Development and Implementation of an Assessment Center

As a method of performance evaluation and prediction, the assessment center provides individuals unique opportunities to participate in multiple situational exercises that serve as snapshots of the job. These exercises commonly take the form of an in-basket simulation, business game, role play, oral presentation, written exercise, and leaderless group exercise. Because assessment centers are known to predict supervisory and managerial performance, HumRRO often develops them for organizations to select or promote employees into first-level supervisor or mid-level manager positions. As powerful developmental tools, HumRRO's assessment centers are also used as a component of a succession planning program or to select candidates into a career development program.

HumRRO uses a customized approach when developing assessment centers that reflects the organization's environment, mission, values, and goals, while remaining mindful of the client's time and resource constraints. The exercises are developed following a content-validity approach to capture the important requirements of the job. In one project, HumRRO developed and implemented two separate full-day assessment centers for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Each assessment center included four exercises, and was designed to identify qualified special agents for promotion either to the first-level supervisor or to the mid-level manager position. Written feedback was provided to each candidate. HumRRO developed these processes in response to a court order, and worked under the guidance of an established oversight committee.

HumRRO has developed and implemented several assessment processes for other agencies including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Social Security Administration (SSA). In keeping with our goal, these processes were tailored to meet the needs of the client and designed to provide the requisite decision-making information. In some cases, the assessment centers were a key component in a promotion process. In other instances, they served as an evaluation tool for selecting candidates into a career development program. The assessment centers developed for these agencies ranged in length from one-half to a full day, and included two to four job simulations. HumRRO provided rigorous training to the assessors and administrators involved in these processes, and prepared written for the candidates.

In terms of the preparation, administration, and analysis of an assessment center, HumRRO has developed standardized procedures to ensure the security of the test material and efficient and effective implementation of the process. HumRRO designs, develops, and conducts comprehensive training for all assessors/role players to ensure the simulations are administered in a standardized manner, and uses clear and appropriate evaluation criteria. Because test security is paramount, HumRRO has established tracking procedures that minimize the opportunity for an exercise to be compromised. We also have produced tailored reports designed to communicate important performance feedback to each individual candidate.

When analyzing assessment center data, HumRRO focuses on the client's needs and concerns. In addition to performing traditional descriptive and correlational analyses, HumRRO has evaluated group differences (e.g., gender, race, assignments) and potential differences based on exercise version, exercise order, and day of testing, among other things.

In general, HumRRO adheres to the following guidelines when developing and implementing assessment centers:

• We base competencies measured by the assessment center on results of a job analysis.
• We design exercises to allow multiple opportunities for candidates to display (and assessors to observe) behavior related to each relevant competency.
• We develop multiple exercises to measure as many of the relevant competencies as possible.
• We provide a systematic and standard procedure for assessors to record their observations of candidates' behavior and/or responses.
• We use multiple assessors to evaluate each candidate on each exercise. Assessors are thoroughly trained on the process, exercises, and rating procedures. The process allows for an overall assessment score to be derived for each candidate (assessors participate in a consensus meeting or a statistical process is applied).