Term paper of human resource

management

SUBMITTED TO:

SUBMITTED BY: - HARISH KUMAR

ROLL NO: - RS1905A39

COURSE NO. : --

CLASS : -- M.B.A (Retail & Entrepreneurship)

TOPIC : -- MANAGEMENT ASSESMENT CENTER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:-
The project is an illuminating journey to the world of management. Co-
operation and co-ordination of various people is involved in the creation
of a project. It is impossible to thank each of them individually, but I am
making a humble effort thank some of them.

First of all I want to thank my lecturer Miss. for assigning me such a

great project. She not only assigned me a responsible role in the project
but also showed confidence in me throughout the project.

Content:-
 Objective of study

 Introduction:
  Management Assessment Center
 Management Assessment & Development Centres

 The use of Assessment Centres in Industry

USES of Assessment Centers

 Why use an Assessment Center

 Common Uses of Assessment Centers:-

 A Typical Assessment Center

 360-Degree Assessments

 Assessment Design

Assessment Benefits

 Advantages and disadvantages of the assessment center

 Conclusion

 Bibliography
Objective of Study:-

• To know about the management assessment center and how it works in the
organization.

• To know the Scope for management assessment center.

• To know the management assessment center development process and

management assessment center Succession Planning.

• To know the benefits of management assessment center.

• To know the advantages and disadvantages of Management Assessment

Center.
INTRODUCTION:-
The Priority Management Assessment Center is a web application that allows our
clients on-line access to pre and post workshop assessments in support of the
training programs right of way delivers. The Assessment Center offers quick and
easy access to high quality, cost effective assessments. Ultimately, you and your
organization will benefit from the useful diagnostic information these assessments
generate.

Management Assessment Center:-

On any given day, your first-line and second-line supervisors are the most critical
people in your organization. Every day they solve operating problems and keep the
work flowing smoothly. Every day they direct, support, and motivate your
operating employees. In today’s workplace, they have to be as highly people-
oriented as they are task-oriented. It is a very difficult job that not everyone can do
well. Are you hiring and or promoting the right people into these positions. Are
your current supervisors as effective as they need to be?

ASE offers the Center for Management Assessment and Development- a proven
instrument for measuring the competencies of those individuals.
The Center’s behavior-based approach puts the assessee through a series of five
realistic work simulations, conducted by Trained Assessors, to observe key
behaviors in six behavioral dimensions, namely:

1) Problem Solving

2) Leadership
3) Interpersonal Relations

4) Organizing and Planning Administrative Tasks

5) Handling Crises and Stress

6) Oral Communication

The assessee’s performance is observed by a minimum of four different assessors

during the course of the one-day program. The assessors compare their individual
observations to arrive at consensus evaluations in each of the above dimensions.
ASE will produce a detailed, narrative-style written feedback report of the
assessee’s performance, along with behavioral recommendations, training
recommendations, and reading recommendations for the assessee to address his or
her developmental needs

The Process (observed by assessors)

1. Asseesses analyse and plan.
2. Make and submit decisions.
3. Decisions entered and impact simulated.
4. Results returned to assesses.
5. Comments on teams provided to assessors.
6. Cycle repeated enough times for all assesses to manage group.

Typical Timetable
1. Pre-read simulation brief.
2. Short briefing (explaining the simulation and assessment issues).
3. Form assessees into groups of three or four.
4. Run simulation for sufficient periods.
5. Review the simulation's learning.
6. Assessors meet to compare notes and discuss.
Management Assessment & Development Centres
To:-

• Identify management potential.

• Establish an individual's training & development needs.

Involves:

• Groups of managers with potential (the assessees).

• Senior Managers (the assessors).
• Psychologists & Administration staffs.

Competencies Assessed

Competency Model 1 Competency Model 2 Competency Model 3

Analytical Ability * Breadth of Perspective * Critical Thinking *
Helicopter Ability * Incisiveness * Results Orientation *
Administrative Ability * Imagination * Team Working *
Business Sense * Organization + People Management
Written Communication Drive + Personal Effectiveness *
Oral Communication + Self Confidence * Strategic Focus *
Perceptive Listening * Sensitivity Leadership *
Vigour * Co-operativness * Financial Awareness *
Emotional Adjustment * Patience *
Social Skill *
Ascendency *
Flexibility *
Subordinate Relations *

The use of Assessment Centres in Industry:-

Modern assessment centres in the UK tend now to follow the American format
although there are still some which have their roots in the public sector Civil
Service model. The growth of the use of assessment centres in the UK has been
rapid. In 1986, Robertson and Makin reported that slightly more than one quarter of
organizations who employed 500 people or more used assessment centres, in 1989,
Mabey reported that more than one third of companies employing over 1000 people
used them while most recently Boyle et al (1993) reported that 45% of
organizations who responded used assessment centres and that their use was more
prevalent in the private sector and by larger organizations. We have also seen a rise
in the use of what we could term 'pure' development centres. The main reasons
behind this have been the realization that centres that have an element of selection
decision making to them can have a demoralizing effect on those individuals who
have been deemed unsuccessful. Organizations have also come to realize that to be
competitive they must constantly invest in the development of their staff in order to
enable them to respond effectively to an increasingly uncertain marketplace. This
has meant that rather than selecting new employees organizations are now investing
more in their existing workforce. Traditionally companies who wished to train their
staff would send them on a training course external to the organization, indeed
many still do, but there has been an increasing emphasis placed on delivering
training that is relevant to the organization’s needs and business objectives. A
development centre run as part of an integrated training strategy is an excellent way
of ensuring that training is carried out in a context of organizational relevance. A
final reason for the growth in use of development centres has been the widespread
adoption of the idea of behavioral competencies in the human resource field,
because development centres are designed around the job simulation format which
requires the participant to actively do something. They are a naturally effective way
of assessing competencies in individuals.

USES of Assessment Centers:-

• Selecting employees, identifying potential, measuring development needs,

succession planning.

• An effective Assessment Centre simulates the organizational level that

participants aspire to reach.

• A failing of many Assessment Centres is a one sided emphasis on assessing

analytical ability with too little focus on how participants would relate to
direct reports in potentially confrontational situations.

• Only in such exercises can leadership effectiveness be assessed.

• Leadership of subordinates is quite different from leading in a meeting of

peers.

• Hence, group exercises are of limited use for assessing leadership of

subordinates.

• A group exercise cannot assess how people use or abuse authority over
others.

• The classic problem of whether the best engineer will be the best manager is
not resolved using exercises that just look at analytical and general
interpersonal skills.
 • The point is to ensure that your Assessment Center is designed to assess the
skills that will be critical in the target job.

Why use an Assessment Center:-

• To take the guess works out of selection and development.

• All businesses need to get more out of fewer people.

• Competitive advantage depends on exceptional people

• This means taking extra care to get the right people in the right roles.

• Interviews alone are not as effective in assessing candidates as using a

variety of challenging job simulations.

• If your business really depends on hiring and developing the best people,
then effective assessment should be seen as a major investment.

Common Uses of Assessment Centers:-

Selectio
n Diagnosis
Development
Selection and Promotion
1) Supervisors & managers.
2) Self-directed team members.
3) Sales.

Diagnosis
1) Training & development needs.
2) Placements.

Development
1) Skill enhancement through simulations.

A Typical Assessment Center

1) Candidates participate in a series of exercises that simulate on- the-job

Situations.

2) Trained assessors carefully observe and document the behaviours displayed by

the participants. Each assessor observes each participant at least once.

3) Assessors individually write evaluation reports, documenting their observations

of each participant's performance.

4) Assessors integrate the data through a consensus discussion process, led by the
center administrator, who documents the ratings and decisions.

5) Each participant receives objective performance information from the

administrator or one of the assessors.
360-Degree Assessments:-
ASE uses a 360-degree assessment method in organizational and leadership
development. This approach gives individuals a chance to know how others see
them. It utilizes self ratings, peer review, and upward assessments to gather
meaningful data for the individual. A 360-degree assessment generally has high
employee involvement and credibility. It can result in better working relations,
better communications, increased effectiveness and productivity of individuals and
the organization as a whole, a better understanding of organizational priorities, and
greater employee input in designing self-development plans.

Cultural Surveys:-
In every organization, decisions are made and actions are taken within the context
of a culture. Cultural surveys provide the tools to quantify key elements of an
organization’s culture that can lead to better decisions and more effective actions. A
cultural survey uses structured questions to identify the values, beliefs and
perceptions of employees in an organization that are otherwise difficult or
impossible to assess. It provides valuable insights into the organization, can help
determine where to allocate resources, and can help you monitor changes in culture
over time. ASE will work with your organization to develop and test assumptions
about the cultural characteristics of your organization and then map out a strategy
that will improve organizational effectiveness.

Employee opinion survey:-

The management team that encourages two-way communication with employees is
going to learn about issues that affect their morale sooner, understand them in more
depth, and act on them more wisely and with better results.
The employee survey is a good way to strengthen this critical two-way
communication relationship. A well-designed and well-executed survey will:
 1) Clarify broad areas of employee dissatisfaction that you can see but not
pinpoint.
2) Identify morale-killing issues that would otherwise slip completely under
your radar.
3) Identify operational issues that cause lost productivity.
4) Provide base-line measures of employee satisfaction, which can be used to
measure changes in satisfaction levels over time, through repeat surveys.

ASE provides a variety of survey services, from complete management of the

survey process including survey design, administration, report preparation, and
feedback to management and employees, to an a la carte approach, where ASE
assists your in-house survey process with any combination of these services

H R Assessment:-
ASE’s Organization Development department offers a convenient and affordable
process that will give you an accurate overview of the strengths and needs of your
current Human Resources practices. Using an interview format, an ASE staff
member will take you through a list of more than 40 questions, addressing eight
different subject categories of HR practice. This two-hour process will not only
identify the key elements of your practices, but also help you evaluate their
effectiveness in your organization. Following the interview, ASE will analyze the
information you provide, and develop a comprehensive, written feedback report for
you. The report will:
 give you a list of need based practices for each subject category.
 identify areas of strength and areas for development in your Human
Resources function .
 give you specific recommendations for improving your HR practices

If you are setting up your Human Resources function for the first time, or if you are
looking for a comprehensive analysis of your existing HR function, this assessment
tool will be of great use to you.
Assessment Design:-

Meeting your assessment needs

As organisation strives to gain competitive advantage through their people,

observing behaviours and matching them against an appropriate competence model
offers a powerful way of understanding the fit between the organisation, and the
individual. It also provides objective data on an individual’s strengths and
developmental needs relative to the organisation’s aims. We provide realistic
simulated business environments, enabling the relevant people from your
organisation to observe key people operating in highly participative and demanding
business environments, in an innovative and challenging way. We can work with
you to develop bespoke centres with differing levels of complexity depending on
the needs of the individual, team and organisation. We have experience in
developing assessment interventions for a wide variety of needs, including:

• Recruitment.
• Succession planning.
• Identifying high potential.
• Suitability for International mobility.
• Working in key customer facing roles.
• Suitability for Headquarter roles.

Assessment Benefits:-
Assessment will help increase your understanding of key individuals’ capabilities,
in areas of core competence through:

• sharing a common understanding of your corganisation’s core competencies.

• measuring key individuals against these competencies.
• identifying strengths and planning to optimise them.
• identifying developmental needs and planning to fulfil them.
• succession planning.
• creating a developmental culture in your organisation.
• motivating, by spending time understanding.
• Becoming a learning organisation.

At the same time, the provision of business learning, ensures your people make
better decisions in a fast moving competitive environment.

Online Assessment Tools:-

“Profiles International” has developed a world class portfolio of assessments.
Scientifically designed for business, these are practical on-line tools that measure
the relative strengths of individuals and teams. These tools help you:

• Put the right people into the right jobs.

• Provide employees with effective training.
• Help managers become more effective.
• Promote people into positions where they will succeed.
• Retain top performers and know how to recruit more people like them

Assessment Center Methodology:-

WHAT IS ASSESSMENT CENTER METHODOLOGY?

The validity and effectiveness of the assessment center method can be credited to
six basic underlying methodological concepts. During the past 21 years, many
organizations have used these concepts to improve the effectiveness of personnel
procedures outside the traditional assessment center. Assessment center
methodology has been applied in interviewing, job observation, and obtaining third-
party information .The six methodological concepts that give the assessment center
method its validity are:-

1) Organize the assessment process around target dimensions.

One of the two keys to the job relatedness of assessment center methodology is the
focus of assessment center observations on dimensions that have been defined as
important to success (or failure) in the target job. Dimensions are defined through
an analysis of the target job. This job analysis procedure usually involves
interviewing incumbents and their supervisors to identify common factors that have
a direct bearing on success and failure.

2) Use of behaviour to predict behaviour.

Assessors in assessment centers make decisions based on behaviour; they don’t try
to psycho-analyze the individuals they observe. They connect behaviour in the
assessment center exercises and behaviour required on the job. If the assessee’s
behaviour is similar to that required in the target job, that assessee receives a high
rating. If the candidate does not use behaviours required in the target job, he or she
receives a low rating.

3) Have two or more individuals independently observe and evaluate.

Observations made by two or more trained observers provide multiple perspectives

on the meaning and importance of an assessee’s behaviour. This reduces the chance
that an assessee’s performance in one exercise will influence assessor evaluation in
others.

4) Develop a system that ensures all target dimensions are covered and that
uses inputs from multiple sources.
Assessment centers are organized to force the evaluation of all target dimensions.
Exercises are selected to provide the most complete coverage possible, with overlap
built in for the most important dimensions. But simulations may not provide
information on all dimensions. Very seldom is a job so unidimensional that a single
source of data can predict future behaviour. In reality, most jobs are extremely
complicated in terms of the activities and dimensions necessary for success. For
this reason, a variety of assessment sources, such as interview data and reference
checks, are needed.

5) Organize a discussion so two or more assessors systematically share and

debate their behavioural insights and relate these findings to each target
dimension prior to reaching an overall decision.

Research evidence and practical experience clearly indicate that, in most situations,
a group process where data are shared and the judgments of several knowledgeable
individuals are polled enhances decision making. The assessment center really is an
organized group decision-making process that allows assessors systematically to
collect data, organize it, share observations, and come to a consensus. The
integration session in assessment centers forces individuals to substantiate their
ratings with examples of actual assessee behaviour, thus keeping subjective
elements out of the discussion. The process also helps assessors focus on each key
job dimension prior to reaching overall decisions.

6) Use simulations to stimulate behaviour to be observed.

Simulations are an important method (but not the only method) of obtaining
behavioural examples that can be used to predict future behaviour. Simulations give
organizations a chance to see how a person would perform in a particular job prior
to giving him/ her position. The next three sections deal with applications of
assessment center concepts in other personnel procedures such as interviewing, on-
the-job observation of performance, and obtaining third-party information about an
individual. The section titled Developing Integrated Systems deals with assessment
methodology as the basis for integrated personnel systems.

Assessment & Development Centres:-

An Assessment & Development Centre (AC/DC) seeks to assess the competencies
of individuals as desired by the client organization. It revolves around a process that
comprises a number of exercises, simulations, business games etc, which are
customized according to the industry and context of the client organization. An AC
is designed to replicate the tasks and demands of the role for which an individual is
being considered. These exercises or simulations look at the person in an individual
as well as a group setting. A group of trained assessors observe the individual
during the assessment process. The process culminates with giving feedback to the
individual and submitting a report to the client organization.

The table below presents a brief summary of the various

definitions of assessment centres:-

Pooling of
Judgement
through
a statistical
Allows
Integration Evaluation of
candidate to
process Candidates
demonstrate
Behavior/skill/
behavior/skills/
Knowledge
Knowledge
 Series of
Exercises
It is a (Situational &
Standardized job
Procedure of
simulations )
Evaluation Assessment
center
Series of
Exercises
Used for a (Situational &
Variety of HR job
Decisions Simulations)

Designed to measure
Dimensions/competenci Specially developed
es Assessment
Required to deliver simulations
effective of future job
Performance in a given situations
job

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE

ASSESSMENT CENTER :-
ADVANTAGES:-
The main advantage of the assessment center is simple: it works. Taken together,
the techniques used in an assessment center provides more information about the
candidate's probable success in an organization than anything else that's out there.

On the management side, that's good; that's what an interview is for.

On the employee side, the assessment center has been shown to provide greater
opportunity for minorities than more traditional interview methods.

If the exercises are closely patterned on the real job, there can be other benefits.
The assessors may gain a new appreciation for what the position requires. The
candidate can also get a good preview of the work. So if the candidates don't like
what they see, they can quietly drop out of the competition.

DISADVANTAGES:-
The main drawback for the employer is cost. Typically, the assessment center will
cost at least 500 to 1000 per candidate. The assessment center will take at least
three days for each assessor: one day for training, at least one day for assessing, and
one more for making a decision. On the other hand, the cost of this time may be
balanced by the reduction in the risk of hiring the wrong person.

When the assessment center is used as a hiring tool, the key element of
organizational orientation is absent. This results in a loss of reciprocity in the
interview process.

The etymological meaning of "interview" is "seeing each other." The assessment

center should and usually does result in very accurate insights into candidates'
abilities and potentials. The candidate acts and reacts. The assessors observe and
record as impartially and impassively as possible. In its design, the assessment
center aims to approximate a one-way mirror. That's not "seeing each other."

This loss of reciprocity has several negative consequences. For one thing, it
sometimes scares off the best candidates.

The lack of direct contact between assessor and candidate means that they have no
idea how well they'll be able to communicate with each other. They don't know
chemistry.

Unless the assessment center is based on close-to-fact job situations, candidates

could walk away from a grueling day playing stressful and ambiguous games and
not have any better idea of what the job entailed, or what their potential boss was
looking for, than when they arrived.

Interviews should be reciprocal. The assessment center doesn't provide that kind of
information. To that extent, it is not only unfair to job applicants; it's also a waste of
their time.

Conclusion:-
So after all this we present our final conclusions. Are assessment center methods
always perfectly reliable, valid and non-discriminatory? Certainly not. But they do
have a solid track record of prediction, diagnosis, and development. Do assessor’s
ratings from all assessment center method conform to the expectation are have
about internal and external relationship’s certainly not. But many assessment
centers provide valuable assessment of many dimension related to performance
effectiveness in many jobs. Are assessment center methods the only, or the best,
method of predicting employee success? Certainly not. But , assessment from the
method predict success in a variety of criteria in a variety of job over various time
period and they add incremental predictive power in combination with other
method. Are assessment center method a panacea for all human resource
management problems? Certainly not. But , the various instantiation of assessment
center are valuable intervention for a variety of human resources management
needs. Assessment center are effective in predicting, diagnosing, and development
performance effectiveness in an organization.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:-

• http://www.leadersdirect.com/assessment-centers

• http://www.google.com/search?
hl=en&safe=strict&ei=rx7ts8h3b4f6sgpfzjsrdw&sa=x&oi=spell&resnum=
0&ct=result&cd=1&ved=0cbyqbsga&q=conc

• http://www.jlarue.com/assessment_center.html

• http://books.google.com/books?
id=urvmirh24r0c&pg=pa299&lpg=pa299&dq=conclusion+on+manageme
nt+assessment+center&source=bl&ots=tqw1lma8zl&sig=ypi5ana4wevm_2
iko_4l3yrrgbi&hl=en&ei=sh7ts_lemyn4sqoctvy-
cg&sa=x&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0ceaq6aewbw#v=o
nepage&q=

• http://www.management assessment center.

• http://www.aseonline.org/OrganizationalbrnbspDevelopment/ManagementA
ssessmentCenter.aspx

• http://www.ipacweb.org/files/ac101.pdf