Training for Assessors

A Collection of Activities for Training Assessment Centre Assessors, Roleplayers and Resource Persons

Lindy Strudwick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780566084010
• eBook ISBN: 9781351878173
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Assessment and Development Centres are very resource intensive, both in terms of time and money. Poorly trained assessors, resource people and role players can all have a huge adverse impact on the results of an Assessment and Development Centre. To ensure consistency in the performance of assessors, resource people and role players, they must all be well briefed and properly trained. This manual provides a practical guide, with everything you need to train assessors, resource people and role players. Parts One to Three of the manual deal with the behavioural assessment skills of observing, recording, classifying, summarizing and evaluating (ORCSE). There are exercises for learning and trying out the techniques needed for each stage of the process. There is also a collection of mock simulations, which allow potential assessors to put all of the skills together and practice for real. Part Four covers training for resource persons and role players, an area which is often overlooked. Training for Assessors is an essential resource for anyone running, or planning to run, assessment and/or development centres.

Part One

Training for Assessors: The Background

Sections 1.1–1.6

Purpose

These sections of the manual contain background information that can be used to introduce participants to:

• Assessment Centres

• Competencies

• Simulation exercises

• The role of an assessor

• The ORCSE process

• Assessment Centre documentation.

You are free to choose which sections to include or exclude depending on the existing knowledge and experience of the participants. The delivery method you choose for each section will largely depend on the time available during the training programme.

Participants

All training course participants – group size 1–12.

Suggested timing

Approximately 5 minutes to 1 hour per section depending on the delivery method chosen.

Location

Training room with sufficient space to accommodate participants, trainer and presenters.

Materials and equipment

Suggested:

• Flipchart stand, paper and pens

• OHP and screen or PC with PowerPoint

Required:

• Notepads, pens and pencils for participants

• One folder per participant for notes and handouts

• One copy per participant of Handouts 1.1–1.13 as appropriate

• One copy per participant of competency framework used within the organization

1.1 Introduction to Assessment Centres

Objectives

By the end of this session the participants will:

• Be able to describe what Assessment Centres are and why they are used

• Understand in principle how Assessment Centres are designed

• Know where Assessment Centres fit into the organization’s Human Resource strategy

Key Points and optional delivery methods

	Trainer presentation	Open discussion	Syndicate and feedback	Guest Presentation	Reading/ quiet time
Introduction to Assessment Centres		•	•
Differences between Assessment Centres and other selection methods			•
Advantages and disadvantages of using Assessment Centres			•
Assessment Centre design: – line manager involvement – job analysis	•
Human Resource strategy				•

Background

Introduction to Assessment Centres

Refer to Handout 1.1.

It is important that the participants are aware of some of the theory and background to Assessment Centres. This will help them understand and appreciate their role as an assessor and put the assessor training into context. For those interested in acquiring a more detailed knowledge, there is a wide range of excellent texts available covering Assessment Centres, for example:

Assessment and Development Centres (1995) by Iain Ballantyne and Nigel Povah (Gower) Assessment Centres (1993) by Charles Woodruffe (The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development)

Differences between Assessment Centres and Development Centres

The process of an Assessment Centre – the measurement of performance against defined competencies by participation in simulation exercises – also holds good for Development Centres. In addition, candidates taking part in either type of Centre can be measured against competencies required either for their current role or for a higher level role.

However, whilst the structure, contents and process of running the two types of Centre is very similar, the output differs.

• In a Development Centre the focus is on developing the candidate, either in their current role or for a future role, and the output (reports, feedback, counselling) from the Centre is entirely geared towards this objective. Feedback is often given to candidates after each exercise in a Development centre, which means the candidate is immediately given the opportunity to improve their performance in weaker areas.

• Assessment Centres are used primarily as a selection tool for recruitment or promotion purposes.

For a Centre to truly be a Development Centre there must be no element of selection involved, no question of pass or fail.

Differences between Assessment Centres and other selection methods

Assessment Centre methodology is a ‘multiple-input’ process, whereby, in other words, a group of assessors will observe candidates using a range of simulation exercises, tests or activities, each assessor observing a different candidate in each exercise.

By its nature an Assessment Centre will build up a more balanced and objective set of results than the more traditional method of selection by a single interview, as each candidate is observed and rated by a number of people in a variety of situations. In contrast, an interview conducted by one person, will only elicit the opinion of that person in one situation.

Many organizations today are moving more towards Assessment Centre techniques, sometimes without actually realizing it. As well as conducting an interview, the organization may ask a candidate to complete psychometric tests or give a presentation to the board. Although these processes may not be described as an Assessment Centre, they are certainly showing signs of becoming a ‘multiple-input’ process.

Advantages and disadvantages of using Assessment Centres

Some advantages:

• Assessment Centres are more reliable than other selection methods. Meta-analysis (combining the validities from different studies) has shown Assessment Centres to be a more reliable method of predicting future job performance than many other methods of selection:

Meta-analysis	Validity coefficients
Assessment Centres (promotion)	0.65
Work sampling	0.54
Ability tests	0.53
Assessment Centres (performance)	0.43
Personality questionnaires	0.39
Biodata	0.38
References	0.23
Interviews	0.19

This analysis shows that using an Assessment Centre will help you to identify the best candidates for promotion 65 per cent of the time, whereas using an Interview will only allow selection of the best candidates 19 per cent of the time.

The above meta-analysis was conducted by Mike Smith from UMIST and based on the findings of Hunter, J E and Hunter R (1984), ‘Validity and utility of alternate predictors of job performance’, Psychological Bulletin, 96, 72–8. Two other studies gave validities of 0.41 and 0.37 for Assessment Centres (see Gaugler, BB et al. (1987), ‘Meta-analysis of Assessment Centre validity’, Journal of Applied Psychology, monograph; and Schmidt N, et al. ‘Met...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Using the Manual
• Pre-course preparation
• Flowchart of Assessor Activity
• Part One Training for Assessors: The Background
• Part Two Activities for Training in Behavioural Assessment Techniques
• Part Three Assessment Centre Exercises
• Part Four Training Resource People and Roleplayers