Diversity: In the mix
Assessment can help to take prejudice out of selection processes, helping you to build a more diverse organisation. Anat Arkin explains how
Date:
08 October 2010
Source:
Guide to assessment
Page:
8
Past performance is no guarantee of future results – as any financial adviser will tell you. Yet many employers hire staff because they resemble people who have succeeded in the past, with the result that the best candidates are often overlooked, while white, male-dominated workplaces tend to stay that way.
By focusing on the demands of the jobs they are trying to fill, on the other hand, employers are not only likely to predict candidates’ performance more accurately but also to select people from a more diverse range of backgrounds. As Roger Philby, founder of assessment specialists The Chemistry Group, puts it: “If you introduce tools that hire the right person, you take bias out of the selection process.”
Philby, whose firm helped LexisNexis develop a new selection process (see case study, below), adds that the first stage in eliminating bias is to understand what “good” looks like for particular roles. That means identifying the values, behaviours, motivation and “intellectual horsepower” – rather than academic qualifications – needed, and assessing candidates against those requirements. If you do that, says Philby, “your selection process will be absolutely open to diversity because it won’t care about people’s looks, their colour or their academic background. All it will care about is identifying the right person for the role.”
Nigel Guenole, a research and leadership expert at HR solutions provider Kenexa, agrees that looking at a broad range of attributes makes assessment processes fairer and more reliable, but points out that no single test can do this. “So rather than focusing on one overall predictor such as IQ or cognitive ability, people need to start using a range of selection tools, such as interviews and work sample tests,” he says.
Employers are, of course, already using detailed interviews, assessment centres and similar tools to select graduates and senior staff. But the costs involved have generally discouraged the wider use of these techniques. However, according to Christine Parry, head of Kenexa’s leadership division, employers are beginning to use cost-effective alternatives, such as situational judgment tests. Developed by a number of test publishers, including Kenexa, these tests ask candidates what they would do in realistic work situations set out in videos or texts.
“In the past, one of the reasons that assessments have been biased is that in order to keep costs low, people have measured the things that are easy to measure,” Parry says. “However, they are not necessarily the right things, and traditionally you have had to use detailed assessment centres and interviewing techniques to get to the real criteria you are looking for, whereas situational judgment tests can be done very quickly and at relatively low cost, but provide a different way of assessing people.”
But as well as selecting the right tests, it is crucial to implement them properly, says Claire McCartney, CIPD adviser, resourcing and talent planning. “The best tests on the market are only as good as the process of which they form a part, and flawed decisions can be made based on sound and verifiable data,” she adds. “A well-designed policy on testing is therefore essential to ensure good practice and that the maximum benefits accrue from its use.”
This is especially important in relation to candidates with disabilities, who can be seriously disadvantaged by the way assessment techniques are applied. Debbie Kirby, a consultant at international assessment consultancy Cubiks, stresses that for both legal and ethical reasons, employers need to make reasonable adjustments to their testing procedures to accommodate candidates with disabilities. For example, those with dyslexia may struggle to answer test questions printed on a sheet of paper. “So in that case an online test works better and removes some of the disadvantages for people because they get one question at a time on a screen and they then choose the answer,” says Kirby.
Similarly, if a candidate with a hearing impairment is taking part in a group exercise, it is helpful to ask other participants not to speak at once and to look at the person they are addressing. Simple adjustments of these kinds, as well as practice tests, can help organisations to significantly increase the number of people with disabilities they hire. That has been the experience of the Cabinet Office, which has worked with Cubiks on the assessment processes used to identify entrants to the civil service “fast stream”. As a result, 14.6 per cent of those who joined this accelerated development programme last year had a disability, compared with just over 5 per cent 10 years ago.
Some commentators, however, argue that while the quality and objectivity of assessment processes have improved in recent years, this is not in itself enough to create a truly level playing field for all candidates. “Employers think that if they get the process right, then it will be fair to everybody,” says Eden Charles, executive director of organisational development consultancy People Opportunities. “Part of the problem with that is the assumption that everybody starts from the same position – and that’s not the case.
“People come from different cultural, social and economic backgrounds, and the whole assessment process needs to take that into consideration if employers are going to increase the diversity of their organisation.”
That may mean managing the organisation’s profile so that it is seen as a place that values people from different backgrounds. It could also involve boosting potential candidates’ confidence and interviewing skills through mentoring and similar initiatives. Another approach that People Opportunities has started pioneering is based on “appreciative inquiry”, a method of developing people and organisations that builds on what works, rather than focusing on problems.
So instead of making interviews as difficult as possible and putting candidates under pressure, appreciative interviews aim to get the best out of candidates by asking them to discuss their own strengths.
One example of the successful use of appreciative interviews is with applicants for the Breaking Through Programme, which sets out to help ethnic minority staff break through to the senior ranks of the NHS. Designed to identify people with a passion for success, coupled with high levels of motivation, self-awareness and resilience, among other qualities, these interviews steer clear of generic questions such as, “Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” “Instead, we look at the quality of the individual,” explains Jason Nair, the programme’s London regional co-ordinator. “So when we look at whether people have a high degree of motivation, we ask them why they want a strategic director-level position and what their intention is once they are in that position. Then we will look at their self-awareness and ask them to describe what they see as their strengths and areas for development.”
It all sounds very straightforward, but Nair believes that part of the success of the programme, which has helped around 60 per cent of participants to progress in their careers, is down to this selection process.
While such a process can help organisations to hire people from a wide range of backgrounds, the big question now is whether employers will remain committed to promoting diversity as budget cuts start to bite. Christine Parry of Kenexa admits there is a risk that employers will be tempted to cut corners and use the cheapest, rather than the fairest and most reliable, assessment methods. “On the other hand, even in a time of austerity the need to get the right people in and keep them is pressing,” she says, “and that’s higher up the agenda than it’s ever been in my experience.”
Case study: LexisNexis
A new approach to selecting sales staff has had a dramatic impact on business results at LexisNexis, with sales of new products more than doubling over the past couple of years and the number of multi-year deals increasing by 70 per cent. The consistent use of selection criteria based on job requirements has also boosted the number of women joining the company’s sales force – but that was an unexpected twist.
LexisNexis, a global provider of business intelligence to the tax and legal professions, wanted to create high-performing teams in order to strengthen relationships with customers and respond to their rising expectations. “So we moved from an emphasis primarily on knowledge and experience and put a premium on new skills and behaviours,” explains Hugo Mahoney, the company’s former sales and marketing director and now its managing director in New Zealand.
The skills and behaviours identified with the help of assessment experts from The Chemistry Group included curiosity about customers’ businesses, a high degree of motivation and the ability to influence others. Behavioural profiling, interviews and role-play were then used to assess all candidates against these attributes, while psychometric tests measured their intellectual ability. Commenting on the outcomes of this approach, Mahoney says: “All the key indicators that you’d expect around a good recruitment process – whether people passed their probationary period, how quickly they got on to their numbers – all went up exponentially because we were picking the right kind of person.”
And the right kind of person, it turns out, is often a woman. Since January 2008, 52 per cent of all job offers in the company’s sales teams have gone to female candidates – a far higher proportion than you’d find in many sales environments. That, according to Mahoney, was a “by-product” of the new recruitment process, but one that has been very welcome.