February Newsletter
In this issue
We continue our exposé in the area of Best Practice and this month we would like to introduce to you a technique called Appreciative Inquiry and give you a glimpse into the strategies employed by other organisations looking for performance improvements, through best practice.
For those engaged in high volume recruitment campaigns, assessing large numbers of candidates capabilities quickly and accurately is still problematic. There are some partial solutions to this problem and we have a service for you that goes further than most.
In response to the high levels of interest in Situational Judgement, we are offering you an opportunity to learn more about them by becoming involved in designing and developing an example.
In other news, we would like to draw your attention to an event that we are both organising and speaking at - it's about Talent Management and its connection with e-learning and we will be joined by some leading lights in the industry. Also, one of our clients is changing its recruitment strategy relating to Customer Services staff.
We hope you enjoy this newsletter and if you would like to discuss any items within it, please contact me, Ian Lee-Emery on 0118 989 3555.
Appreciative Inquiry - a technique for extraordinary results
We often help our clients discover best practice from within the experiences of their own staff and then use this as a basis for performance improvement initiatives.
Some will recognise this technique known as Appreciative Inquiry and we think that there are three reasons why it’s worth finding out more about it:
- it uncovers what problem-solving or trouble-shooting processes often fail to see
- it is a positive experience for staff involved in such a method and this heightens employee engagement
- the outputs of the process encounter less friction when it comes to implementing their findings.
You can find out more about how this technique can and has been used in our article here.
Get involved - join a virtual team to design a Situational Judgement Test
We are bringing together interested parties to begin a project to develop Situational Judgment Tests. This will be a 'sales-free' environment where you will learn about when to use them and how they are developed by joining a project team and playing your part in decision-making, review and design. We expect that this unique experience will be valuable and the team will work 'virtually' to allow the highest levels of participation possible. Contact us here to let us know you are interested and we will keep you posted.
Assessment Centres - The headache of marking candidates' papers
It's a challenge - faced with hundreds of papers to mark, completed by expectant candidates for a 'high stakes' test. Of course you could use experienced assessors but it's hardly an efficient use of their (expensive) time. You could do it, possibly supported by an extended team if the test developer allows it, but the scoring forms can be complex. Some more sophisticated scoring models require assessors to 'do some maths' with the candidates' answers, creating further opportunities for error. If you have commissioned a bespoke test, you might feel even more 'committed' to the test provider. And of course the data has to be 'normalised' for accurate comparison and a basis and means are needed for making distinctions between candidates that looks behind the final score alone.
We have a solution to these problems - whether your test is conducted on-line or paper-based, whether it is scored simply or uses mathematical calculations, we have a service that will score your papers, create the 'data pool' and provide the tools to analyse it. It will happen quickly too, with rigorous quality control and you won't believe the price per test scored! Contact us to find out more.
Best practice - capturing and modelling
Read an extract of our report for The Best Practice Club on the strategies used to capture techniques from 'better practitioners' in organisations together with tactics to draw people in to share their ideas - successful organisations have made this an ongoing process and more than just an event.
Product trial - Talent Insight™ 3.0
Following our announcement last month of the new release of Talent Insight™ 3.0, we would like to offer you the opportunity to try it out without charge. Its no-nonsense approach appeals to 'practical' managers more familiar with the demands of the job than competence framework theory.
To make the experience as useful as possible, we will work with you to define the competences of 3 roles and create a look and feel for the application that reflects your organisation. You'll then have a month to experiment and pilot.
If you decide that Talent Insight™ 3.0 is for you, we will apply a discount to any implementation fees. There are of course a few terms and conditions, but nothing that would get in the way.
Contact us here to discuss this further with you.
Let us know here if this is of no interest to you.
Other news
Talent Management event
Alex Welsh is speaking at the next e-learning network event entitled 'How does e-learning aid Talent Management' being held on March 30 in London. Other speakers include Jane Smith, Head of Learning and Development at Mouchel Parkman. To find out more please visit www.elearningnetwork.org
Situational Judgement Tests
We are pleased to announce that Medtronic, the global leader in medical technology, has asked us to develop bespoke on-line Situational Judgement Tests to improve the quality of candidates entering the recruitment process for roles in Customer Services. Contact us for more information.
Web Site Resources
If you didn't make it to our site last month, here's a reminder of the resources that are available to you, with our compliments:
Change Management Health Check Tool
Communications Health Check Tool
Executive Briefing on Situational Judgement Tests
NEW - E-learning costing framework
If this newsletter is the first you have seen, past issues can be found on our web site in Media Activity.