The Experience of Golrang Industrial Group

In Deploying a Competency-Based Selection System

Sara Rostamian,
Business Excellence Expert, Golrang Industrial Group, Iran
Rostamian_sara@yahoo.com
&
Nafiseh Mottaghian,
Business Excellence Manager, Golrang Industrial Group, Iran
excellence@excellence.ir

Abstract
The necessity to use an integrated selection system for all the companies of GIG1 with the same
competencies as its base, made the organization to search the existing models in this field. This attempt
resulted in picking "assessment center" as one of the most valid methods to assess and select employees.
In this paper at first the theoretical basis of the assessment center including its history, definition, ad
applications are reviewed and then GIG approach to this process as a tool to assess and select experts and
managers is explained and the group's lessons' learned are presented.

Introduction
Recruiting and retaining high-quality employees takes top priority in the competitive marketplace.
Organizations continually evaluate selection procedures and seek innovative ways to increase the validity
of applicants' assessment. On the other hand, in the traditional selection paradigm the focus is on the past
prosperities of the applicant but in new paradigm, the main purpose is finding future stars and hence what
matters is the applicant's capability and competency not his/her background. Consequently organizations
increasingly turn to assessment centers to provide an accurate evaluation of applicants' competencies.
This paper in addition to a brief reviewing of the theoretical concepts of assessment centers, will present
the experience of GIG in designing, deploying, and running this process.

History
Early versions of assessment centers were used by the UK War Office Selection Boards in the ١٩٠s.
Their introduction stemmed from the fact that the existing system was resulting in a large proportion of
those officers which were returned to their unit as unsuitable. The mentioned system was relied just on
interviewing to select officers and had some selection criteria as social and educational background. The
assessment center approach subsequently adopted was an attempt to accurately elicit the types of behavior
that an officer was required to display in order to be successful in his job. The tasks included leaderless
group exercises, selection tests and individual interviews by a senior officer, junior officer and
psychiatrist respectively.
During the Second World War, this way was used by the US Office of Strategic Studies to select spies
and security experts. Subsequently the use of assessment centers was taken up by the private sector
especially the giant American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) which began using
assessment centers for management selection in 1956. By١٩٨٧ more than ٢٠٠٠organizations, including
PepsiCo, IBM, General Electric, and the FBI, used assessment centers. Today this method is becoming a
common way to select and promote managers and specialists in the organizations.

Definition
The term assessment centre does not refer to a physical place, instead it describes an approach. An
assessment center is a process in which participants engage in a variety of exercises and have their

1
. Golrang Industrial Group
performance evaluated by multiple assessors. The most important specifications of assessment centres
are:
− Using multiple practical exercises, reflecting different types of work activity;
− Using more than one assessor;
− Observing and assessing participants in dynamic group situations;
− Assessing participants during several days(1 to 7days)

Applications
The primary purpose of assessment centers has been selection and promotion of staffs especially in
managerial positions. But they have extended widely and today they can play a great role in many aspects
of human resource management. Some of these areas are as below:
Recruitment: assessing applicants' competencies so as to select them for managerial positions
Placement and Promotion: assessing employees' competencies to promote them to higher positions
Training: identifying training and development needs
Performance Appraisal: identifying the strengths and weaknesses of employees and prospecting their
performance in the future
Career Path and Succession Planning: identifying current potential of staff to provide their succession
planning
Using assessment centers, in addition has some side effects. For example it increases the employees' trust
in equanimity and reliability of assessment and promotion criteria. On the other hand, the feedback report
of the assessment center is useful for the participant too. So, educated experts and managers prefer to be
employed in the organizations which have assessment center and even stay longer in such companies. In
addition, by using managers as assessors, assessment centers indirectly helps them to do their managerial
tasks better; especially in some fields such as performance assessment, giving feedback, and identifying
personnel training needs.

Design and deployment of assessment center in GIG

Studying theoretical foundations and related benchmarks
In this stage, in addition to benchmarking best practices and searching related surveys, a team composed
of four senior managers of the organization, attended in an assessment center to be acquainted with this
process and view its results. Remarkable accuracy of the results made GIG intent to use assessment
center.

Building competency model

As the base of an assessment center is to assess participant's competencies, Building competency model is
the most important prerequisite of this process. Competencies are the set of observable and measurable
behaviors combined with knowledge and skills that individuals must have to successfully accomplish the
desired results of a job. Since each organization has its own process and culture and the approaches to this
tool are different, there is no fixed structure for the model. The first edition of GIG competency model
was created in 2006 and was revised several times ever since. The last edition of the model as shown in
figure1, consists of five major categories of competencies; personal competencies, academic
competencies, and workplace competencies which are considered essential for all staff, regardless of their
function or level in the organization, managerial competencies which are considered essential for staff
with managerial or supervisory responsibility in any service or program area and applied horizontally
across the organization, and technical competencies which are considered essential to perform any job in
the Organization within a defined technical or functional area of work.
 Figure1-The Last Edition of GIG Competency Model

Developing exercises
In this stage, competencies assessment tools were chosen or designed. To increase the accuracy of the
judgment, in assessment center each competency usually is assessed by means of two tools. The exercises
which were selected in this phase are as bellow:
Group Discussion: In this exercise a group of participants meet as a group to discuss an actual job-
related problem within a given time period. As the meeting proceeds, the behavior of the candidates is
observed to see how they interact and what leadership and communications skills each person displays.
Oral presentation: In this exercise, candidates are given a brief period of time in which to organize their
thoughts, make notes, etc., for the presentation. Traditionally, the audience is played by the assessors who
observes the presentation and makes ratings. Candidates may also be asked a series of questions
following their presentation.
Case Study: In this exercise, some written information including numbers, charts, or tables are given to
participants. The content of the case is commonly job-related and the participants have a limited time to
analyze the information and write a conclusion report.
In-Basket Exercise: The in-basket exercise closely simulates the day to day administrative activities of a
supervisor or manager in an actual work-simulated condition. In this exercise, candidates are given time
to review the material and initiate in writing whatever actions they believe to be most appropriate in
relation to each in-basket item. When time is called for the exercise, the in-basket materials and any
notes, letters, memos, or other correspondence written by the candidate are collected for review by
assessors.
 Behavioral Interview: The theory behind this type of interview is that the past behavior of an applicant is
the most accurate predictor of his/her future behavior. As the name implies, the interviewer is asking
about the past behavior or performance of applicant in employment situations. The most common way in
this interview is to apply STAR method: Situation (Describe the situation that you were in); Task
(Discuss the task(s) that you did); Action (Explain the actions you took to complete the task) Result
(Illustrate the results of doing the task and what you learned)
Psychological Test: These tests are the most common tools to identify applicants' personality, values, and
interests. But they have not completely customized in our country yet. So at the first step, GIG tried to
elicit the norm of the Psychological criteria inside the organization.
The exercises of an assessment center commonly should be job-related but GIG found it difficult to
arrange an assessment center for applicants from a specific job branch. Sometimes the time needed to
arrange such assessment centers was so long that some of the applicants lapsed from attending in the
process. As a result, arranging an assessment center with applicants from different job branches was used
as a way to speed up the assessment process. The exercises used in these assessment centers are designed
more general in a way that all the applicants can participate in the process.
At the next stage, each exercise was assigned to one or more competencies. The assignment style is
shown in table1 as competency-exercise matrix.

Table1 - competency-exercise matrix

Managerial Workplace Academic Personal

Competency

Computer & Mathematics

Networking & Informing

Planning & Organizing

Managing Conflict &
Strategic Planning &

Critical & Analytical

Crisis Management

Personality Factors
Vision Developing

Negotiation Skills
Business Acumen

Decision Making
Drive to Result
Team Building
Empowerment

Ethical Values
Recruiting &
Innovation

Teamwork
Thinking

Reading Exercise
Writing
EQ

Group Discussion

Problem solving Test


Text Analysis Test




Case Study








In-Basket Exercise






Behavioral Interview







Psychological Test

Selecting and training assessors

Assessors should be selected based on their ability to make effective judgments. So their age and rank are
important. In addition, they should be aware of organizational norms and values. Thus some of the
experienced CEOs and senior managers of the organizations were selected as assessors and trained in this
field.
One of the major problems about the assessors' performance and their interactions was their different and
sometimes inconsistent interpretations of the participants' behaviors. To solve this problem, it was
decided to make them familiar with behavior analysis through a training course.

Running the assessment center

Running an assessment center has many elaborations. Some of the most significant matters in this phase
and some of notable GIG experiences in this field are as bellow:
 − Running several experimental assessment centers with some volunteers from inside the organization
as applicants, will help to recognize possible deficiencies, identify the most suitable time for each
exercise, and evaluate the accuracy of the results.
− Running an assessment center needs an accurate scheduling. But deviation from the timed plan is
sometimes unavoidable. So it is important to be ready to face such situations.
− Since assessors and applicants' time is limited and it is not easy to arrange a long meeting as
assessment center, it is better to handle all the process in one day (and not more).
− It is necessary to plan for recalling replacement assessors when any of the main assessors can not
attend in the process due to unexpected reasons.
− The attendance of the future manager of the applicant in his/her assessment process, will give the
manager the opportunity to directly observe applicants' performance in different situations. In
addition, in this case there in no need to apply a separate interview between manager and applicant.
− All moments of an assessment center even break or lunch time, can be useful resources to gather
valuable information about the applicant behaviors and performance. So it is necessary to appoint
someone to observe and record all applicants' manners in the absence of the assessors.
− Wash-up session is a main part of the assessment center. In this session assessors discuss about
applicants' performance and come to a consensus. The output of this session will send to final
decision makers as a report. This report contains applicants' scores, assessors' observations details
and their final opinion about applicants.
− Designing a specific form to record assessors' observations and score related competencies in each
exercise will simplify the wash-up session. Figure2 is a sample of form which is used in GIG
assessment center. As it is seen in this form, each assessor gives a rate between 1 and 5 to each
competency on a particular exercise. The assessor, in addition brings examples of behavior to support
the given ratings. The raw score of each competency is the average of the assessors' ratings and its
final score is equal to the raw score multiplied by the weight of the competency in GIG competency
model.

Figure2 – Rating Form for Group Discussion Exercise

Exercise: Group Discussion
Assessor Name: Participant Name:
Observations

Competencies Under Assessment

Drive to Result Planning & Organizing Decision Making Teamwork Negotiation Skills

1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5

− While deciding about accepting or rejecting the applicant at the end of the process, his/her over-
qualifying should be closely considered as well as his/her under-qualifying. Because any kind of
disproportion between the job and employee can lead to major problems for both employee and
organization.
− The evaluation of Effectiveness of the assessment center by periodical performance appraisal of
selected applicants is an essential way to insure of the accuracy and reliability of the process.
− Due to the same base of assessment, the employees selected by this process have more similarity
with together and with organizational culture. So their socialization process in the organization will
take less time and cost.
− To centralize the assessment center in mother company will let all the sister companies to use a
common source for selection and will reduce many parallel assessment and selection activities
through holding company.

Conclusion
The assessment center is an expensive and complicated process but it has grown hugely in popularity
because of its outstanding characteristics to select competent employees and specially managers. Since
human resources are called the most important capital of the organizations, they should be attentively and
mindfully selected or promoted. The high accuracy of the assessment center results (67%) compare to
traditional selection tools like interviews (20%) has made it most effective tool available for selection or
development. On the other hand, since the assessment centers are newly utilized in Iranian organizations,
to be familiar with their advantages and disadvantages, run them efficiently, and customize them, relevant
researchers and experts should extensively exchange their findings and experiences in this field.

References
− Strategies for Human Resource Management: A Total Business Approach, by
Michael Armstrong, translated by Khodayar Abili and Hassan Movafaghi, First
edition, Fara, 2001
− psychometrics.co.uk (2003) "Assessment and Development Centers" at
− http://www.psychometrics.co.uk/adc.htm
− referenceforbusiness.com (2006) "Assessment Centers" by Tim Barnett at
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/A-Bud/Assessment-Centers.html
− dictionary.bnet.com "Business Definition for Assessment Center" at
http://www.dictionary.bnet.com/definition/assessment+center.html
− Assessment and Development Centers, by Iain Ballantyne and Nigel Povah,
translated by Masood Soltani, first edition, Asia, 2006
− hr-guide.com (2000) "Personnel Selection: Methods: Assessment Centers" at
http://www.hr-guide.com/data/G318.htm
− Assessment Centers in Human Resource Management, by George C. Thornton,
translated by Saeed Jafarimogadam, first edition, Tehran University, 2007
− oacp.org (2001) "Assessment Center Exercise Menu" at
www.oacp.org/advise/exercise.pdf
− alis.gov.ab.ca (2005) "Behavior-Based Interview" at
http://www.alis.gov.ab.ca/tips/archive.asp?EK=161