Topic 3 - Talent Assessment Flashcards
What are the core differences between inclusive and exclusive TM?
Interpersonal excellence = exclusive talent (comparison between people). Being the best amongst your peers. What is the best employee for this task?
Intrapersonal excellence = inclusive talent (comparison within people)
Being the best version of yourself
What task is better for this specific employee? (where do they excel?)
Why is exclusive talent assessment relevant?
Talent pool: select employees (internal vs external) that later can fulfil a certain role
Strong focus on potential
Can try to predict potential based on some performance indicators
E.g.: traineeship,
By selecting them, according to the organization they deserve more resources since they will be prepared to take on a role in the future.
Open positions: select talented employees to fill open positions
Strong focus on performance but also thinks on potential (to stay in the organization long term)
what is talent assessment in an exclusive talent approach?
By focusing on potential. Done when selecting employees for talent pool (not open positions but a pool of people that can latter fill them). Internal or external sourcing.
By focusing on performance: Used when selecting employees to fill open positions (internal or external sourcing)
What is potential
Capability of taking on future roles with broader, more challenging responsibilities or/and at a higher level in the hierarchy. Involves long-term planning. Not limited to one specific position.
How to measure potential?
Issue:How to measure something that is not yet there? Potential assessment: ability to identify potential. Critical competitive advantage in the marketplace (easier to predict than to fight for already talented people)
What are the methods for measuring potential in practice?
Assessment and development centres: combination of exercises (e.g., roleplaying, discussions or simulations).
External assessment tools => Need to be careful (some exercises are not evidence-based/scientifically based)
Company self-developed assessment methods => Can be tailored to own organization but requires a lot of work
360-degree employee feedback assessment: for people that already work at your organization.
Ask different people in the environment to assess the developmental potential of someone.
Can include customers, supervisors, colleagues, etc
What is Silzer and Church’s contribution?
Three Dimensions of Potential:
Foundational dimensions: consistent and stable. Unlikely to develop or change. Cognitive and personality
Growth dimension: facilitate or hinder growth and development in other areas. Learning and motivation.
Career specific: Career dimension: early indicators of later career skills. Leadership, performance,knowledge and values.
What is the framework built on potential and performance?
Question marks (low performance, high potential): try and make into a star. Giveadvice for development.
Deadwood (low performance and potential): try to make into a workhorse (increase theirperformance). Fire if there is no improvement.
Workhorses (high performance, low potential): little potential for promotion.Should motivate them to retain current performance. Invest in retention.
Stars (high performance and potential): high added value. Potential successor ofcritical roles. Accelerate development. Invest in retention.
In which category should you invest the most in?
Rising stars (high potential and medium performance)
Why can potential assessment be dangerous?
often lead to very homogenous talent pools with untapped potential (overlooked people due to biases).
What are some dangers when assessing potential?
One-sided focus on leadership qualities: potential is very tied to leadership skills which are still viewed as more masculine traits => biased talent pool
Similar to me bias: we tend to like people similar to us => need a diverse committee to counteract the bias.
Age bias: older people have less potential.
Limited dependence on qualities assessed: likeability
How you assess people is heavily dependent on likeability (you sometimes assess how much you like a person instead of how talented she is)
Limited systematic approach: I know talent when I see it/x-factor thinking.
People think they have no biases, and if they see talent they will no => don’t engage in a systematic approach.
Politically coloured: biased by personal interests and power differences
Can select people with similar visions as you (you know they will support your vision in the future)
How do you avoid biases when assessing potential?
Include various stakeholder in defining and identifying talent: an heterogeneous assessment committee is not enough. Need an heterogeneous group to define it first.
Organize calibration sessions: heterogeneous group of people => talk about it and come to a consensus.
Train assessors to see bias
Build in standardization and repetition (good to make sure people remain with high potential)
Consider which talents are pivotal: often seen as leadership but different companies/roles require different types of talent.
Allow for self-nomination: might be overlooking people.
Ensure equal opportunity for access
Create procedures to raise unfairness
Make procedures transparent: have to justify everything => need to think in debt about actions + easier to voice unfairness.
What are Silzer & Church’s (2009) view on when you should assess potential?
When do we assess what differs per dimension (common vs career specific)
When can we expect what: differs per dimension
Career specific: what do you expect from someone at the beginning of their career is not the same from what you expect from someone at a later stage
Contextual influences of what becomes visible/lays dormant (e.g., if the person just doesn’t fit the organization)
Particular important for growth dimension
What are key themes for a talent assessment focused on performance?
Predictors of performance (e.g., general mental ability)
Personality characteristics (additional predictors)
Person-organization fit (P-O)
What is an important item in talent assessment methods that focus on performance?
Predictive validity: most important aspect of assessment methods is their ability to predict future performance, job-related learning and other criteria.
High => good assessment tool for performance!
What assessment methods have the highest predictive validity?
GMA (general mental ability) tests
GMA combined with
Work sample tests
Integrity tests
Conscientiousness tests
Employment interviews (structured)
Why is GMA so special in personnel assessment?
High validity + low costs
Not limited to specific candidates
Overwhelming research evidence
Predicts job knowledge and job-related learning (even more important nowadays)
But cons:
Bias: IQ tests (which GMA has) are also dependent on culture (white people tend to perform higher than other races)
What other individual characteristics are related to performance asides from GMA?
Personality aspects such as
Conscientiousness
Experience
What is adaptive performance?
proficiency with which an individual alters his or her behavior in response to the demands of a new task, event, situation, or environmental constraints (how adaptable you are)
What are predictors of adaptive performance?
Emotional stability (positive predictor)
Extraversion
Ambition (positive predictor)
Sociability (negative predictor)
What personality type is related to performance positively?
Proactive personality: a stable disposition to take personal initiative in a broad range of activities and situations
Positive relationship with overall performance: people with proactive personality overall perform better
Alongside Conscientiousness
Is KSI enough for high performance?
No => Importance of organizational fit (fit between individual personality, beliefs and values and organisational culture, norms and values)
Proven to lead to higher:
* Affective commitment
* Job satisfaction
* Task performance
* OCB
and Lower turnover intentions
What are the dangers of selecting based on fit?
continuously recruiting the same employees (who do not challenge the organization)
How do you assess inclusive talent?
Strength surveys:
Values in action (VIA), classification of strengths related to character (24)
Occupational strengths
Strengths survey: empirical based survey of 22 strengths focused on field work, that employees can identify with.
Clifton strengths assessment (34) more consultancy related, with less evidence.
Reflected best self-exercise: 360o feedback exercise. Question people in your environment to describe situation where you performed at your personal best. Take feedback => see patterns => determine what is your best.
Feedforward interviews:
Goals: enrich interviewers’ knowledge of interviewee’s strengths and conditions that facilitate expression of those strengths.
Facilitate positive change by sparking self-evaluation of one’s current behaviour and plans in relation to one’s strengths and proven practice
Build and improve relationship (new/existing) between interviewer and interviewee)
