Workplace Assessments

March 2007 - Security Recruiter Workplace Assessments

All articles written by John Howard, Ph.D., except where noted.

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Burning Tree Programs HR Manager Finds Insight in SOSII™
From Jim Sirbasku’s Desk

The human resources manager for two Texas drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities offers her employees a different perspective on Profiles’ Step One Survey II™ assessment. She has seen it from the other side of the desk, as a candidate being interviewed for her current position.

“I was grateful that I got to take it,” said Tabbitha Anderson, the HR manager for Burning Tree Programs, which has facilities in Kaufman and Elgin, Texas. Because she can talk about the assessment as a job applicant who completed it before she was hired, her support gives it more weight when she talks to managers about what the assessment will help them accomplish.

The young HR manager has been working in the field for three years and recognizes the challenges of finding employees with the skills, understanding and compassion a rehabilitation center needs. A competitive job market and staffing a facility with 24-hour needs makes hiring complicated, Anderson said. Finding qualified entry-level workers can be especially challenging, and she does the most hiring in this area.

One of Burning Tree’s most important entry-level positions is that of treatment technician. “They are the eyes and ears of our clinical staff. They observe and document the behavior of our clients,” Anderson says. But finding people to fill the position can be difficult because of the specialized nature of the job and because they are needed to work at night or overnight. “It’s not like finding people to work 8 to 5. It’s very hard to find people who want to work at night,” Anderson explains.

Successful recruiting avenues for her include advertising in newspapers, going to job fairs and seeking referrals from employees already on staff. She triumphs in hiring most often when she can talk to applicants in person. “When I [speak] to people face-toface, I can find qualified employees more easily and I tell them straight out, ‘These are the hours I am looking for.’”

In addition to entry-level people, Anderson also hires licensed chemical dependency counselors. These specially trained workers can get an associate’s degree and complete an extensive internship as a counselor before taking a test for their license, or they can earn a four-year degree and bypass the internship.

On all potential employees, she uses SOSII™ to gauge a job-seeker’s attitudes. “I want to see where they are, to see if they fit the culture. The SOSII™ has really good questions to think about with applicants.” The questions help managers who have had minimal experience interviewing job applicants, coaching them along the way. Anderson says managers like the assessment because of the insight the interview questions provide.

Previously Anderson worked in HR positions in the retail arena and in a hospital. However, she finds managing the human resources department in a rehabilitation facility to be very different. “The whole mindset of the employees is different. With retail, there’s more focus on sales. Here, because [it is] a crisisdriven industry, [everyone is] more focused toward their clients, which is wonderful. Everyone who works here has so much passion and drive for what they do. It [just] wows you.”

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Technical Corner: Assessment Tools Must Be Valid

An assessment tool is valid if it measures specific characteristics required to do a job and if the measurements are accurate. Validity is the fifth of 13 Department of Labor guidelines used for assessment instruments, and the one we will be examining this month.

We determine an assessment tool’s validity by looking at its purpose. Once we determine the tool is valid for a specific purpose, that validity cannot be transferred for any other purpose. For example, we can agree a valid instrument can predict a person’s ability to accurately measure, add and subtract. We cannot, however, use the same instrument to predict the person’s leadership or sales skills. The validity coefficient is a strong indicator of how valid the assessment is for a specific purpose under specific circumstances. It measures the degree of relationship between test performance and job performance.

Validity is an important characteristic in assessment tools because it gives meaning to a person’s scores on an assessment. If the evidence shows the assessment tool is a valid predictor of performance on a specific job, we know that people who earn high scores on the assessment are more likely to do the job well than people with low scores.

We can also establish an assessment’s validity as applied to specific groups. A tool that is valid in predicting how well an executive solves problems does not allow for useful comparisons about ability in clerical assistants. Additionally, the reading level of the test may not be valid for both groups.

Developers of assessments must describe the groups they used to develop the test, detail which groups can be validly tested by the assessment, and provide an interpretation of scores for individuals belonging to specific groups.

All Profiles assessments meet or exceed Department of Labor guidelines, and we work diligently to help our clients understand our tools and how to use them correctly.

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HR Corner: How to Retain the Best Employees

As Baby Boomers retire and fewer workers are available to replace them, retaining the best employees becomes more important. Retention takes on more significance to HR professionals, who see most sharply the toll turnover takes on a business: loss of efficiency, higher production costs, long searches, loss of job knowledge and lack of security among remaining employees. In a third annual poll that the Society for Human Resource Management conducted on job retention, HR professionals said that an average of 12 percent of their workforce had voluntarily resigned since the beginning of 2006.

Here are 10 tips for retaining key employees in this competitive job market:

• Select the right employee for the job.

• Compensate fairly and make sure benefits keep pace with those the competition offers.

• Train managers to be clear about their expectations.

• Seek employees’ ideas on how best to do their jobs.

• Provide new challenges.

• Encourage employees to contribute their expertise outside their general skill areas. Cross-train to give employees a broader range of skills.

• Give feedback frequently. Praise publicly and constructively criticize in private.

• Ask key employees to help you recruit — not only their qualified friends, but colleagues they may have met through networking functions.

• If you are the top executive, make it your business to know all of your employees.

• Say thank you for a job well done. Reward not only with recognition and pay increases, but with bonuses, gifts or an extra day off.

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Product Focus: WorkForce Analysis Profile™

A company with engaged workers is likely to keep them longer with all the benefits of high retention appearing on the bottom line. Clients on the outside looking in might not know anything about that, but they recognize good customer service when they see it. And engaged employees give excellent customer service.

Now, companies have a tool to find out just how engaged their workforce is, how to motivate employees and how to keep them performing at high levels. It is the WorkForce Analysis Profile™ from Profiles International. Call it a reality check in the workplace.

An employee recently hired and fresh on the job is normally energetic, enthusiastic and full of ideas, performing far above minimum work standards. On the other hand, an employee who has been in the same position for several years may be bored and frustrated, especially if the best kinds of challenges and rewards seldom come their way. You will recognize this worker as the one who rarely offers any ideas, preferring to sit back and calculate just what the response will be to a new project or proposal. This employee does not like anything that comes out of the CEO’s office or anywhere else if it means change — even though change is what is needed the most. This worker is suspicious about HR initiatives and often cynical about them. In short, they are not engaged in their work. Nationwide surveys show this description fits more than half of the working population.

It is a challenge to keep employees fresh and excited about work, but the WorkForce Analysis Profile™ is equal to the task. It takes a key first step by measuring workers’ attitudes, motivations and beliefs about their employers, current managers and job functions. Executives that pay attention to this information, even if it is frustrating or painful, can enhance and improve the level of employee engagement inside their organizations.

The survey collects vital information leaders might have missed — what one might call the “blind spot.” It presents areas of concern in the workplace that leaders can use as a map for developing a productive workforce that not only accepts challenges, but relishes them. It reveals issues of concern to employees and shows how important their work is in their lives.

Isn’t this information every company leader needs to know?

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