Gauging Skills and Assessment Tools - HRM Essay Sample

When it comes to hiring employees, several skills and competencies are weighted to determine the best work an employee can handle. The process of hiring the best-qualified employees can be done by using the employee assessment tools that measure and test the ability of an employee to handle a particular task. These tools have been used by different organizations and companies to achieve the best outcomes for the experienced and well-trained employees. It is well known that for a company to achieve its goals and objectives, it should have the kind of employees who can do all sorts of works perfectly. Therefore, gauging the skills and competencies of employees will encompass the use of different analytical frameworks that are discussed below.

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Assessment Tools

Some of the experts have a number of employee assessment tools that are used to test and analyze the performance and competencies of employees in a company. Examples of the tools are interviews, work samples and simulations, personality and background test, and experience. All these assessment tools can be used to understand the employee efficiency and performance before hiring them to work in particular fields. Therefore, below is an analysis of each employee assessment tool.

Interview

The interview is a one-on-one dialogue between an employer and an employee. In the interview process, an employer tries to understand all the skills of an employee and why he or she wants to be hired. What is measured in the interview is the ability of an employee to respond to some tasks and ability to handle them with a minimum supervision (Brinkmann, 2014). The interview has several advantages. One of them is that it would be easy for a human resource to select a suitable candidate to hire. The interview also will help an interviewer to get sufficient information about the employee. Moreover, the interview is one of the time-saving employee assessment tools. On the other hand, there are several disadvantages that associate interview. One of them is that the interview can be affected by the biases of an employee. The interview is also not suitable for personal matters since an employee may not reveal his or her personal life. An interviewer may not know the exact personal life of an employee, and so it would be difficult to judge the performances. In some instances, interviews can be tiresome. This is because both interviewer and an interviewee will have to spend time in an office discussing the qualification process, performance, experiences, among others. This will incur a lot of time. Based on the costs associated with this assessment tool, interviews can incur some costs depending on the location of the interview. It has been seen that doing interviews with employees in an office is less costly than doing it in the open places or generally outdoors. Therefore, the costs depend on the location whether it is a hired room or a personal office. However, this type of assessment tool needs a special person to accomplish it. Interviews need skilled personnel who can assess the employees efficiently and point out all the required information. Therefore, a specific person is needed in this employee assessment tool.

Work Sample and Simulation

Work sample and simulation is another assessment tool that can be used to assess and test the employees before hiring them. What is measured in this assessment tool is the ability of an employee to perform some tasks that include written communication, decision-making, and problem-solving (Roth, Bobko, & McFARLAND, 2005). All these skills are acquired from the work samples of an employee based on the previous organizations that the employee had worked for. This assessment tool also has several advantages. By considering work samples, an employer will know what an employee is capable of doing. These will be shown in the work samples. Another advantage is that the simulation test of an employee will test how an employee will make decisions and solve the problems of an organization. This will make a human resource manager decide whether to hire him or her. Based on the disadvantages, an employee may fake the work samples. Not all the work samples of an employee are correct. Some of them can fake the samples with the aim of being hired to work in a company. Another disadvantage is that work sampling and simulation may not record the speed of the employee in working. It just shows the previous works done with less consent of the time taken to complete the works. On the other hand, there are no costs associated with this type of assessment tool. It only involves the accumulation of data of an employee based on the past works done. Simulation test does not also incur any cost because the employee will only be tested on the ability to handle the works given at a specific time. Also, in this assessment tool, there is no specific skilled person to be hired. Any organization representative can conduct the assessment because it involves the collection of work samples from employees.

Personality and Background Test

This type of assessment tool involves testing the personality of an employee that include behaviors and the drug consumption rate (Tett, Jackson & Rothstein, 1991). Most companies test this framework because the reason behind the fall of the organizations is the consumption of drugs by the employees. Therefore, what is tested in this assessment tool is the qualities of employees in terms of behaviors. This will determine whether an employee will work on the company or not. One of the advantages of this assessment tool is that an employer can understand the behaviors of an employer before hiring him or her. Also, an employer can know the type of works an employee can handle based on his personality and background. Another advantage is that it is the easiest employee assessment tool since it does not involve any deep analysis. An employer will just outline the personality traits of an employee. On the other hand, there are several disadvantages of personality and background test. In this assessment framework, an employer may not understand the actual personality traits and behaviors of an employee. Some employees can give out incorrect personality traits. However, in this assessment tool, the costs associated with it is little. This is because there is no much time spent in analysis. It is the same as an interview, but an employer will just ask some few questions pertaining the employee's behaviors and traits. On the other hand, a philosophy specialist should be the one assessing the employee to understand whether the personality traits can march with the provided work. This is because a philosopher understand all sorts of behaviors and he or she can examine an employee using his or her skills.

Experience

Experience is one of the most significant assessment tools when hiring employees in an organization (Tesluk & Jacobs, 1998). In this assessment framework, an employer tests the competency of an employee in performing some tasks based on his or her past works. Experience will determine whether an employee is capable of handling the assigned work. Therefore, the experience is the best framework to test the employee. One of its advantages is that a human resource manager will perfectly understand the skills of an employee. Moreover, the experience will bring the best output since all the experienced workforce will use their skills to enhance the organization. Based on the disadvantages, analyzing experiences of employees will consume much time. Each experience will have to be assessed one by one. It will also incur some costs because analyzing all the employee's experiences need some resources. On the other hand, this type of assessment does not need an expert to undertake it. The assessment is suitable to be performed by the human resource manager or the organization representative.

Recommendation for the best Assessment Tool

After the analysis of the above four assessment tools in an organization, the best assessment tool that can be recommended to be used is an experience. This is because experience encompasses all the skills, abilities, talents, achievements, and capabilities of an employer in performing a specific task in an organization. All other assessment tools are auxiliary. Therefore, for a company to have the best outcomes for the employees, the human resource should consider experience as an employee assessment tool. This is evident in the advanced organizations because the reason behind their success is the experienced and skilled workforce.

References

Brinkmann, S. (2014). Interview. In Encyclopedia of critical psychology (pp. 1008-1010). Springer New York.

Roth, P. L., Bobko, P., & McFARLAND, L. Y. N. N. (2005). A metaanalysis of work sample test validity: Updating and integrating some classic literature. Personnel Psychology, 58(4), 1009-1037.

Tett, R. P., Jackson, D. N., & Rothstein, M. (1991). Personality measures as predictors of job performance: a metaanalytic review. Personnel psychology, 44(4), 703-742.

Tesluk, P. E., & Jacobs, R. R. (1998). Toward an integrated model of work experience. Personnel psychology, 51(2), 321-355.