In many cases, the potential of employees is also assessed by direct superiors. Their recommendation may be biased. 

Comparable findings about external candidates are usually not available. Their potential in the targeted environment only becomes visible on the basis of the application documents submitted and, under certain circumstances, is deepened by an interview. 

Therefore, a comparison of internal and external candidates is not easy. Decision makers can be biased due to the better knowledge of the internal candidates, which is why a standardized and neutral assessment is recommended in such situations. 

The neutral assessment based on the same assessment approach enables a meaningful comparison of the candidates’ potentials. Due to the professional execution, an assessment on a neutral basis provides comparability and helps you to communicate transparently to your candidates.

Our approach to assessment

In such situations we often propose a half-day assessment in the following structure:

(Online) personality tests

With the help of a psychological test instrument, such as the OPQ 32, a profile is established. This test instrument includes 32 personality traits in three personality dimensions that provide information on individual work behavior. The OPQ32 also provides insight into how aspects of employees’ individual behavior affect their performance at work.

Competency-based interview

Here, the findings of the online personality test are explored in greater depth. The focus is on the candidate’s competencies. How did you lead your team through a difficult project? How did you motivate co-workers for unpopular projects and tasks? Questions are asked with regard to the specific competencies sought in the vacant position.

Presentation / Self-Presentation

The goal of the presentation exercise is to accurately capture the content of a given topic in the short time available and to convey it to the audience in a convincing manner in terms of presentation. As a rule, this involves the elaboration of technical viewpoints and proposed solutions and their argumentative foundation. This requirement also applies to the self-presentation, in which the speaker should present himself convincingly in terms of career, understanding of the tasks of the desired position and motivation for the new activity.

Role play

The role play is another central element in an assessment and serves to validate the results of the competency-based interview. In practical exercises, the candidate’s behavior in a real conflict situation and under time pressure can be directly observed. 

What are the advantages of our assessments?

The professional execution provides a neutral assessment of the candidate. You gain comparability on social, self-assessment and leadership competencies. Strengths and weaknesses of internal as well as external candidates are revealed from an unbiased point of view. This provides you with clear recommendations for filling the position. If desired, statements are also made for targeted support and development measures.

Der Beitrag Comparability based on a neutral assessment erschien zuerst auf OTP.

With the increasing complexity of IT systems, the job of IT service technicians in contact with customers is changing fundamentally. In service, social and communication skills, in addition to technical know-how, are becoming more and more important for the company’s business success. 

One of OTP’s customers, an IT firm, planned to promote its highly qualified service specialists by professionalizing their customer service skills.

Background: Because this company’s service technicians work with complex e-commerce systems, the “just be friendly all the time” approach to service is not sufficient. Customers increasingly need proactive advice on how to get the most out of the systems. In challenging situations – malfunctions, time delays, system failures, customer anger – the service technicians should also be able to communicate in a professional manner so as not to create problems for further the cooperation with the customers.

The IT company wanted the IT technicians to have command of the communication tools needed to actively shape a positive customer relationship in the scope of their service activity. This includes a customer-focused and benefit-oriented argumentation, taking a de-escalating approach in crisis situations, and binding the customer to the service provider through a professional approach in discussions and presentations. 

The OTP program: starting with an individual assessment of the situation

The “Consulting Competence” training program, developed by OTP, comprises various modules that extend over six months. The first step is an individual competence-oriented assessment of the participants. Then, the various aspects of consulting competence are trained and practically applied based on theoretical background information and exercises.

The assessment is the basis and the key for the learning process in the training program. The behavioral styles of the participants are analyzed, and a forecast is made of how their behavioral characteristics will affect the desired consulting activity in IT service. This gives a picture in which competencies the participants have their strengths and in which they would need special support from the training program (e.g., through exercises in the seminar, through personal feedback, and through coaching). 

Tool for the assessment of the current situation: OPQ32

The assessment tool used by OTP is the digital test OPQ32 (“Occupational Personality Questionaire”). This test evaluates 32 personality traits in three personality dimensions that provide information about individual work behavior. The high accuracy of this assessment tool is internationally recognized.

The test consists of 107 questions measuring 32 specific personality traits. There are no right or wrong answers. Traits that are desirable for some tasks and positions may be detrimental for others.

The OPQ32 gives companies insight into how aspects of employees’ individual behavior affect their performance on the job. In the context of human resource development, the test can be used for a wide variety of objectives, whether it is to align the internal career promotion (as in the present case), for internal career management, for evaluating the talent pool, or for evaluating applicants as part of an assessment.

Personality dimensions of the OPQ32

The analysis of the OPQ 32 is focused on the following three dimensions:

Outcome of OPQ32 use: Individualized learning. 

The assessment at the start of the training program was first analyzed with all participants in one-hour individual meetings. In this analysis, the participants were encouraged to focus on their strengths and weaknesses. They determined individually in which areas they personally saw a particular need for learning. For her part, the training leader and coach was able to use this exchange to determine for each participant the specific learning objectives that needed to be worked on in the training and the individual coaching.

In particular, the OPQ32 analysis made it possible to track and reflect the continuous progress and results of each participant over the course of the training and coaching – e.g., professionalization of presentation skills. Using specific checklists for the different areas of competence – presentation, rhetoric, consultative selling, conflict management, leading discussions, understanding of business roles – the personal learning progress was determined in a before-and-after analysis and future learning areas were identified. In addition, it was also possible to determine the specific strengths of each participant in respect to his or her approach to the customer.

Last but not least, the test results of the OPQ32 also gave the supervisors the opportunity to evaluate on site with the customer the work of their collaborators in the ongoing appraisal meetings and to define goals for employee development.

Overall, working with the OPQ32 test tool proved to be extremely fruitful for the IT company, its employees and managers. For its part and on the basis of many years of work with personality assessment, OTP was able to open up another interesting use of this job-related personality test as part of the training program.

Der Beitrag Employee development: Assessment with the OPQ32 personality test erschien zuerst auf OTP.

OTP’s support for agile HR, as well as for the transformation process of the organization as a whole, includes coaching, workshops, development centers and also assessments. Experience shows that the transformation of the organizational model is not only a system change, but also requires personal development on the part of all involved, as is recognized, for example, in a report on Swisscom’s experience with the “experiment” Holocracy. (Blog post University of St. Gallen)

The challenge in moving to a new holocratic form of organization is to introduce new forms of collaboration and decision-making.

It is characterized by the fact that there are no longer bosses in the traditional sense, but everyone is responsible for performing their roles themselves. There is, however, the Domain Guardian, who is responsible for ensuring that responsibilities are carried out and that the goals of the domain are achieved.

The customer request

A Swiss foundation asked us to support and accelerate the process of changing from a hierarchical organizational structure to an agile network organization – in this case a holocratic organizational structure – by conducting an employee audit. An assessment of personality, acting in group (processes) and professional competencies should be conducted for all employees.

Those who work in an agile manner need transparent rules and a clear distribution of roles, as is the case with holocracy and Scrum. Employees can take on several roles, and decision-making authority is also distributed among several people. Thus, self-management competencies as well as a changed understanding of leadership prove to be important success factors in this process.

Our assessment

The questions of the assessment were geared towards

• identifying the given competencies and strengths (professional, social) of the employees
• determining the development needs and perspectives of the employees in relation to the foundation’s objectives
• identifying the development potential of employees in relation to the role requirements in the domains.
• creating a basis for the final allocation of roles, and if necessary, a new allocation of certain roles.

In order to clearly capture the profiles of the employees with regard to these requirements, three personality-related analyses were prepared by OTP for all employees:

• – an analysis of the personality structure based on the Big Five personality model
• – an analysis of work behavior based on 32 job-related behavioral characteristics
• – an analysis of role preference in teamwork, i.e., also in the domains to be established, based on eight classic role expressions.

The results were discussed individually with one of the assessors in each case, as well as analyzed and deepened psychologically together. Subsequently, these results formed the basis for a clarification process among the employees (workshops). In these workshops, the optimal roles in the individual domains (formerly departments) were evaluated and decided by the employees according to their personality profiles and professional competencies. This procedure led to an empowerment of the assessment participants.

All employees were provided with their 3 analyses in a written report. These reports were not available for the management of the foundation. Only an (anonymized) overview of the given distribution of role characteristics of all employees was made available with the consent of all employees.

The result

The results of the assessments led to a groundbreaking reflection by the employees on their current position in the reorganization process and their preferred role in the domains. They developed action steps and plans for their further work and appearance in the upcoming domain processes. The assessments initiated the reflection process on their own self-image in the new work setting. New personal development plans were defined and the foundations were laid for empathetic interaction with each other in the domains.

The management was very satisfied with the results of the assessment project. In a follow-up step, the results of the assessments served as the basis for the domains’ development workshops, in which they clarified and defined their rules and forms of cooperation.

Der Beitrag Implementing an agile corporate organization erschien zuerst auf OTP.

This enables us to evaluate not only the job-relevant competencies but also, in particular, the personality aspects and behavior-determining values of a person. We had such a case with a company from the watch industry, in which the internal succession plan of the CEO was to be confirmed and, if necessary, supporting measures were to be proposed.

The promotion of suitable internal candidates offers numerous advantages, in particular the appreciation and development of human capital. At the same time, the savings in time and resources are also significant, as the candidate does not have to be recruited first and already knows the company with its culture, values, and processes. This significantly shortens the familiarization period. However, in order to avoid miscasting and related frustrations as much as possible, it is very important to carefully evaluate hard and soft skills and especially the candidate’s attitudes and values.

The request of our client

In the context of this internal succession plan, the board of directors asked us to provide a detailed assessment of the proposed candidate based on an assessment center and in particular:

• To evaluate the relevant competencies and skills, but also his attitudes and values with regard to this task. 
• To identify his strengths and weaknesses so that the candidate, in case of promotion, can continue to develop positively.
• To formulate recommendations for concrete actions so that the assumption of the new function can be implemented in the best possible conditions.

Our assessment

The first part consisted in carrying out a personality inventory and a leadership behavior assessment test. These tests aim to identify the candidate’s strengths and development needs compared to a broad reference population. These tests were administered online prior to the face-to-face event.

The second part, which took place on-site, consisted of various exercises conducted by our team of experienced assessors. We select these on a case-by-case basis with regard to the function and specific situation of each mandate. In this case, this second phase included:

• A structured interview to analyze the candidate’s background, values, and expectations.
• A role-play to manage a crisis under stress, in order to evaluate his management skills and behavioral preferences.
• The presentation of his vision of the company to assess his view on the CEO role he is aiming for.
• An interview to evaluate the two tests previously conducted.

Our results

The assessment conducted allowed us to confirm the candidate’s strengths for the targeted position. Thus, we were able to establish that the candidate:

• draws on sound analytical skills to make a decision. He has a proven ability to quickly grasp complex situations in a logical, systemic, and rational manner. He or she does not disregard any detail, looks at every element, and hypothesizes based on sound reasoning. Then takes care to enlist the support of others. Based on this, he quickly proposes a structured action plan.
• Has a very good resistance to stress. His main sources of stress are: an overly insecure work environment, boredom, and lack of follow-through. In these cases, he may become anxious and careless in his decisions.
• Has a great need for structure and organization. His very good stress resistance and great emotional stability make him very pleasant to deal with.
• can be perceived as inauthentic and very reserved. He sometimes appears as someone who has difficulty empathizing with others and dealing with emotional situations.
• Has a rigidity-based, rather directive leadership. He sets the course, giving more weight to tangible elements than less tangible ones. 

We also made our client aware of the values that are important to his flourishing:

• His desire to balance professional career and family life.
• His desire to participate in an ambitious and sustainable project where his word carries weight. 
• His need for independence and entrepreneurship.

Our recommendation

Based on the assessment, we identified a need for development in better onboarding employees with a clear and personal vision of the company. By being a role model of the company values he can share his human side and show emotion. Our recommendation was to accompany the candidate in developing these competencies through coaching.

The positive decision

Based on our report and a feedback meeting between the various people involved, the appointment of our candidate as CEO was confirmed by the Board of Directors, along with a transition period and coaching. We are convinced that all factors for a smooth transition are in place. This will enable the company to continue its development successfully!

Der Beitrag Assessment – Internal succession planning for the CEO erschien zuerst auf OTP.