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More and more organizations are implementing post-hire assessment programs for employee development and various personnel decision-making— like identifying high-potentials or confirming readiness of successors for key leadership roles. These types of assessment applications create unique ethical challenges because we’re assessing current employees vs. external job candidates and the assessment results usually have profound effects on employees’ future careers within the company. What are the best practices as you launch post-hire assessments?
Solving complex problems requires time, and it’s unlikely that the first solution that comes to mind is the right one. That’s why thinking through solutions is such an important leadership skill. As a leader, you face many problems on a daily basis, and it can be difficult to devote time and energy to finding the best solution to every problem, even when you have done your research. This skill enables you to consider all your options and ensures that you don’t just settle on the first solution that comes to mind or make a reactive decision out of frustration. Such reactive decision-making often results in ineffective solutions that only address superficial issues and leave the underlying problems unresolved.
There are many things in life that baffle me, but none so much as the illogical lack of progress and action to correct diversity in workplaces. You don’t have to search far to find compelling and sound research calculating that organizations do far better once they make moves to increase the representation of women and people of color in their leadership ranks. Organizations are more productive and profitable, have a stronger market valuation, produce better quality goods and services, employee engagement grows and talent is retained. These seem like good things, particularly when most executives are not sleeping at night due to stalled growth and a leaky talent pipeline. It appears that diversity is not only a race or women’s issue, but a strategic imperative for all organizations. That would be logical, right?
People grow when they are empowered to do so—when they own their decisions, feel personally responsible for outcomes, and directly experience the consequences of their actions. But if you don’t empower others to make decisions, then you run the risk of creating a team of helpless individuals who simply do what you tell them but don’t have the confidence or ability to think and act independently—plus you will become the decision-making bottleneck of your team.
The use of assessment centers (simulation assessments with live role plays) has been on the rise with 66% of North American companies reporting that they use virtual assessment centers to identify talent (Mercer, 2018). Even though going virtual has reduced the cost of assessment centers, they still remain more expensive than traditional pre-employment tests that measure personality or cognitive ability. Is the added investment in assessment centers justified?
You can only solve a problem effectively if you understand its root cause, and you can only understand a problem’s root cause through research and analysis. This means gathering data and taking the time to compare and contrast evidence from multiple sources, even when there is pressure to jump to quick conclusions. Without a good analysis, you cannot understand an issue properly, and you are likely to end up solving the wrong problem or just addressing superficial symptoms.
The past decade has seen significant changes in the assessment center practice, especially the rise of virtual assessment centers that preserve the live role-playing component and assessor observations of actual behavior. Now that technology has made assessment centers more convenient and cost-effective, there is a new push to deliver an even shorter version to a larger number of employees. What are these “shorter & faster” assessment centers like?
People don’t develop skills by taking a class or reading a book. It’s your job as their leader to actively help them develop them through feedback, challenging assignments, suggestions, and reflection. If you don’t invest your time and energy into developing the people on your team, they will stop learning, stagnate, and become disengaged, and their performance will eventually decline.