Characteristics of Business Psychologists

In earlier times there was only a one criterion on which an employer could judge the efficacy and potential of a person for employment was through his previous work experiences and qualifications. But, today the business psychologists help the business through this highly advance technology called psychometric testing. This testing helps to determine the work habits of the person so that a better coordination is promoted for enhancing the efficiency at work.

This kind of testing is conducted by the organisational psychologists and it has been regarded as one of the most effective methods to screen the employees in the recruitment procedure. With the help of this test the recruiter can easily decide whether a particular candidate is suitable for a particular job or not. Such characteristics of the candidates are not found out through the traditional process of selection. To hire someone for a particular job position can be a risky decision to make. 

During the initial days these tests were conducted so as to measure the intelligence of the potential employees which included many different forms of mental tests along with the anthropometric measures. But, currently this testing by the workplace psychologists is commonly used to measure the attitudes, believes, personality and other academic qualifications of the potential candidates. It would be not wrong to say that the study of these traits is not an easy task to do. And no ordinary person without having the specialised knowledge in this field can carry out this work. 

The results of this special test are readily and instantly available to the employers so that they can quickly assess whether a particular candidate is fit for a particular job or not. Many important traits of the potential employees are identified through this testing such as- diplomacy, patience, self-confidence, sales closing, initiative and many more. Majority of the assessments seek out attributes also like- memory, reasoning, intelligence, attention skills and reaction times.

Nowadays, there are plethoras of good companies that have highly skilled organisational psychologists who hold extensive knowledge in this psychometric testing. These experts conduct extensive studies so that they can evaluate the characteristics of the candidate in today’s recruitment process.

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Posted in: Business psychologists,organisational psychologists

Creating a Good Workplace Culture

Workplace culture is a very important part of any business or any other organisation. It affects everything that is going on in the business. No matter whether it is a simple worker or a manager, the workplace culture will have a serious impact on all of them and thus impact the organisation as a whole.

A good culture can create wonders for an organisation while a poor or lacking one can destroy all of its existing fortunes. Organisational change is a routine activity for the enterprises today because of the dynamic macro environment it faces. Sometimes a culture change may also be required for this purpose. In order to bring about such changes easily without much hesitation and hassles, a strong organisational culture must exist. This is the simple reason why most of the top most companies today pay special attention to developing an excellent workspace along with a wonderful organisational culture for its employees.

It is not just the big companies that are getting benefited through it, but the medium and small businesses are also improving on their capacities and productivities through this. A good culture will make the employee feel more attached and responsible to the company. The overall objectives of the company will become a priority just like his or her personal objectives. It would be really very easy to coordinate and work in such an organisation because the people are filled with high motivational levels.

 
The growth rate, efficiency and effectiveness of such organisations are seen to be very high and sustainable as the organisation is ready to face any challenges and obstacles that may come. It is easy to foster strategies in the organisation as they the whole set-up will work together with it to implement the strategy. A poor work culture inculcates the habit of reluctance on the part of the employees for any change that is brought about in the organisation. Such changes are easily possible through an effective culture.

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Posted in: create good workplace culture

Psychological Assessments - The Three Key Aspects

Psychological assessments are done by skilled professionals, generally psychologists, by using specific psychological techniques and tools in order to attain some knowledge about a person's personality and behavior traits. Things such as money can be easily measured but traits like personality, attitude, intelligence and beliefs are not easily quantifiable. However, if you really want to apprehend the psyche of human beings, understanding and evaluating them is important. Irrespective of what job you are doing, whether it is of hiring people, teaching students, developing teams and building relationships, or just a quest to understand yourself, it is very useful to appraise these latent and less obvious traits. One way of going about it is through psychometric testing.

Knowing and understanding a person involves much more than just observing his/her manifested behaviour. You have to probe deep into it and try the gather observations that are not fully manifested or intended. However, ensure that you are keeping biasness and stereotypes out of the picture as they can really harm your judgement. A psychometric testing must be objective with impartial judgment to be truly successful. To ensure this, the following three criteria must be met:

1.  Standardisation – The test should be conducted taking a sample population that represents the rest of the people correctly. Testing and evaluating every working individual of a country is improbable. So, taking a sample out of it is useful, at the same time effective.

2.  Consistency – The test should produce consistent and reliable results every time you do it. It should not be influenced by outside factors like stress. For example, your test results should be the same whether you are relaxed or stressed. Then only psychological assessments will be fruitful and operative.

3.  Validity – It is conceivably the most vital quality of a psychological test. There is validity when the test measures what it was planned to measure. For instance, if it was directed towards determining an individual's interests, it should then only demonstrate that and not something else that pertains a little towards interests. Beating around the bush is completely deplorable in psychology and especially during psychological assessments.

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Posted in: Key Aspects of Psychological Assessments

Conducting Performance Reviews - A Great Way to Lead the Business in Right Direction

Employees perform a very important role in the business organisation. Human Resources are considered to be an asset for the business. Without them an organisation cannot survive. It is therefore very important that they perform their duties in the correct manner. Employees can perform only when they are motivated and taught the correct standards of performance. One essential element in the process of motivating and teaching employees is conducting performance reviews. This process plays a very vital role in the field of human resource management of an organisation. It is only through the reviews that employees can know where they excel and where they fall back.

Conduction performance reviews enhances the coaching and mentoring opportunities for the supervisors and managers of the organisation. It reinforces that pay and performance are tied together. It improves performance by motivating the employees. These reviews define a clear basis for promotion, increments, disciplinary action and other related issues. Conducting performance reviews helps the organisation in identifying the training and development needs of the employees so that the productivity is enhanced. The reviews are a great way to bring in consistency to the organisation in terms of job performance of the employees. The reviews help in striking a balance between the goals and objectives of the employees with that of the organisation.

Another important aspect of human resource management of an organisation is performance appraisal. It is also an important element to consider while motivating the employees to perform better. Performance appraisal helps in revealing to the employees their areas of excellence and drawbacks. This would help them in improving their performance and nurturing their skills. If employees are praised for their performance, it creates a positive psychological impact on them and they are motivated to perform better. The organisation can also take corrective actions.

It is therefore very essential for business organisations to have a well defined performance review system so that the quality of work is improved and the organisation attains profitability and growth. Through these reviews, employees will get a sense of belongingness to the business and they would strive hard to improve its operations.

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Posted in: Conduct performance appraisal reviews

Organisational Culture Change is a must for Organisational Development

Workplace culture is the manner in which the organisation carries out things. It is something that is shared with the whole of the organisation or among some specific groups. The way in which people behave in an organisational structure is largely dependent on the workplace culture. The whole concept of organisational culture is very important to the organisation because it directly has an impact on the success and the overall organisational development.

Culture is something intangible being made up of various beliefs, values and norms practised on the day to day working of the organisation. This is something which is not easy to measure.

The Culture change with time because of group interactions, leaders, organisational development, and interaction rules. The culture of the organisation changes with the shifting of the employees in the organisation.

It is generally seen that businesses carry out organisational change for improving the effectiveness and productivity of the organisation. Usually these changes fail to achieve the purpose for which these are made. The very simple reason of this failure is the non-acceptance by the culture in the organisation. For this reason the task of organisational culture change has to be carried out.

For any effective implementation of change program in the organisation, an effective plan for suitably changing the culture of the organisation is important. If the culture is adaptive and recognises the change, the implementation of change is easy, otherwise difficult and unsuccessful. For leading a successful culture change in an organisation, the following guidelines can be followed-

1. Study the culture- The current prevailing culture in the organisation has to be studied.

2. Need for change in culture for organisational development - what modifications have to be made for altering the culture.

3. Leadership strategy- the leaders play a very important role in changing the organisation’s culture for the overall development of the organisation. A strategy has to be formulated to change the leadership culture so as to change the structure of the organisation.

4. Proper communication of the change and its impacts and benefits should be discussed.

5. Proper implementation of various decisions made collectively.

Adopting culture change can help your organisation to grow leaps and bounds. So make sure that you work closely with business psychologists who can develop modules to deal with organisational culture change.

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Posted in: needs of organisational culture change

Psychometric Assessments are important in the Selection Process

Many large and medium business houses are using psychometric assessments in the recruitment process. These are basically psychological assessments performed by specialist psychologists who hold great knowledge and expertise in this area. These are extensively used in IT companies, financial institutions, management consultants, armed forces, local authorities and so on.

Psychometric testing is a very effective measure of screening out job applicants in a far more objective manner than what could have been done solely by the traditional selection method. The traditional method of selection was solely based on the interviews, qualification and work experience possessed by the job applicant. This testing is not just useful for recruiting new employees but also for deciding the employees for promotions and transfers.

There are mainly two types of psychometric assessments- aptitude tests and personality tests. The personality test is a test to measure the personal qualities and abilities of the person while the aptitude tests aim at checking the mental abilities and reasoning.

The personality tests are aimed to get information on the personal style and self-view of the candidate. The job performance of a candidate will be greatly dependent on the personality   of the person. The simplest of this test involves a questionnaire with multiple choices. These tests do not have any particular correct answer set but are basically aimed to check the integrity and honesty of the person towards himself and others.

Aptitude tests are very common to check the potentials of the job applicants in various fields. The various different forms of aptitude tests are-

•  Verbal and written-In this the communication skills (both written and oral) of the candidate are tested. Communication is a very important aspect of working effectively and efficiently in an organisation.

•  Numeric tests- Here the ability of the person with logics related to numbers and the ability to play with numbers is tested.

•  Abstract reasoning- The creative thinking and the ability to think logically is tested here.

•  Spatial and diagrammatic tests- Here the person’s ability to understand and solve diagrammatic problems is checked.

•  Other tests based on the type of job.

Thus, it is important to develop a professional psychometric test that can simplify your selection process.

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Posted in: psychometric assessments for recruitment process

Benefits of Executive Assessment and Executive Coaching

Businesses are faced with new challenges each passing day. The uncertainties posed by the crisis ridden economic system have raised the challenges in exponential terms. Maintaining the growth rates is really hard, the business world has become increasingly dynamic and there is an ever changing pattern of leadership strategies and methods. In such a scenario, where the businesses are striving hard to survive the competition and outdoing their competitors, it has become imperative to optimise the leadership with the base of the organisational pyramid.

It is evident from the description of the situation above that the major burden stays on the shoulders of the people at the peak of the organisational pyramid. This increased burden and stress at the workplace has to be sorted out to better the performance of the executive which creates the need of executive assessment.

The main benefits of executive assessment can be listed as below:

1.      The executives at the company are in a need of constant growth to match the needs of time. The coaching executive program following by the assessment helps in understanding the social changes to manage the organisation better. It also helps in pointing out the fine details from the happenings in the economic world that ensures steady growth of the individual and the organisation.

2.      It helps the executives hone their skills and learn new things to take the challenges head on.

3.      An executive coach Sydney would help the executive to take up new challenges if she or he feels that the organisation has no scope of helping the career graph. This is beneficial for both the executive and the organisation.

4.      Executive coaching Melbourne would help the executive understand the employees better and optimise the strengths and weaknesses accordingly to maximise efficiency of the organisation as a whole.

Executive Coaching involves a number of steps but the core of the process is the bond between the executive and the coach. It helps in understanding the problems better. The coach has to act as a friend, philosopher and guide and thus it is important that she or he is made a part of every problem the executive faces. There can be a number of personality traits that hinder the professional growth of an individual and coaching executives are meant to optimise them for the benefit of one and all.

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Posted in: executive coaching and assessments in sydney and melbourne