Assessment and Development Center
Develop employee weaknesses and turn them into strengths
SKILLDOM provides consulting in the space of Organizational Development, Talent Management, Talent Development and Talent Engagement.
Introduction
Since 1950’s, Assessment and Development Centers (ADC’s) have been used to predict capability. SKILLDOM has been conducting ACDC’s since 2011 for many of its client organizations for a variety of purposes. At a broad level, these have been in the area of promotions, development of individuals, selection of talent in mergers and acquisitions, identification of high-potential individuals and career management.
SKILLDOM has scientifically attempted to develop tools and methods to assess capability of individuals and stand out as an alternate to assessment agencies in the market today. Using both conventional comparative methodology and technology based individual assessment through role-played business simulations; SKILLDOM is fast establishing itself as a reliable and proven ACDC partner for organizations. With our strong tooling and construct, robust processes, and highly trained assessors and integrators, we provide high predictive validity.
What is Assessment and Development Center?
An Assessment center is basically a series of assessments carried out using several techniques like simulation, psychometric test and exercises to take critical selection decisions for recruitment, promotions and appraisals. Assessment Centre is majorly used for Evaluation.
A Development center as the name suggests is conducted only for the developmental purposes of the employees. Development Center is majorly used to bridge the gap with suitable Individual development plan.
Two Types of AC’s – DC’s
A. Comparative Center
- For Junior to middle management roles.
- Individual and group exercises are conducted to a similar group of individuals.
- A group of SKILLDOM assessors observe the candidates on organizational competencies or SKILLDOM Capability Dimensions.
- Group and individual reports are provided.
- Duration: 8 hours
B.Individual Center
- For Senior or Unique roles.
- A series of individual exercises wrapped in an extended business simulation are conducted along with a test group of role players.
- The entire sequence is recorded on a video set-up.
- A group of SKILLDOM assessors observe the videos and map behaviors on organizational competencies or SKILLDOM Capability Dimensions.
- Group and individual reports are provided.
- Duration : 3 hours 30 minutes
Tools used for ACDC
Comparative Centre |
Individual Centre |
| Individual Exercises | Individual Exercises |
|
• Case study analysis and presentation. • In-basket exercises – analysis and discussion. • Role Plays |
• Complex business simulations with multiple exercises with role plays, played by a test group.
|
| Team Exercises | Team Exercises |
| • Syndicate Discussions
• Business Simulations |
NA |
Assessment & Development Centers | 7 Benefits
- Superior reliability than traditional interviewing & selection methods
- Highly Adaptable to all types of positions, assignments and situations
- Fair, Objective, Transparent, Engaging with high Acceptance across the board
- Focuses on what a person can do and not what the person knows!
- Widely accepted and favored by the participants & candidates
- Can be used for multiple purposes such as to identify organizational deficiencies.
- A legitimate source of feedback to candidates
SKILLDOM’s view on Assessment and Development Centers
In our experience and that of our clients, the AC – DC approach to talent management supersedes any approach that currently exists to measure human capability dimensions (competencies) and to predict potential. Research from various sources such as CIPD UK, have stated that classical selection methods such as an interview have an accuracy of only 15% whereas a well-designed and administered AC takes this accuracy to 60%*
A scientifically designed SKILLDOM Assessment center can ensure you to:
- Get the best talent from a pool of similarly placed talent
- Predict high-potentials from the talent pool with high accuracy
- Have a superior engagement with the talent pool
- Implement a more focused and specific talent development program
- Select talent through a standardized process that correlates with organizational talent strategy
SKILLDOM Assessment Standards
Consultants, psychologists and practitioners at SKILLDOM, have rigorously studied the 6 decades of global research and practices in designing and conducting ACDC’s. SKILLDOM clearly understands the need for creating valid assessment and development centers and hence puts in considerable effort to create a process with tools that have high accuracy and give the predictive validity that organization need to make people based decisions.
- All SKILLDOM assessors go through extensive and rigorous training on observation, recording, classification and integration of behaviors.
- Validated behavioral standards are provided in the form of a competency dictionary that aids all SKILLDOM assessors to classify a behavior to a competency behavior indicator.
- For all comparative centers SKILLDOM ensures that there is an Assessment Administrator and the ratio of Assessors to participants is 1:2, wherein there is one assessor for two participants. Assessors provide for evidences for each competency and integrate them after every event with co-assessors.
- SKILLDOM ensures that all biases are kept to the minimum with no personal interaction between the assessors and the participants.
- All assessors ensure that a rigorous process is used for integration and a consensus in arrived at using strong compelling evidences and not only human judgment.
- Validity of tool and related dimensions that they are to observe are repeatedly checked through reliability studies. If assessors are unable to observe evidences for the behavioral Indicators, then the exercises are dropped or modified till it evokes the desired behaviors.
Some of the stated effective outcomes of the SKILLDOM ACDC are:
- Changed positive perception about self
- Breaking delimiting perceptions
- Clearer understanding of personal skills, strengths and concerns
- Knowing ways to develop self
- Taking charge of one’s own development
- Becoming effective managers and leaders
The process also affects the motivation of participants positively. The study showed that 88% of the respondents felt motivated to work to improve on their abilities as they were now more aware of their capabilities. Feedback acceptance was 94% with respondents agreeing that the feedback was a true reflection of their ability at the workplace.
SKILLDOM observed a select group of participants and concluded that 92% of the test group (n= 49) showed significant improvement on the competencies when tested through the same process after 12 months. Of the 8 competencies that were observed, 6 showed significant improvement and 2 showed marginal improvements. The overall capability of the group increased by 86% over the previous ACDC results.
