What is an Assessment Center?
The Assessment Center Method, Applications, and Technologies
SECTION 4: Selection and Placement of Empowered Personnel
- Section 1: How an Assessment Center Works
- Section 2: Validity and Fairness
- Section 3: Adoption of the Assessment Center Method Outside the United States
- Section 4: Selection and Placement of Empowered Personnel
- Section 5: New Simulations, Tests, and Methods
The greatest growth of assessment centers since 1985 has been stimulated by organizations moving to an empowered workforce. These organizations are giving employees:
- Responsibility for their designated areas or outputs.
- Control over resources, systems, methods, and equipment.
- Control over working conditions and schedules.
- Authority (within defined limits) to commit the organization.
- Evaluation by achievements.
Most also are organizing employees into self-directed work teams. The teams are made up of team members and a team leader (the team leader is a working, nonmanagement member of the team). Teams take responsibility for:
- Improving quality and productivity; job rotation.
- Planning/Scheduling.
- Who works on what.
- Quality audit.
- Equipment adjustment, maintenance, and repair.
- Housekeeping, vacation planning, absenteeism, tardiness, and performance issues.
- Choosing the team leader.
- Many other areas.
The adaptation of self-directed teams drastically changes the role of supervisors and managers. Supervisors (often called group leaders) have a very large span of control, with as many as 100 subordinates. Because teams and team leaders take on many of the normal supervisory functions, the supervisors became more managerial in function, concentrating more on budgeting and planning. This, in turn, affects the role of middle managers. The multiple-level changes in job functions have forced organizations to use new methods in connection with selection, promotion, and placement decisions. Because assessment centers worked so well at supervisory and managerial levels, it was natural to turn to assessment centers as a methodology.
Hundreds of manufacturing plants have used assessment centers to select employees, team leaders, and group leaders. To accomplish this, many new processes were developed, especially in connection with "greenfield" plant start-ups where large numbers of applicants must be processed. Toyota assessed 22,000 applicants to staff their 3,000-person plant in Kentucky.
At the employee level, exercises involve applicants in problem-solving group exercises, simulations of the manufacturing process, and one-to-one interactive exercises. Supervisor exercises provide opportunities to demonstrate coaching, leadership, and decision-making skills.
Diagnosis of Training and Development Needs
Quick, easy training methods don’t change people’s skill levels. Skill acquisition requires intensive, time-consuming classroom training and must be coupled with opportunities for on-the-job practice and feedback so new behaviors are "set" in the individual’s repertoire. Because skill development takes a lot of time and effort, everyone cannot be trained in every skill. The assessment center method provides an effective means to determine training or developmental needs. Individuals then can be placed in the most appropriate program.
The assessment center method is an excellent diagnostic tool because it separates an individual’s abilities into specific areas (dimensions) and then seeks specific examples of good and poor behavior within each dimension. This helps the assessee and his/her boss determine more precisely what training and developmental activities are required.
Almost all organizations using assessment centers for selection or promotion also use the information obtained to diagnose training needs. However, a major shift in focus is the large number of firms now using assessment centers solely to diagnose training needs.
Most diagnostic assessment for managers is done within an organization using consultants. Assessment at the executive level takes place in elaborate, specially built assessment facilities operated by consultants.
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Training Programs
The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) estimates that U.S. companies spend over $60 billion each year on training. The fastest-growing portion of this amount is for sales, supervisory, and management training, yet most companies have not evaluated the effectiveness of their training programs properly.
Assessment center methodology is an excellent method for establishing the validity and effectiveness of training programs. Three research designs commonly are used (see Figure 1). In the first design, a group of individuals is trained while a matched group is not. Both groups then are put through an assessment center. The second and third designs have a group of individuals assessed, then trained, then assessed again.
Organizations such as SOHIO, Lukens Steel, AT&T, the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, and over a dozen undergraduate and graduate business schools have used assessment center technology to evaluate training programs (Byham, 1982). The advent of video technology, which allows the relatively inexpensive evaluation of individuals, has increased the application of assessment center methodology dramatically in this area.