Psychology: Past Performance & Hiring

• Psychology commonly holds that past performance is the strongest indicator of future success
• An organization looking to hire a salesperson may prioritize candidates with similar successful sales experience.
• Confirming past employment is straightforward, verifying performance quality is complex.

References

• Employers seek insights into an applicant's past performance.
• Reference Check: Confirms the accuracy of the information an applicant has provided.
• References: An opinion (oral or written) about an applicant's abilities, performance, work ethic, character, and potential.
• Letter of Recommendation: Opinion on an applicant’s abilities, performance, habits, and potential.

Reasons for Using References

• Confirming Résumé Details
• Résumé Fraud: Intentionally including false information on a résumé.
• Checking for Discipline Problems
  • Determines if an applicant has issues like poor attendance, harassment, or violence.
  • Negligent hiring can hold an organization liable if an unchecked hire commits a crime.
• Discovering New Applicant Information
  • Past employers/professors can offer insights into an applicant's work habits, character, personality and skills.
    • Opinions may be inaccurate or intentionally false so due diligence is needed.
• Predicting Future Performance
  • References/recommendations can assist in predicting how an applicant will perform.
  • References are not strongly predictive, with an uncorrected validity coefficient of only 0.18.

Main Problems with Letters of Recommendation

• Leniency: Most recommendations are positive; Less than 1% rate applicants below average.
  • Applicants tend to choose their own references.
  • Negligent Reference: When a company fails to provide relevant information when requested.
• Validity:
• Confidentiality: Coworkers may be hesitant to share negative feedback due to confidentiality concerns.
  • Writers are more likely to give favorable evaluations if the applicant can see the letter.
• Fear of Legal Ramifications:
  • References can lead to defamation charges if the content is untrue and malicious.
• Knowledge About the Applicant: The person writing the letter may not know the applicant well.
  • Employees behave differently around supervisors versus coworkers/customers.
• Reliability: There's often a lack of agreement between references for the same person (reliability is only 0.22).
  • Agreement is higher when the same the people write the recommendations for different applicants.
• Extraneous Factors:
  • Letters with specific examples are better received than Those containing generalities.
  • Letters from references who like the applicant are longer.
  • Longer letters are perceived more favorably.

Ethical Issues

• Disclose your relationship with the person you're recommending.
• Be truthful in providing details.
• Allow the applicant to review the reference and decline its use.

Predicting Performance: Applicant Ability

• Ability tests assess an applicant's capacity to learn/perform job-related skills.
• Used for roles where applicants aren't expected to be proficient at hire.

Ability Measures

• Cognitive Ability
  • Centers around knowledge and its use.
  • Facilitates quick job knowledge and better decision-making.
  • Drawbacks: Limited face validity with difficulties setting passing scores.
• Perceptual Ability
  • Measures the ability to understand spacial relations and recognize forms.
• Manual Dexterity
  • Measures finger dexterity and motor coordination.
  • Psychomotor abilities include those of carpenters, police, office staff etc.
• Physical Ability
  • Common is jobs that require physical abilities
• Physical ability is measured using:
  • Job simulations
  • Physical Agility Tests.
    • Drawbacks: Job relatedness and passing.

Skills Measurement

• Selection methods ascertain applicant experience.
• Work Sample:
  • Applicants perform real job-related tasks.
  • Scores effectively predict actual job performance with content and criteria validity.
  • Demonstrates job relevancy to applicants.
• Assessment Centers:
  • Utilizes various assessment techniques to allow assessors to observe applicants.

Assessment Center Creation

• Job Analysis
• Exercises Developed:
  • In-basket Technique: Simulates information on an employee's desk.
  • Simulations: Placement of applicants a situation that tests how they respond.
  • Leaderless Group Discussion: Applicants meet and discuss job related-problems.
  • Business Game: Simulates marketing and business activities.
• assessors are chosen to rate applicants.

Personality & Character

• Applicant experience is gauges in the following ways:
  • Résumé
  • Biodata
  • Reference checks
  • Interviews
• Personality Inventories:
  • Personality inventories are becoming popular because they predict performance and avoid adverse impacts.
• Integrity Test: "Honesty Tests" are useful in predicting an employee's tendency to steal.

Performance Limits

• Assessment of physical or psychological limitations can include:
  • Drug testing
  • Medical evaluation
  • Psychological Exams

Applicant Rejection

• Communicate decisions of which applicants were hired and rejected to all parties.
• Treat rejected applicants courteously to leave a constructive impression.
• Make a good quality rejection letter:
  • Letter should be signed and addressed to applicant
  • Thank the applicant for applying to the company
  • Compliment the applicants qualifications
  • Refer to the qualifications that other applicants possessed
  • Supply information on the hired candidate
  • Offer the applicant with a wish of good luck
  • Offer a promise to keep the applicants resume on file

Performance Appraisal

• Performance appraisals are completed in stages:
  • Determine appraisal purpose
  • Identify environmental limitations that could effect the appraisal
  • Determine who will evaluate the performance
  • Train raters
  • Observe and document performance
  • Communicate results to employees
  • Make personnel decisions
  • Monitor fairness/legality of the process
• Reason for Evaluation
  • Employees must be provided with feedback
  • Salary increases
  • Promotion decisions
  • Making decisions of termination
  • Conduct personnel research and correlate test scores of job performance

Limitations

• Identify limitations of the system.
  • Appraisal systems should be elaborate and detailed
  • Numerical systems yield the best results.
  • Evaluations must be cohesive

Who Evaluates?

• Performance has traditionally been determined by supervisors.
• Organizations rely on supervisors to see what aspects of the employee need improving to produce results.
• - Supervisors*
  • Ratings are the most common source of appraising performance
  • Surveys and organizations rely on supervisors ratings
• - Peers*
  • Performance is often viewable by peers
  • Reliable ratings are acquired with those the employee works with
• - Subordinates*
  • Feedback is upward and important for gauging the view of the supervisor
  • Ratings can be difficult if supervisor has limited subordinates
• - Customers*
  • Customers compliment or fill out cards to provide feedback.

Appraisal

• Focus on the dimensions on traits etc
• Appraisals can include focuses of:
  • Competency
  • Traits
  • Task types
  • Goals
• Employee comparisons can be made to make an effective decision
  • Ranking employees
  • Objective measures

Training

• Training and references can provide the employee with job-related information and examples
  • Increases rater accuracy and reduces rates the better that employees understand and system
  • Ratings should be made by a supervisor Documentation importance:
• Supervisors should focus on traits instead of behaviors Helps defend against illegal action by the employee

Evaluation Errors

• Supervisors should obtain and review objective data

• Reading should reduce errors of primacy and recency

• Errors include:

  • Leniency (upper end of the scale)
  • Tendency (rate in the middle) -Halo ( allow single attribute)
  • Proximity (one dimension affects the next)
  • Contrast (influenced by previous person)

• Feedback given through evaluation

Terminating Employees

• Employees must be terminated for a good reason. Employee must go through probationary periods, violation of company rules, or inabilities to perform.
• Employees cannot be terminated in times of layoffs. One way is to acquire new skills

Employee Training

• Employees should be selected on their necessary knowledge and what they need to improve on. Skills and rules that should be trained will result in an improved performance
• Skills and knowledge must always be performed
• Determining training needs goes to the process of the needs analysis
• It shows that the extent to which they achieve goals
• Organizational analysis provides the organizational factors that facilitate training.
• Tasks analysis should identify and recognize the tasks by each employee
• Identifying the employees and needs training falls unto person analysis
• Most training programs have goals to achieve and the best training that the employees will obtain and understand
• Cases and lectures provide employees with hypothetical workplace solutions.
• Employees should simulate and be put into certain and accurate job conditions
• Employees must relate the training to the employees immediate job. Motivate the training