Assessment Centres best method to select for redundancies

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As the press report continuing redundancies and predict sharply rising unemployment over the next weeks and months; HR Professionals should consider the best way to approach these challenges in an objective and defensible way.

http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2008/11/citigroup-to-cut-52000-more-jobs.htm

http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2008/11/cbi-predicts-unemployment-will-hit-three-million.htm?area=pm

A&DC Comment:

There is no doubt that redundancy is a highly emotive topic at any time, not least during the current economic climate. As the article states, redundancy levels are set to increase, with sectors that were previously viewed as relatively 'safe' now also likely to be affected - it is therefore crucial that employers approach the subject with sensitivity, fairness and objectivity .  This is in the interest of the individuals that are personally affected and also their business at large.
 
Having the right people in the right roles with the right skills is perhaps now more important than ever. Current leaders within an organisation may be highly skilled, but might still require some additional training to fine tune these skills for the challenges ahead.  Regarding redundancy; they must identify potential skill gaps in organisations and act quickly to remedy this.

Organisations can utilise a number of objective methods to determine who will stay and who will go and some of these include ability tests and competency based interviews.  However, the most robust method by far is to run an Assessment Centre. This is because Assessment Centres look at business-relevant criteria (often referred to as 'competencies') multiple times, using multiple people, and therefore reducing bias that can exist in other approaches. 
 
We have found through working with our clients, that when there is a particularly large number of job losses set to occur, or if there's a large number of people who are having to reapply for certain roles, an Assessment Centre can be highly effective and fair approach for making such decisions. 
 
The substantial benefits of using such a technique are profound - the procedure is highly objective, fair and defensible, which is likely to greatly increase your chances of ensuring that you keep the most effective and talented people within your workforce.

Managers: coaching takes too much time

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An article in HR Magazine (15th October) stated; “More than two fifths (42%) of managers in the UK and Ireland find coaching employees to be too time-consuming.
According to research from global consultancy firm BlessingWhite, 32% of managers across the globe identify coaching as their biggest challenge; in the US the figure was 29% and in Asia 38%.

Employees in the UK and Ireland receive the least coaching across the 17 countries surveyed with 61% claiming not to be coached by their managers.

Almost a third (30%) of managers said their main reason for not coaching staff is that they do not have all the answers.”

http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/news/853773/Managers-coaching-takes-time     

A&DC Comment: 

The irony here, is that if Managers invested a little time in coaching their team, they would actually free up more time later, as they become able to delegate tasks to other members of the team.  

This is a fundamental principle  of Hersey and Blanchard's classic Situational Leadership model.  In brief, their model suggests that leaders should recognise the level of confidence and competence of a team member (their development level for a particular task) before they ask them to take on a task.  They should then match their leadership style Each of these styles varies in the amount of direction and support provided: 
 

The theory suggests that as people learn a new task they move from Development Level 1 - Enthusiastic Beginner, D2 - Disillusioned Learner, D3 - Capable but Cautious performer and finally D4 - Self Reliant Achiever.  The four leadership styles match the four development levels respectively.  The idea is that the Manager should flex their leadership style to help their team member grow and develop from D1 to D4.  This is because Leadership style 4 - 'Delegating' takes the manager the least amount of time, they are effectively handing the responsibility of the task over to a team member. 

Therefore the sooner a manager spends some time ‘Coaching’ their team in key tasks, the more time they will have.  The sign of a good manager is that their team is just as effective if their Manager is not present.  We so often hear managers exclaim: "why do people in my team always come to me to solve their problems?" The answer is because they are always telling them the solution.  Giving the team the coaching to work out their own solutions to their own problems will free up a lot more of the Managers time!

SMEs waste £70m through ‘poor recruitment decisions’

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"Britain's small-to-medium-sized enterprises are crucial to the success of our economy.  Between them they account for almost 60% of the UK's private-sector workforce - around 13.5m people.  But according to new research from Jobsite, hiring the wrong people is costing them close on £70m a year.

The Federation of Small Businesses estimates that Britain's SMEs make around a quarter of a million hires every year.  Jobsite's ‘white paper' of 2006 puts the average cost of each hire at £1,264.  But this year's CIPD report on recruitment, retention and turnover says that 22% of all new starters leave their employer within half a year of joining.

The more numerate among you will already have realised that this works at some £69,520,000 being wasted on the recruitment of people who leave within six months.  (Of course, it also means that SMEs have to shell out again in the short term to recruit suitable replacements.)”

http://www.ri5.co.uk/site/news/article/smes-waste-70m-through-poor-recruitment-decisions/

A&DC Comment:

This article highlights just how costly making incorrect recruitment decisions can be.  When it comes to recruiting and promoting staff, many organisations' risk evaluation often extends to nothing more than a conversation (interview) and the words of someone they have never met (reference).  
 
Placing people into positions who do not have the core abilities essential to the role, especially within SME organisations, impacts on key projects essential to profitability and growth.  Repeated errors lead to high staff turnover and a stream of unhappy people going back into the job market with a negative perception and negative commentary about the organisation.  

So how can SMEs make better selection decisions?  One way is to implement Competency Based Interviews (or backward looking interviews) into the selection process.  CBIs are based on the premise that the best predictor of future behaviour is past performance.  Research has shown these interviews are more than twice as reliable as traditional unstructured interviews in predicting future job performance. 

Furthermore, they are objective, fair and transparent, meaning there is less room for bias and therefore they are more defensible.  However, CBIs have proven too costly for SME businesses to develop in-house, since they require a great deal of time and attention from a trained professional.

We developed CBI-SMART, an online tool that interviewers can use to generate CBI guides in just a few minutes, in order that better quality interviewing could be a reality for every interviewer within any organisation – no matter what size. Its growing popularity is evidence that the word is spreading, and that SMEs are recognising the importance of improving interview practice and reducing wasted investment in recruitment.

More about CBI-SMART

Business leaders say training is key to surviving economic crisis

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A coalition of the UK's most senior businessmen and union leaders yesterday took the unprecedented step of calling on UK employers not to slash staff training in a bid to cut costs as the economic downturn bites. 

In an open letter published in national newspapers yesterday (Thursday), some of the UK's top business people urge employers to sustain or even increase their investment in training, saying: "Now is precisely the time to keep investing in the skills and talents of our people.  It is the people we employ who will get us through.  When markets are shrinking and order books falling, it is their commitment, productivity and ability to add value that will keep us competitive.  Investing now in building new skills will put us in the strongest position as the economy recovers."

http://www.ukces.org.uk/Default.aspx?page=4659

A&DC comment:

Employees are concerned about their jobs at the moment and will be anxious to try to secure their position with their current employer.  If they cannot do this, your potential high flyers and effective performers will be looking around to find more stable positions elsewhere. 

So now is the time for the Board to work with their HR and Leadership Teams to identify the top talent in their organisations using a range of assessment techniques such as 360 questionnaires, development centres and providing them with clear pathways for their future career advancement which are challenging yet developmental. 

Simple options such as mentoring or job rotation can really help to enhance an individual's skill set right through to skill and behavioural change interventions and 1-2-1 coaching.  Don't lose market share and lag behind the competition by ignoring the very people who put you in front in the first place, your workforce.

And don't forget the rest of the workforce, an effective Talent management strategy covers all of your employees from the leaders down to the shop floor.  Think creatively, use innovation to try and offer simple development oppotunities for everyone that won't cost a huge amount - e-learning, self study packs, bite sized training, train-the-trainer to share training more widely for the same cost.

Still few women in the Boardroom

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Two articles caught my attention this week, both highlighting the lack of women in C-Level appointments. It is clear that still more is needed to redress the balance and to ensure that equal opportunities are a reality at the top. 

Personnel Today:  'Male Personnel Chief admits women get raw deal on top HR jobs'.
http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2008/10/20/47981/male-personnel-chiefs-admit-women-get-raw-deal-on-top-hr-jobs.html
 
The Telegraph: 'Call for more women in the boardroom' suggests that attitudes are changing but that progress is slow.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/3227466/Call-for-more-women-in-the-boardroom.html

A&DC Comment:

The authors of these articles recognise an important diversity issue facing a number of organisations.  Despite concerted efforts (in some cases), we still do not have an equal number of women in top jobs, mostly related to time out to have children.  It is also worthy to note that this isn't just an issue for HR, this relates to the majority of senior roles. Whilst Hoffman makes a valid point; that external support can be obtained to help ensure objectivity of a selection process, we are unlikely to see a big difference in this area until organinsations start to make a change culturally. 
 
A number of organisations still subscribe to the culture of 'presenteeism', i.e. if you are not physically seen putting in the hours then you are not fully contributing or performing as well as another colleague.  Whilst there a number of tasks that will require physical presecence, such as meetings, a lot more can be done to accommodate talented working women, such as flexible working practices; working from home, job shares or reduced working weeks, to name but a few.  

Although organisations have increased their willingness to consider flexible working practices, these are often introduced alongside the still existing 'presenteeism' culture.  Therefore efforts need to be made to tackle this cultural view and thought should be given to how we can introduce flexible working practices more widely and not just for mothers, to remove the associated stigma. 

There is also an increasing evidence base which shows that flexible working practices, whilst promoting a diverse culture, helps to increase performance by reducing aspects such as absenteeism due to lowering stress levels.   
 
It is important that organisations consider how they retain, nurture and continue to challenge and promote those talented working women and mothers to ensure they keep their competitive advantage.