so popular, when there is a large body of scientific literature detailing best practices for performance prediction?  … one of the most common reasons for not employing optimal selection methods is that many human resource practitioners and top managers simply do not believe in the real-world effectiveness of empirically validated selection tools. …  Despite the many studies that examine the utility and validity of different selection procedures, the results of this research have not fully permeated the awareness of managers and decision makers.”

4.         “In order to take advantage of the large individual differences in productivity, it is first necessary to identify the top candidates. In this respect, it is clear that hiring the best people requires the use of the best selection procedures. Based on meta-analyses of numerous validation studies … the most effective and efficient method for selecting the top performers involves testing for both cognitive ability and personality (Schmidt & Hunter, 1998).” The paper then examines these two domains in more depth:

Cognitive ability: “… also known as general mental ability, intelligence, or simply IQ, is one of the best predictors of performance across many different domains. Broadly speaking, it reflects an individual’s ability to plan, reason, process information, and control his or her behaviour. Some would argue that it is in fact the best-validated construct in all of psychology, as its ability to predict performance has been repeatedly demonstrated in thousands of studies carried out across 100 years of research (Schmidt & Hunter, 2004).

• Across all job categories, individual differences in cognitive ability account for approximately 25 per cent of the variability in performance.
• The general factor of cognitive ability predicts performance outcomes even better than aptitude tests claiming to assess the specific skills needed for a given job.
• If only one variable could be assessed to predict performance across multiple domains, cognitive ability would certainly be the most useful.
• While there has been some concern that such tests are culturally biased, there are also non-verbal tests of cognitive ability that do not discriminate against respondents from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.”

Personality Factors: “The second most important variable in performance prediction is personality:

• While researchers have long used a variety of trait dimensions to predict real-world outcomes, the field of performance prediction has benefited greatly from the five-factor model of personality. The five-factor framework, or ‘Big Five’ model, is a taxonomy that describes personality differences across five broad dimensions of variation (Goldberg, 1993). The five dimensions are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness. These dimensions demonstrate good cross-cultural reliability, are relatively stable across the lifetime, and incorporate the variance captured by most other personality taxonomies.
• Conscientiousness, which describes individuals who are reliable, hard-working, and self-disciplined, is the best personality predictor of workplace performance and academic success.Conscientious individuals have a strong work ethic, and tend to be more effective at pursuing their goals. An individual who is low in conscientiousness will be more easily distracted, less organised, and less productive.
• Following conscientiousness, the most important personality trait for predicting success across multiple domains is emotional stability. Individuals who score highly on this trait experience less negative emotion and generally handle stress better. In contrast, less emotionally stable individuals will have higher levels of chronic stress and anxiety. This trait is particularly important for predicting performance in highly demanding positions, and is also associated with increased health, job satisfaction, and lower rates of job burnout.
• Certain positions can benefit from the examination of other traits as well. In particular, the outgoing, assertive, and talkative nature of extraverts gives them an advantage in domains that require extensive social interaction. Extraversion therefore appears to be a good predictor of success in sales and management positions.
• Openness, finally, is a good predictor of performance in domains requiring innovation and creativity.

In conclusion, Mr. Hirsh notes that “Across a broad number of domains, there are large individual differences in performance and productivity outcomes. In order to capitalise on these differences, however, it is necessary to use the most effective selection methods. Even small improvements in the predictive validity of selection processes can lead to substantial economic benefits. A large body of research now indicates that measures of cognitive ability and personality are powerful and efficient tools for predicting performance. While some form of selection is inevitable for any competitive position, psychological assessment remains an invaluable tool for identifying the top performers and making an informed decision.”

The Hirsch paper does go on to examine faking and bias response, whether an emphasis on individual attributes and abilities is the best strategy for ensuring organizational fit, and the impact of situational factors on the use of these types of assessments. This article will not address these subjects but future articles for this newsletter will likely do so.

We will be happy to provide you with a complete copy of Mr. Hirsh’s article.  You can requisition a copy from our offices at support@prevueassessments.com.

Written by: Kenneth Danderfer

December 5, 2009