Home

Choosing the Right Assessment Tool for Your Contact Center

And Using Measurement to Build a High Performance Culture

by Colleen O’Brien-Wood, Ph.D.

In recent years, Contact Center Human Resources professionals have suffered a lot of debunking and even bashing.  While a Contact Center’s culture is usually established in the early days of the company, many HR professionals see themselves as the “culture-keepers” by default. Today, Human Resource professionals are emerging as cultural leaders in the Contact Center’s effort to become a high performance culture.  Human Resource and recruiting professionals are successfully using advanced statistical methods and science to position their departments as change agents.  By strategically partnering with data-driven consulting companies, they can add a new level of credibility to their important work and can use pre- and post-diagnostic tools to measure the ROI of any change initiative.

So where do you start?  EQ, IQ, Validity, Ipsative, Normative, Psychometric, Type Indicator, Style, Core Character Traits …evaluating the various assessment tools on the market can easily become confusing.  They range from icebreaking tools, like “What kind of dog are you?” to sophisticated performance-predicting psychological evaluations.  So how do you know which one is right for your organization? And more importantly, how do you know which assessment company is best suited to assist you in your efforts to turn HR into a mission critical function?

The first step to picking the right tool is to understand how the profile you choose fits into your culture and your existing recruiting and training strategies.  A good assessment tool helps your organization recruit more top performers and identifies the training investment needed to turn potential into performance.  A good assessment company can partner with you and become an extension of your team.  For example, if you’re just looking for a tool that can be used as an icebreaker, an inexpensive “Type Indicator” could be all you need.  If, on the other hand, you want to improve your Contact Center selection and development and you want to position your HR department as a change agent in the process of becoming a high performance culture, you’ll need a more costly and more detailed performance predicting, normative tool that can be validated.

What role will the tool play in your coaching and training system?  A good, validated, normative assessment provides detailed output and can serve as a growth and coaching guide for years.  It provides the manager and the test taker with detailed feedback.  By using a thoroughly validated tool, the HR professional can back up developmental strategies with hard science and detailed reporting.  These reports give the employee and the manager the tools they need to self-manage their own career development within the company, thus improving retention and contributing to a robust succession plan. Look for internet-based tools that provide interview suggestions, coaching considerations, matching strategies and details on individual strengths and growth opportunities in their on-demand reporting systems.

Does the assessment company provide free interpretation and support? The most supportive profiling companies look to build real partnerships with their clients.  They recognize that their success is dependent on your organization’s ability to use and understand the report.  If you can’t understand the report then the assessment won’t do you much good.  Look for tools that include easily interpreted “snapshot” reporting. 

Can the tool be used as a Contact Center selection tool?  If your responsibilities include selection and recruitment or if you want to bring some statistical accuracy into your training and development efforts, look for a predictive, normative assessment.  Make sure your profile partner is committed to continuous improvement.  If a tool does not predict performance, it cannot be used as a selection tool.  The best profiling companies proactively validate their performance predictions and continuously refine their understanding of what ideal performance looks like for each company they serve.  

How will the tool support your recruitment and selection system?  A good internet-based assessment tool can be used as part of your company’s application process.  These tools pay for themselves by increasing retention; reducing the risks that come with hiring the wrong person and eliminating wasted time. The world’s leading companies are winning the “talent war” by leveraging psychometrics and state of the art technology.   Good systems should screen the individual and knock out obvious non-fits. If the candidate passes the screen they are invited to complete a psychometric that provides a report to the manager in real time. The process helps to exponentially increase the flow of available candidates while exponentially decreasing the time spent interviewing and selecting.  Only those candidates that would actually be considered for the position move on to the interview.  Look for assessment companies capable of developing your career center and that provide complimentary applicant tracking so that you can easily organize your candidate pool and identify your best recruiting sources.

What will you need the tool to assess?  One size does not fit all.  Trainers looking to provide their employees and organizations with a process that will have a lasting impact will benefit from a tool that measures the core characteristics most applicable to the individual’s work.  Measuring job-specific factors rather than general variables helps make assessment tools easier to interpret and helps position you as an expert.

Is the profile fair and free from bias?  Make sure that the profile you are using meets relevant anti-discrimination laws as well as privacy legislation. Responsible profiling companies regularly conduct research consistent with local legislation and work to demonstrate that their profiles do not discriminate against minority groups when used in the selection, promotion or succession planning process.

 Is the profile available in a variety of languages?  This is of particular importance to HR professionals working in large companies with decentralized recruiting or in companies looking to expand globally.  If you are working with the head office team in Vancouver and the company you are working with has offices in Italy and Mumbai, being able to assess candidates in Italian and Hindi and provide management reports in English and French will be important.  The best assessment tool companies store the numeric responses to their tests, not the reports. This means that the assessment can be completed in the candidate’s native language and the report can be instantly generated, in real time, in the hiring manager’s language.

 Will the profile detect deliberate distortion?  A good tool cannot be fooled.

Some tests will incorporate so-called “lie scales” as they identify those subjects who try to fool the assessment and present themselves in a more favorable light.

In our work with the world’s leading organizations, we have begun to see Human Resource professionals emerge as leaders in the development of high performance cultures.  If you are looking to leverage science in your effort to improve your screening, selection and training system or position your department as a change agent, make sure you partner with the right organization. The bottom line is to trust your gut and find a firm that you feel you can trust and with one which you can build a real partnership.

Colleen O’Brien-Wood, Ph.D.

Vice President Professional Services

Self Management Group

416 746-0444 ext:231