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.

Read more »

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.

Read more »

Posted in: Conduct performance appraisal reviews