The Best Kept Secret in Talent Management!

April 7, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, for Recruitment, Harrison Assessments, Sheryl Dawson, Talent Analytics, Talent Management/by DCG

Harrison Assessments

Is improving engagement and retention a top priority in your organization? An analytics system that facilitates better hiring and promotion decisions at every level and enables leaders to more effectively onboard, coach and mentor their employees can dramatically impact your results. At the same time, preparing your talent to advance requires effective behavioral assessment. The best kept secret in talent management is that now one system can meet each of these crucial needs!
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Harrison’s Job Success Formula- JSF

April 6, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Recruitment, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Harrison’s Job Success Formula- JSF
Personality tests are increasingly popular due to the importance of understanding how an employee or job candidate will behave. Since poor performance usually relates to behavioral issues, measuring job behavior is essential.

However, personality tests are very general, usually measuring only 4-30 personality factors which are used for every job. In contrast, Harrison Assessments’ award winning suitability assessment is designed to measure engagement, motivation, interpersonal skills and retention factors related to specific jobs.

Ever wonder how Dan Harrison and the Harrison Assessments formulate the success factors for a specific job?

Blind Optimist

April 1, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Blind Optimist

Do you have a Blind Optimist at work? The kind of person who sees good in everything, no matter what the situation? That ever so cheery person who never seems to be living in reality? A little ray of sunshine in the workplace is good right? The sprinkler alarms could be raining water down on desks and they would smile and say… “at least the plants are getting watered”. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration but you get the point.

Having optimism is good, but it is also possible to have too much optimism to the point that it is “blinding”. An optimistic attitude is good, especially if you are in a position that requires a little extra positive energy, such as sales or customer service, however if the optimism gets in the way of making accurate strategy analysis or executing or performing a tasks with attention to the possible fail factors the increased level of optimism could become a hindrance to success.

Walkway Strollers (or Web Browsers)

March 30, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Walkway Strollers (or Web Browsers)

Do you have a Walkway/Web Stroller at your office? You may recognize the type:

Characteristics: Highly mobile around the ofﬁce complex and loves peeping into others’ cubicle (workstation) ﬁnding out how others are managing their work and life.

This behavior may manifest itself virtually. The walkway stroller may not cruise the actual hallways, they may cruise the web instead. They may take it upon themselves to police the social media sites, peeping into the personal posts of their co-workers.

This person typically thinks s/he is practicing management by walkabout except that s/he forgets to manage his or her own work, deliverables and KPIs ﬁrst.

Suitability and Hiring Selection Success

March 28, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Recruitment, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Suitability and Hiring Selection Success

For most jobs, suitability/behavioral factors are about 50% of the reason people succeed or fail at a job. Therefore, effectively measuring suitability should be an essential part of any job fit or hiring assessment. The importance of assessing behavior during recruitment is evidenced by the fact that most organizations hire people for their eligibility and then try to develop their suitability. And in many cases, they fire them for their lack of suitability. Since behavior is fundamentally more difficult to change than eligibility, it is better to hire people who already have the right suitability for the job.

Suitability/behavioral factors are more difficult to assess because, unlike eligibility factors, there is no objective and verifiable information that is readily available. In addition, suitability factors are much more interrelated, and subtle balances between factors have significant implications for behavior. To make it even more challenging, applicants have a significant incentive to withhold or distort information that might hinder their job opportunity. This is highlighted by a recent study that determined that 80% of resumes contained lies.

The Best Job Suitability Assessments

March 23, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Recruitment, Harrison Assessments, Predict Job Fit/by Harrison Assessments

There are bunches of assessments available today. Finding and developing that diamond in the rough employee has become an art, and employers are trying to get all the help they can in choosing the best candidate.

Which assessment is best? There are few things to consider when making the choice. Does the assessment use the same set of factors for every job? If that is the case, it is very unlikely to effectively predict job success. In order to predict job success the assessment must be job-specific.

For example, many personality tests use the same set of personality factors for every job. The majority of these factors are likely to be irrelevant to job success for any one job. How can recruiters or line managers know how to use such information when it is not job specific? Using such assessments is not only counter-productive, it violates hiring ethics and, in many cases, legal guidelines.

PhD Org. Psych 24.7.365 – Harrison

March 21, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, for Recruitment, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Dr. Dan Harrison

PhD Org. Psych 24.7.365- Harrison

It’s been a long time since I took a Psych class. I know there is a lot of good stuff there that can help me lead my organization forward.

I wear a lot of hats and one of them is the HR one. People and people processes are typically on my mind. Making sure I have the best people in the positions that they are best suited for is a challenge.

But going back to school to learn more about psychology so I can figure out what is really going on inside an employee or a potential hire is not going to happen. Something else that is not going to happen is hiring a PhD to figure it out for me. That is a major expenditure that I cannot afford.

However, there are relatively low cost alternatives that can help me wear this hat well. Job Fit Assessments. The Harrison Assessment Talent Solution is like having a PhD Org. Psych with me 24/7/365.

Always Right

March 15, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Talent Development, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Always Right

Do you have that “always right” never in doubt employee in your organization?

We’ve all seen them, some of us have worked with them and most of us can certainly identify a few of them. Those personality types that muck up the atmosphere at work and typically put a wrench in productivity because of their dominance. The very strong type personality that sometimes gets categorized as a bully because of their strong convictions. This person’s wealth of “certainty” may not have a positive effect on your company.

The Harrison Assessment can help you identify and positively develop these personality types.

Amazing Job Race

March 14, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Recruitment, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Amazing Job Race

Too bad you don’t have sixteen weeks of challenges, obstacle courses and road blocks to find the winning Amazing Job Team!

I will admit it. My guilty pleasure is watching “The Amazing Race.” It’s a long running TV show that starts typically with 12 two-person teams and follows them as they race around the world, trying to be the first to complete a set of challenges and get to the finish line winning 1 million dollars.

I happily watch the trials and tribulations of the teams as they jump through hoops, complete challenging projects under pressure and compete with each other to win position. I get an inside seat to the behaviors of people under stress attempting to complete tasks. It is interesting to me to watch how well someone completes a task that they enjoy doing… (the surfer lady who excels on all the water, heights and physical challenges…etc)

The Amazing Race is termed a “reality show.” The show is filled with leadership, teamwork, culture and communication lessons. As I watch and learn I wish that businesses in “reality” could put their possible team candidates through a race like this to figure out which candidates are the best.

Bad Egg or Humpty Dumpty

March 13, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Bad Egg or Humpty Dumpty

You have that employee that doesn’t quite fit or is not quite up to performance standards. Some refer to them as “toxic” or “pains.” In previous blogs we have referred to them by different stereotypes…. Mini Napoleon, Crowd Pleaser, Emotional Moody, Ego Almighty, Verbal Caustic…. Etc. These employees are disrupters in the work place often hindering productivity and considered to be liabilities.

Don’t throw the Baby out with the Bathwater

March 10, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Don’t throw the Baby out with the Bathwater

Sam works in Accounting. He has pretty good business sense and is very good with numbers. However, every place that Sam goes to work, within two years he gets pushed out. Now Sam is working for you. Unfortunately, nowhere during his reviews from his past employers or during his interview was it mentioned that Sam had any problem. And now he is yours.

He’s a talker. Some would even call him a Walkway Stroller or a Crowd Pleaser. He likes social interaction so much that if he doesn’t get it, he will find a way to get it. This usually ends up with him not completing some of his assigned tasks.

Harrison Assessments guesses that in this case, although Sam’s skill level for the job may be proficient, his suitability may not. If you have a Sam, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. What if there is another job within your organization in which Sam can do better and prosper?

Who are your HIPOs?

March 7, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Who are your HIPO’s?

No, this is not a typo. I am not talking about those big somewhat loveable yet dangerous animals that frequent the waters… the hippos.

HIPO’s… High Potential Candidates. Those job applicants or current employees in your midst that are the potential proactive earners, the successes, the gems.

You can’t tell if someone is a HIPO just by looking at them. They are not wearing a big gold star on their lapel that signifies, “I am your best employee pick.’’

An effective tool to use in identifying employee potential is a comprehensive behavioral assessment that is specifically designed for job fit analysis, such as Harrison Assessments.

Behavioral Assessments Need to Be Job Specific

March 6, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, for Recruitment, Harrison Assessments/by Harrison Assessments

Why behavioral assessments need to be job specific

Most behavioral assessments are not job specific and only describe the individual’s personality. However, this is not a fair or effective way to predict job fit. Job specific assessments are more accurate for the organization and more fair to candidates. They identify and develop those who are most likely to succeed in a particular job for a particular company.
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Keep Your “Keepers” with Behavioral Assessment

January 19, 2016/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, Sheryl Dawson, Talent Analytics/by DCG

Is your Board and executive team developing human capital strategies to gain competitive advantage and accelerate their business goals? Is your organization seeking new ways to positively impact engagement and retention? If so, they are not alone! Deloitte Consulting and Bersin identifies three primary areas of strategic focus in their Global Human Capital Trends report: Lead & Develop, Attract and Engage, and Transform and Reinvent. Among these strategic trends, leadership, retention and engagement, talent acquisition and reskilling HR were the top urgent needs to support business priorities and goals. Additional research by Aberdeen Group of Best-in-Class organizations demonstrates that top performing organizations, successfully utilize behavioral assessment as an enabler in each of the strategic talent needs.

Is improving engagement and retention a top priority in your organization? An assessment system that facilitates better hiring and promotion decisions at every level and enables leaders to more effectively onboard, coach and mentor their employees can dramatically impact your results. At the same time, preparing your talent to advance requires effective behavioral assessment. Now one system can meet each of these crucial needs.
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The new worker/employer value proposition is mutual affection

August 24, 2015/in Assessments, Blog, for Development, for Recruitment, Talent Management/by DCG

Blog Series
Read Part 1
Read Part 2

Outplacement Is an Investment in Recruiting & Retention

Part 3: The new worker/employer value proposition is mutual affection

Video Scene from Fiddler on the Roof: A Revolutionary’s Question

The new worker/employer contract is the ultimate rationale for offering effective outplacement services.
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