Overview of an Assessment Centre or Development Workshop

An Assessment Centre or Development Workshop is a process in which aspects of a job are simulated so that participants' behaviour can be observed, recorded, classified and evaluated, either by assessors or by themselves.

Why is it important to classify and evaluate people's behaviour?
It is important because there is a direct and powerful correlation between the behaviour which an individual demonstrates and the contribution they can make to the customers, the team and the organization. The survival and prosperity of the organization depends on it.

In selection you need to match people as closely as possible to roles which require the behaviours they already tend to demonstrate, as well as understanding the behaviours in which they will require further development. Likewise in development you need to assess people's current profile of behaviour in order to target training and development activities on to areas which will be important for success in current and future roles.

In both cases above, you also need the individuals themselves to be committed to their own self development. The evidence which Assessment Centres and Development Workshops provide is one of the most powerful methods of raising people's awareness of their own development needs and of securing their enthusiastic commitment to new roles and development plans.

What is an Assessment / Development Centre?
The term assessment centre does not refer to a physical place, instead it describes an approach. Traditionally an assessment centre consisted of a suite of exercises designed to assess a set of personal characteristics, it was seen as a rather formal process where the individuals being assessed had the results fed back to them in the context of a simple yes/no selection decision. However, recently we have seen a definite shift in thinking away from this traditional view of an assessment centre to one which stresses the developmental aspect of assessment. A consequence of this is that today it is very rare to come across an assessment centre which does not have at least some developmental aspect to it.

Increasingly, assessment centres are stressing a collaborative approach which involves the individual actively participating in the process rather than being a passive recipient of it. In some cases we can even find assessment centres that are so developmental in their approach that most of the assessment work done is carried out by the participants themselves and the major function of the centre is to provide the participants with feedback that is as much developmental as judgmental in nature.

Assessment centres typically involve the participants completing a range of exercises which simulate the activities carried out in the target job. Various combinations of these exercises and sometimes other assessment methods like psychometric testing and interviews are used to assess particular competencies in individuals. The theory behind this is that if one wishes to predict future job performance then the best way of doing this is to get the individual to carry out a set of tasks which accurately sample those required in the job and are as similar to them as possible. The particular competencies used will depend upon the target job but one will often find competencies such as relating to people; resistance to stress; planning and organising; motivation; adaptability and flexibility; problem solving; leadership; communication; decision making and initiative. There are numerous possible competencies and the ones which are relevant to a particular job are determined through job analysis.

What's the difference between an Assessment Centre and a Development Workshop?
The different labels are also used to distinguish between an Assessment Centre which is being used purely for selection (usually with external applicants) where information about the principles of the process is not explained to participants and is understood only by the assessors who run the event, and a Development Workshop whose purpose is broader than selection, encompassing the identification of high potential people, self awareness raising and an element of training (usually for internal people) where all of the principles of behavioural assessment will be shared openly and discussed with participants.

One might ask the question 'Why group assessment and development centres together if they have different purposes?' The answer to that question is threefold. Firstly, they both involve assessment and it is only the end use of the information obtained which is different i.e. one for selection and one for development; secondly, it is impossible to draw a line between assessment and development centres because all centres, be they for assessment or development naturally lie somewhere on a continuum somewhere between the two extremes; thirdly most assessment centres involve at least some development and most development centres involve at least some assessment. This means that it is very rare to find a centre devoted to pure assessment or pure development. The issue is further confused by the political considerations one must take into account when running such a centre, it is common practice for an assessment centre with internal candidates to be referred to as a development centre because of the negative implications associated with assessment.

Types of Simulations
The different types of simulations include:

• In-Basket Activity.
• Role Plays.
• Case studies.
• Business Games.
• Group Presentations.
• Group discussions.
• Individual Presentations.
• Psychometric Tests.
• Personal Interviews.
  

Assessment Centre Design: Easier Said Than Done
Assessment centre designers used to assume that the different exercises were separate opportunities for candidates to exhibit relatively stable competencies. The expectation was that each competency would be marked relatively similarly across exercises. There was also the expectation that, within each exercises, people would do quite well on some competencies and poorly on others. Repeated studies have shown the opposite to be the case. Within each exercise each person has fairly similar scores on the competencies being measured. But, across exercises the same competency gets quite different scores in different exercises. This phenomenon known as the exercise effect is beginning to be better understood and its practical implications are being identified.

This may be seen as a genuine reflection of both candidates' variation in performance across exercises and the relative sameness in their performance across dimensions in any particular exercise. For example, a person might do well at a presentation, appearing generally strong on all the competencies measured. On the other hand, they might do less well on a piece of analytical work, appearing generally weak on all the competencies.

One explanation for this variation in general performance between exercises might be that, in each exercise, a particular attribute like cognitive ability, self-confidence or experience is dominant. In the presentation, the self-confident person also appears quite clever and, indeed, more clever than the genius who becomes tongue-tied by embarrassment. Performance in an assessment centre can be seen as made up of exercise-specific performance and some performance that is stable across exercises and driven by broad general traits. The practical implication of this is that, if they are to work properly, assessment centres must be comprehensive samples of the role that the candidate will be doing. With so much variation across exercises, it is absolutely vital that the exercises reflect fully the role.

Standards That an Assessment Development Centre should follow are as follows

• There should be job analysis that defines a set of competencies to be measured and clearly demonstrates the link between them and effective performance in the target job.
• To ensure that a competency is measured in a reliable fashion across the centre it is usual to duplicate measurement of each competency (through different exercises).
• There are usually at least two simulations, amongst the material that confronts candidates/participants.
• There should be clear separation of the component parts into discrete exercises.
• There are assessors/observers who are trained in the Observe, Record, Classify and Evaluate (ORCE) process, and its application in the particular simulations that are used.
• Assessors/observers complete their evaluations independently, including any report before the integration (or wash-up) session.
• There should be a full integration session involving assessors / observers to summarize and evaluate the behavioural evidence obtained.
• Feedback should be offered to candidates/participants to support development.
• There should be a clear written and published statement of the intent of the centre, how data will be stored, by whom and rights of access to that data by any individual.
• There should be a statement of the limits of the relevance of the centre overall and / or the limits for a particular exercise.

In-Tray Exercise / In Basket Activity
Candidates work individually on this exercise. Each will be presented with a dossier of papers - memos, notes, telephone messages, reports - similar to that which a manager in the organisation might find in his or her in-tray in the morning. You will need to read through each and decide on the action that needs to be taken on each one and the priority to be allocated to it. By the end of the exercise, each item should have moved from the in-tray to the out-tray!

Competencies assessed: planning, organising, time management, written communication.

What is an in-tray exercise?
It is a business simulation, usually part of an assessment centre, where you play a member of staff who has to deal with the tasks of a busy day. You will be given a selection of letters, emails and reports in either paper or electronic format, which somebody doing the job might find in their in-tray or email inbox first thing in the morning.

You have to read each item, decide on the action to be taken, the priority to be allocated to it and complete related tasks such as summarising a report or drafting a reply to an email. There is a tight time constraint.

It will probably start by describing the background scenario. Subject matter is usually related to the job you are applying for.

There is a lot of work to get through caused by your return from holiday or having to cover the work of an absent colleague.

Typically you will be given one to two hours to complete the tasks which will consist of a large number of items (perhaps 20 or more) to see how well you can handle several complex tasks in a short period.

Some tasks may just require a yes or no answer. Other items may need a longer response, such as drafting a reply to a customer complaint, writing a report, delegating tasks to colleagues or recommending action to superiors. You may need to analyze information for some items (calculating budgets or sales figures, using information provided). New items may be added while the exercise is in progress.

As part of the exercise it's possible you might be asked to make a phone call to a "customer", role played by one of the assessors.

At the end you may be debriefed by a selector and asked to discuss the decisions you made and the reasons for these or you might be asked to prepare a memo outlining your priorities for action, or make a short presentation.

In-tray exercises are usually done individually but can be run as a group exercise.

Contents
The in-tray could contain any of the following together with information about the structure of the organization and your role within it.

• Memos.
• Letters.
• Letters of complaint.
• Telephone messages.
• Emails.
• Personnel information.
• Organization charts.
• Policy documents.
• Reports.
• A calender.