Overview
The assessment center method is a procedure used by human resource management (HRM) to evaluate and develop personnel in terms of attributes or abilities relevant to organizational effectiveness. Even though all assessment centers share common features, the process can be adapted in many ways to achieve different objectives. The theme of this service is that each assessment center must be tailor-made to fit particular HRM purposes. The typical use of assessment centers is for three human resource purposes which are:
1. Deciding whom to select or promote.
2. Diagnosing strengths and weaknesses in work-related skills as a prelude to development.
3. Developing job-relevant skills.
We help the human resource manager designing the assessment center with a specific purpose in mind and then advise on making choices to build an assessment center that adequately serves that purpose. Throughout the whole project, alternative ways of setting up each element of the assessment center are discussed with the stakeholders, and a rationale for deciding what procedures to follow is provided. Our recommendations for assessment center practice are based on theory and research relevant to each element of an assessment center, as well as the experience of our assessment center practitioners.