Assessment Centers

Improving the Performance of Managers and Professionals using Assessment Center Technology: A new breed of leadership development tools for the new millennium!

Robert W. Adams
AIMM Consulting

For years assessment centers have been used in organizations to help hire, promote, and retain the best individuals based on the requirements of the target position(s). Many organizations use them today successfully including a large percentage of Fortune 500 corporations and federal, state, and local government agencies. The process is the most effective selection, promotional, and training tool ever developed. No class, seminar or workshop offers such immediate, targeted application supporting leadership assessment and development for operational managers and other professionals. Users and practitioners value assessment centers for their content validity, predictive accuracy, objectivity, and relevance to the demands of the job, if not for their overall utility and cost effectiveness.

The foundation of the technology is a thorough job analysis including identification of the critical functions and competencies required for successful job performance. The methodology involves identifying what a person must do to succeed in the real world (the job analysis), developing instruments (business simulations or role plays, interviews, skills and ability tests) to measure a person's ability to perform the critical skills or competencies needed to succeed, and training a group of individuals to process and evaluate the results in an accurate, fair, and objective manner.

One of the many benefits of a quality assessment program is the diagnosis and development of information about a person's job-related strengths and weaknesses. More and more organizations are recognizing the value of the process to expertly manage their talent and identify training needs, for individuals and for groups. Organizations are seeking programs that incorporate the strengths of earlier selection programs-job relatedness, performance demonstration, and impartiality-with a focus on development, lowered costs, and faster turnaround times. Assessment practitioners have listened and responded by incorporating exciting new technology (e.g., internet-based programs, more realistic, experiential work simulations) and designing assessment-based development programs with cost effectiveness and value added services in mind. They have also focused their design efforts on competencies that have emerged in the new information age, e.g., IT readiness, results-based leadership, critical thinking. The result is a breed of affordable and powerful assessment programs and instruments that focus on developing the organization and the individual to cope and manage in a competitive and ever-changing environment.

Developmental assessment centers are now being used to help organizations:

develop high-performing, productive employees, leaders, executives, and work teams,
manage and maximize their enterprise-wide talent resources,
reduce training costs by diagnosing individual and team training needs,
gain flexibility and speed by using internet-based, anywhere-anytime assessment services,
provide employees with individualized development plans generated by computer or online methods,
transform organizational culture,
promote self-discovery and willingness to change in employees,
improve succession planning,
improve performance management activities by using best practice standards and models of success, and
give all employees a common language to be used in dialogue with others.