New Leadership Assessment Report from Saville Consulting & PsyAsia features on BBC TV
Professor Peter Saville recently appeared on BBC TV to discuss the Saville Consulting Wave Psychometric Personality Assessment. The BBC’s Technology Correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones underwent the Wave questionnaire and then received feedback from Professor Saville.
The Leadership Report discussed by Professor Saville is powered by Wave Professional Styles and based on Saville Consulting’s brand new Leadership Model. It has been validated both against theoretical leadership constructs and empirically using international workplace performance and effectiveness criterion data.
It combines styles, situations and underlying leadership potential to assess the impact of leadership on people, tasks and the growth of the organization as a whole. As it is based on the Wave model, the Leadership Report can also distinguish between motives and talents and highlights areas of potential over or under-rating.
The Leadership Report has a wide range of applications including in selection, succession planning, coaching or development and in assessing a leader’s fit to their environment.
PsyAsia International is offering a 15% discount on Saville Consulting Wave training for anybody who registers after viewing this video and before 15 December 2010. Use promotion code BBC when booking your place. The next courses will run in March 2011 in Singapore and Hong Kong. Full details at http://www.psyasia.com/saville-consulting-wave-training-module.php.
Chinese Personality – Do we need indigenous psychometric tests?
It’s perhaps quite natural to believe that the Chinese personality is so different to others that it requires a special psychometric test to assess it. What better way to sell your new Chinese personality test than to state that it is “high time a test for the Chinese” were developed. However, this throws doubt upon the utility of rigorously developed international psychometric tests of personality.
Given the above, we embarked on a research program to assess whether Chinese people differ significantly comparied to others in terms of personality structure and whether personality tests that purport to assess Chinese Personality are able to predict any more work performance than internationally developed tests have already been proven to do!
You can read our research findings it: personality.cn, our Chinese Personality at Work Research Site.
No time to read the whole site? Here’s a quick summary:
Locally developed psychometric tests which purport to assess “indigenous” aspects of Chinese Personality were found to be less reliable than reputable internationally developed tests of personality. Furthermore, there is a big question as to whether so-called “indigenous” traits are Chinese-specific. Issues such as traditionalism or face also exist in other cultures! Moreover, the research has demonstrated that whatever we choose to believe about Chinese Personality, locally developed (Hong Kong) tests of “indigenous” personality add nothing to the prediction of performance at work that is not already accounted for by reputable internationally developed personality tests.
We present this research in a free HRM webinar which you can watch here. We held a vote at the beginning and end of our webinar whereby we asked attendees if they believed that Chinese Personality is so different that Chinese people need their own personality test. At the beginning of the webinar, the majority of the attendees said yes! By the end of the webinar only one attendee still believed this to be the case! We recommend choosing well designed psychometric tests with high reliability and validity. Personality is a universal construct, thus locally developed tests may have little benefit to the hiring manager!
What do People Want from their Jobs? The Big Five, core self-evaluations and work motivation
If people are differentially motivated on the basis of individual differences, this implies important practical consequences with respect to staffing decisions and the selection of the right motivational techniques for managers. In two different samples (students facing graduation vs full-time employees), the relationships between personality traits and the preference for job characteristics concerning either extrinsic (job environment) or intrinsic job features (work itself) were investigated. Two personality traits [openness to experience and core self-evaluations (CSE)] were consistently found to be positively related to the preference concerning work characteristics, and CSE showed incremental validity with regard to intrinsic work motivation factors (e.g., experienced meaningfulness, autonomy). Furthermore, age was differentially linked to those job characteristics. The results are discussed with regards to the optimal Person-Job Fit and the practical utility of the personality constructs.
The full research paper can be found here: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/ijsa/2010/00000018/00000001/art00003
Replace Psychometric Tests in Singapore?
Last week the Singapore-based Straits Times published an article which reported a study carried out at NUS linking testosterone to advantages in leadership. PsyAsia’s Dr. Graham Tyler was asked to comment on the reasearch and he was asked if biological testing might replace psychometric testing in the future! A copy of the article can be downloaded here:
There are a number of limitations in the above thinking. Not least the fact that the study was carried out on students – hardly real-world organisational leaders! Also, given that this was a correlational analysis it cannot be inferred that testosterone increases leadership skills. It might actually be the opposite. Finding oneself in leadership scenarios may cause the body to produce more testosterone!
Biological testing is certainly not about to replace psychometric tests in Singapore or anywhere else. Not only is the area contentious it would also bring legal issues into play. We know already that biology plays a role in many aspects of who we are from personality traits to ability and more. However, we also know that the environment, access to resources and simply luck (ie where we find ourselves, who our teachers/mentors are) also play a huge part. Psychometric tests should never be used on their own to inform decision-making processes and neither should any other form of assessment – biological testing, interviews and so forth. However, the use of highly valid tools used in conjunction with each other is a good thing.
Note: In the article, there is a mention that aptitude tests can predict between 9-36% of performance. This is incorrect. The journalist asked about personality tests and was told that traditional personality tests can predict about 9-36% of performance. Aptitude tests are able to predict more than this and more modern personality assessments such as Identity or the Saville Consulting Wave do an even better job than traditonal personality tests!
360 Appraisal Online Performance Assessment for Singapore
Singapore and Hong Kong based award-winning PsyAsia International offers 360 Performance Appraisal via the Saville Consulting Performance Culture Framework. The company has recently set-up a new site dedicated to easy understanding of the 360 appraisal process. It’s easy to set up and the cost is very reasonable. Optional services such as feedback from a psychologist consultant or team building and development services can be added to the package. The online performance appraisal system can be used by any organisation worldwide.
The Saville Consulting Wave is based upon a validation-centric scientific framework known as the Performance and Culture Framework. As part of this framework, Saville Consulting offers the Wave Performance 360 (multi-rater) online assessment of performance at work. Wave Performance 360 online assessment enables a range of relevant individuals to rate a colleague’s performance at work. How an individual perceives themselves and how this compares to other people’s perceptions of them is a powerful feedback tool. 360 assessment enhances self-awareness and provides a great platform for personal development.
Wave 360 provides a unique report where the dual reporting lets the individual being assessed understand on one profile exactly how they were rated and how this benchmarks externally.
The report combines quantitative rating scales with qualitative comment. All raters have the option of contributing narrative text on areas they think the individual does well, could do less of and could improve on. As a further option, Saville Consulting provides a very detailed development report for the individual based on all ratings.
This powerful 360 appraisal can be used on it’s own or in conjunction with Saville Consulting Wave® Styles. When used in combination it can help individuals understand the gaps between their performance and potential as a platform for utilising unused potential and realising critical areas of potential.
Further details at the special site: http://360-appraisal.com
Does Conscientiousness predict performance at Work?
There has been much research conducted examining the relationship between Conscientiousness as defined as one of the dimensions in the “Big Five” Model of personality and job performance. Much of the research has indicated that Conscientiousness is a positive predictor for job performance across a range of job positions. Simply put and what many advocate, is that it appears that people who have been assessed to be higher on Conscientiousness tend to perform better at work. Nevertheless, an article by Tett (1998) highlights some considerations regarding accepting this conclusion and cautions against accepting this at face value.
In this article, a number of examples suggest that Conscientiousness and job performance may not be irrevocably linked as previous research has suggested. It provides two examples of work situations where Conscientiousness may actually hinder the job performance. Firstly, the author highlights situations where being conscientious may result in lower productivity where either tasks require more time to complete or where fewer tasks can be completed. This is illustrated by the example of managers who at times are required to make decisions even when they do not have all the relevant information (Tett, 1998). In such a situation, being high on conscientious may affect the speed at which decisions can be made.
The second example refers to rules and procedures; conscientious individuals tend to adhere to rules and procedures. Tett (1998) highlights that in certain professions, strictly following rules and procedures may affect creativity and innovation. It is proposed that such adherence to rules and procedures can affect productivity as such individuals would be unlikely to develop novel ideas and solutions.
Although Conscientiousness appears to remain as a significant predictor of job performance, it is important to note that there are situations where other factors can play a part.
Tett, R. P. (1998). Is Conscientiousness ALWAYS positively related to job performance? The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 36(1)
Performance-Appraisal Beliefs of Chinese Employees in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta
Sourced from: Latest Issue of International Journal of Selection and Assessment
Aptitude Tests Singapore
Aptitude Tests
Well designed Aptitude tests have been shown to be one of the absolute best predictors of workplace performance. Psychometrics Singapore’s tests are chosen carefully to ensure that the assessments reflect contemporary work needs. Many of our non-psychologist competitors simply distribute whatever aptitude tests they can get their hands on! At Psychometrics Singapore, our doctoral level and award-winning psychologists have thoroughly reviewed the tests we sell to ensure superior reliability and validity. To this end we work with the world’s most renowned test publishers.
The Saville Consulting Aptitude Test Range includes:
- Swift Analysis Aptitude
- Swift Comprehension Aptitude
- Swift Technical Aptitude
These are combined aptitude assessments and are all available in supervised or unsupervised formats online or offline. What is remarkable about these tests is that they require shorter assessment times than other aptitude tests on the market. Despite this, they have higher predictive validity. The tests are attractive and the questions are modern and relevant to today’s business world.
- Professional Aptitudes
- Work Aptitudes
- Operational Aptitudes
- Commercial Aptitudes
- Customer Aptitudes
- Administrative Aptitudes
- Practical Aptitudes
These tests are single aptitude tests that are relevant for different levels of jobs. All measures within a range have been designed to have comparable levels of difficulty. They have wide bandwidth and good score discrimination enabling deployment across a range of levels.
Saville Consulting designated five work complexity levels with reference to the definitions of the UK National Vocational Qualifications and corresponding Zones in the US O-Net system and levels in the Stratified Systems Theory of Jaques (1996).
Benefits of the Saville Consulting Aptitude Tests include:
- Shorter assessment times
- Fresh, modern content and design
- Greater job relevance
- Clear instructions
- New, in-depth outputs
- Candidate friendly feedback
Saville Consulting has moved beyond a single summary measure of overall test performance and now provides supplementary information on Test Taking Style in terms of Accuracy, Speed and Caution as well as sub-scores based on question formats.
