| |
What is an assessment center, and what can participants expect?
What is an assessment center, and what can participants expect?
An assessment center is like a flight simulator, where individuals have an opportunity to test their skills in a controlled environment. In our assessment centers, we work with our client partners to create a very realistic “role” within an organizational structure that mirrors the participants’ work life. About 8-10 participants will attend at one time, and all are given a thorough introduction at the beginning of the day. The participants are all given the task of performing a certain role and they then spend “a day in the life” of that role. Each has a schedule of meetings that they must attend, and often a series of assignments (e.g. an “in basket” of memos that must be responded to, voice mails, etc.). Meanwhile, they prepare for their scheduled meetings by reading background information that has been carefully prepared to equip them to handle the meetings. Depending on the client company’s business needs, the participant’s meetings might involve holding a coaching session with an employee, giving a presentation, or hosting or participating in a team meeting. At scheduled times during the day, role players will knock on the door, and the participant begin the simulation by “jumping right into the role.” Typically the simulation will last 15-20 minutes. During the session professional assessors are carefully tracking the participant’s behaviors. Participants are provided feedback about their performance and typically will work with the assessor to create a development plan, once their strengths and areas for development are identified. Unless otherwise requested, participants also typically receive an Assessment Report.
What is an Assessment Report?
An Assessment Report is a summary of feedback, describing the participants’ strengths and areas for development. This summary typically gives detailed behavioral feedback regarding the individuals’ performance in the Assessment Center . Depending on the client organization’s needs, numerous other points of feedback can also be integrated into the Assessment Report. These might include information from selected assessment instruments, feedback from a 360° survey, or results of a job knowledge interview.
Who receives the Assessment Report?
Client organizations decide how the reports are used, and who may see the reports. Some clients use the assessment reports strictly for development, and the reports are only given to the participants. In other instances, managers and Human Resources receive copies. Spectrum Leadership Partners works with clients to ensure that whatever the decision, the uses are clearly communicated to the participants.
Are all Assessment Centers the same?
No, in fact, that is the beauty of Assessment Centers. They are among the most flexible forms of leadership and management development. Assessment Centers may include one-on-one simulations (such as a coaching session), team simulations (a team planning session), videotaped sessions (which provide invaluable development), telephone/videoconference simulations (to address virtual team issues), and in-basket exercises (reading memos and responding to them, responding to voicemails). Assessment Centers can include training modules integrated among the simulations, or training immediately preceding or following the Center. Assessment Centers can be coupled with 360° surveys, job knowledge interviews, and assessment instruments (such as; Meyer Briggs MBTI, Hogan, OPQ etc.) to provide rich and invaluable feedback. Spectrum Leadership Partners prefers to include follow-on coaching, beyond the Assessment Center , which helps to anchor newly learned skills.
What are the benefits to the organization?
Assessment Centers provide high impact and cost effective opportunities for organizational and individual job-relevant assessment and learning. In addition to building the leadership strength of participants, thematic data from assessment centers provides organizations with a landscape of training needs that creates a foundation for development and succession planning.
How are the simulations created?
Spectrum Leadership Partners works closely with our partners in the client organization identify the specific competency areas the organization wishes to assess (e.g., coaching, building relationships and influencing, etc.). We identify typical scenarios in which the participants demonstrate those competencies (such as giving a presentation, negotiating with a difficult client, facilitating a planning meeting). We work with our client partners to create extremely realistic scenarios that have high face validity among participants.
What are the latest developments in and uses of Assessment Center technology?
We are seeing that, more and more, companies are using Assessment Centers as a tool to address critical business issues. Clients faced with impending change will use an assessment center to rapidly gain an understanding of its organizations current talents and to give its leaders a springboard to help develop the new skills needed to face the new challenges. Assessment Centers are also being used to address skill issues that are best learned experientially. For example, clients are also using assessment centers to address global team issues – helping leaders in the US to better understand and communicate with international counterparts, and vice-versa. We find that training alone and coaching alone are not enough to address the more intricate challenges global organizations face.
| 
|
