4 | 2014

®
The Magazine of WorldatWork©

How One Company

Identified the
Best Candidates
for Management
By Rajiv Burman, Change2Succeed

A dedicated Many companies face the challenge

of attracting, rewarding and retaining
group and lots specialists like IT developers, actu-
of simulations aries and architects. Career growth
led to finding for these employees and for the
the right people company is sometimes to manage-
ment ranks or to a deeper level of
for the right technical expertise. Finding manage-
positions. rial potential is tricky.

Background
In early 2012, HR and business
leaders at the IT division of a global
software company noticed that
managers who were promoted from
individual contributor roles usually
had lower performance ratings
compared with the ratings they
received as individual contributors.
Low ratings led to low bonus and
merit pay and eventually could lead
to exits. The business was concerned
about losing key IT skills and the
consequential negative impacts.
A project team of human resources and
line managers was formed to investi-
gate the issues and look for solutions.

Findings and Actions

The company’s investigation revealed
a number of flaws. As in many
companies, the selection to become
a people manager was based on the

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This solution
proved to be popular and reduced
the pressure for promotions to
people manager roles.
performance in the current individual
contributor role, the supervisor’s
recommendation, the employee’s
interest and the hiring manager.
❙❙ Employees were selecting people
management roles for higher
money: The compensation structure
provided higher status and earning
potential for people managers when
compared with individual contribu-
tors. The increased compensation
value on promotion was more than
25 percent. This created a strong
incentive for individual contributors
to seek people manager roles even
if it was of no real interest to them.
The company was losing technically
qualified individual contributors
to people management roles and
the employees were moving to
roles motivated by compensation.
Figure 1  |  Definitions of Assessment Center
Allows candidate to
demonstrate behavior/
skills/knowledge
It is a
standardized
procedure of
evaluation
Assessment
Center
Used for a
variety of HR
decisions
Designed to measure
dimensions/competencies
required to deliver effective
performance in a given job
58  | workspan  april 2014
❙❙ Bias to promote from within: The
hiring managers relied on recom-
mendations of existing managers
and the past performance rating.
The project team developed
a multipronged solution set.
❙❙ Technical career path: The
team created a career path with
associated rewards for individual
contributor roles so as to make it
attractive to stay in those roles.
This career path would provide
equivalent level and compensa-
tion to people manager path. This
solution proved to be popular and
reduced the pressure for promo-
tions to people manager roles.
❙❙ Objective assessment method: The
team developed an assessment center
to assess the individual contributor
candidates for people manager
Pooling of judgment through
a statistical integration
process
Evaluation of
candidate’s
behavior/skill/
knowledge
Series of
exercises
(situational and
job simulations)
Specially developed
assessment simulations of
future job situations
potential. The project team selected
the assessment center approach given
its higher reliability, standardization,
opportunity for senior managers to
become better trained (as assessors)
on what to look for and as a means
to provide developmental feedback to
all individual contributor participants.
Assessment Center Background
What is the origin?
Assessment centers can be traced to
the period between the two world
wars. Germany was faced with the
restriction on re-arming the German
army and from conducting exercises,
and this had an impact on its ability
to identify officer potential. German
psychologists developed this tech-
nique, which involved a combination
of tests, exercises and simulations, to
identify the potential of officer candi-
dates. Soon after, the British army
adopted the technique. In 1956, AT&T
brought this technique to the U.S.
private sector for selection of high
potentials for managerial roles.
What is it?
An assessment center consists of a
standardized evaluation of behavior
based on multiple inputs. Several
trained observers and techniques
are used. Judgments about behavior
are made from specifically designed
assessment simulations, such as one
via email that helps managers deter-
mine how well employees handle
multiple priorities; group discus-
sions; interviews; and psychometric
tests. Figure 1 illustrates the various
descriptions prevalent in the market.
Usage
A number of global companies use
assessment centers to select, promote
and reward at entry, mid and senior
levels. Examples are Britvic, KPMG,
Rolls Royce, Boeing, Unilever, BP,
GlaxoSmithKline and Philips.
Challenges
Assessment centers are time consuming
and costly. The time commitment is
large for the participants, HR team and
assessors. Add to this any associated
travel time for participants and asses-
sors. Finally, most companies work
with an external consultant to help
design the exercises, which adds to
the cost. The total expense on time
and cost and associated logistics has
held back the widespread use of
assessment centers.
Cost Benefit Analysis
The project team brought in a
consulting company that has exper-
tise in assessment centers and worked
with it to define the business case
for the assessment center solution.
A number of objective and subjective
factors were considered.
Costs
❙❙ Costs: direct and indirect of oper-
ating the assessment centers in a
global company with employees
spread across multiple locations.
❙❙ Cost of internal promotions versus
external hiring: the compensa-
tion increases provided to internal
applicants were lower than the
compensation paid to external
hires. In addition, savings on
recruitment added up.
Benefits
❙❙ Clarifying the expectations from
the role and what is needed
to succeed in it and selecting
the right people for the role
Figure 2  |  Tools Competency Matrix
Judgment Adaptability
Case
Study
Inbox
Role Play
Group
Discussion
CBI
❙❙ Higher retention rate in teams
with good managers
❙❙ Providing aspiring managers oppor-
tunities for feedback and coaching
❙❙ Creating a standard global framework
and performance bar for assessing
and developing managerial talent
❙❙ Increasing the qualified pipeline
of potential people managers and
providing choice to hiring managers
❙❙ Developing existing manager
capability and enhancing
assessor expertise
❙❙ The failure cost because of lost
productivity of newly promoted
managers and the consequent impact
on their teams and project delivery.
To reduce the direct costs of the
assessment center, the assumption was
that the consultant would train senior
managers as assessors. Additional
benefits included upgrading the skill
set of managers and self-sufficiency
— if the company could manage the
process with internal resources.
The project team received approval
and funding for conducting three
international pilots and was asked
to do a cost/benefit analysis upon
completion of the pilots.
The Ins and Outs of the Program
Approach
With the help of the consulting company,
the company analyzed the people
manager job and associated competen-
cies and behaviors. The company has
Competencies
Influencing Drive for Customer
Collaboration for Impact Results Focus
a standard list of six competencies
that apply to all employees and three
manager priorities that apply to people
managers only. These were identified
as the assessment parameters because
they are widely disseminated in the
organization through the performance
management and manager feedback
process and are universally applicable
within the company.
A total of five exercises were
designed so that the individual contrib-
utor candidates could be assessed at
least twice on each competency and
each candidate would be observed
by multiple assessors — an internal
line manager, human resources and a
coach from the consulting company.
(See Figure 2.) The exercises included
business relevant, competency-based
interviews, group discussion, role
play, case study and other simula-
tions; each task was equally weighted.
All of the exercises were based on
real-life business examples. The
center would run for a day and each
participant would receive a written
report and a personalized feedback
session for an hour with an assessor
after a few days.
The green boxes in Figure 2 show
the competency being assessed
in the exercise.
The assessors were selected from
the senior management team with
at least two years of tenure in the
company and were trained in advance
MGR Priorities
Deliver
Develop Results
and Attract Through Role Model
Talent Teamwork Values
april 2014  workspan | 59

[The program] helped
them identify learning
opportunities through this
structured process.
in a day-long session on how to
observe the behaviors and make an
assessment using the rating scale.
Each assessor was tested and vali-
dated by the external coach before
being confirmed as ready for assess-
ments. The final rating of participants
was arrived at through a discussion
between HR observers, assessors
and the coaches.
Participant selection was based on
past performance rating, manager
recommendation and aspiration to be
a people manager.
Outcome
The company ran three assessment
center pilots, and 24 individual
contributors were taken through the
assessments. In all, 12 senior line
managers and the HR team were
trained as assessors. After the pilots
were completed, four of the indi-
vidual contributors were successfully
promoted as people managers and
received the increased compensation
awards. These people managers have
been successful and rated highly on
this competency by their managers
and employees. Two of the partici-
pants decided that they were not
interested in the people manager role
anymore and decided to stay as indi-
vidual contributors. The others are
keen aspirants for people manager
roles when these open up. All of the
participants found great value in the
experience and immense benefit for
their professional growth. It helped
them identify learning opportunities
through this structured process.
60  | workspan  april 2014
Positives
❙❙ Anecdotal feedback from the asses-
sors and participants was positive;
the assessors gained as much value
as the participants from the program.
❙❙ The four individual contribu-
tors who were promoted to
people management roles are
proving to be good managers.
❙❙ The assessors are now more aware of
what to look for in a people manager
and have asked to apply the assess-
ment center on existing managers to
identify developmental opportuni-
ties and weed out poor managers.
❙❙ The program highlighted oppor-
tunities for development planning
for all the participants, which they
have been working on in prepara-
tion for a future managerial role. In
addition, being recognized was of
tremendous value to the participants.
❙❙ The program also helped some
individual contributors decide that
the people manager role is not
appropriate to their skill set.
Concerns
❙❙ Large time commitment
from assessors, human
resources and participants
❙❙ Increased expectations for promo-
tions of the individual contributors
after participating in the assessment
center. Because the constraint is
available manager roles, promo-
tion timing cannot be predicted.
Next Steps
Given the positive advantages that
emerged from the three pilots and the
success of the people managers, the
program was launched globally in the
IT division.
Conclusion
Retaining and rewarding individual
contributors are common and critical
challenges in many companies. For
companies where technical expertise
is the centerpiece of their business
strategy, retaining and growing
specialists are issues of survival.
Within individual contributors,
many are needed who will grow to a
deeper specialization level and, hence,
they require a career ladder that
provides them monetary and status
rewards equivalent to the manage-
ment ladder. For those who will opt
to become people managers, there
needs to be a selection and develop-
ment process. Who better to lead
other specialists than a specialist?
Specialists gain instant credibility
with the team and can provide
on-the-job mentoring and coaching.
But as the company found out, not all
developers can become team leaders,
even if they aspire to become one.
It is critical for any company to
have a fair and objective selec-
tion process to promote individual
contributors to management and
provide feedback to all aspiring indi-
vidual contributors on their growth
areas. The assessment center provides
an objective process and tool that is
globally consistent.
These two solutions can help
rewards professionals address similar
challenges in their companies.
Rajiv Burman  Rajiv Burman is president
of Change2Succeed. He can be reached at
burman7@yahoo.ca.
resources plus
For more information, books and
education related to this topic, log
on to www.worldatwork.org and
use any or all of these keywords:
❙❙ “Employee assessment”
❙❙ Competencies
❙❙ Attraction and retention.