Perfect employee

HUMRES

Patrick L. Reyes

MM2012

Perfect employee Disclaimer

• This presentation is part of the mandatory requirements of Prof. Hilda Teodoro’s AGSB Human Resources Management class

• The data included in this report are based on publicly available data such as those on internet websites, available data such as those on internet websites, news, package declarations, and public reports

• When appropriate, data are “masked” so as to not create unexpected conflicts

• The reports may be posted and linked on slideshare, blogs, and facebook so that there is easier sharing among students

Perfect employee Why the “Perfect Employee”?

• Where to look for employees

• How to select employees

• Who to select

• How to repeat great hires• How to repeat great hires

• How to avoid bad hires

Perfect employee What to expect

• Be informed – not told what to do

• Personnel Selection

• Selection Standards

• Selection Methods• Selection Methods

• Selection Methods against the Standards

Perfect employee Are you in or are you out?

• Personnel Selection is the process by which

companies decide who will or who will not be

allowed into organizations

“What could possibly be more important than who gets hired?

Business is a game, and as with all games, the team that puts

the best people on the field and gets them playing together

wins. It’s that simple.” – Jack Welch

Perfect employee 5 Selection Standards

• Reliability

• Validity

• Generalizability

• Utility• Utility

• Legality

Perfect employee Why Selection Standards?

• Selection involves measuring characteristics

of people to determine who will be accepted

• Need to quantify people on some dimension

so we can rank them from High to Low based so we can rank them from High to Low based

on characteristic of interest

• First 4 Standards build on each other

Perfect employee Reliability

• Reliability – the degree a measure is free from random error– Ex.: Height – use of measuring instrument versus a guess

• Reliability of the measuring instrument not the characteristic

• Correlation Coefficient – measure of degree to which two • Correlation Coefficient – measure of degree to which two sets of numbers are related (measure versus expected performance) – May be +, -, 0

– Example: SAT scores at junior high versus senior high

• Test-retest reliability – scores at one time compared to scores at another time. Measured over a short time lapse scores should be close

Perfect employee Validity

• Validity – the extent performance on the measure is related to performance on the job

• Criterion-Related Validity – substantial correlation between test scores and job-performance scores (ex. SAT score vs. GPA in freshman college)– Predictive validation – applicants test scores correlated

High SAT = High GPAHigh SAT = High GPAHigh SAT = High GPAHigh SAT = High GPA

– Predictive validation – applicants test scores correlated with eventual performance on the job

– Concurrent validation –incumbents test scores correlated with current job performance

• Content Validation – an alternative. Questions or problems posted are representative of situations or problems that occur on the job

Perfect employee Generalizability

• Generalizability – degree to which validity of a selection method established in one context extends to other contexts

– Ex. SAT predictor for under-graduate, but not for graduate programs, need GRE, GMAT, etc.graduate programs, need GRE, GMAT, etc.

– Future performance

• Two primary ”contexts”

– Different situations (job roles or organizations)

• Example: nurse in a large hospital or small hospital

– Different samples of people (gender, race)

Perfect employee Utility

• Utility – degree to which the information

provided by selection methods enhance the

bottom line effectiveness of the organization

– Example: Extroversion of sales person correlated – Example: Extroversion of sales person correlated

to sales revenue

• Money, money, money

Perfect employee Legality

• Selection methods should conform to existing

laws and legal precedents

• Affirmative Action

• Does not discriminate against race, gender, • Does not discriminate against race, gender,

age, and disability

Perfect employee Selection Methods

• Interviews

• Reference Checks

• Biographical Information

• Physical Ability Tests

• Cognitive Ability Tests• Cognitive Ability Tests

• Personality Inventories

• Work-sample Tests

• Honesty Tests

• Drug Tests

Perfect employee Interviewing

• Interview – a dialogue initiated by one or more

persons to gather information and evaluate

qualifications of an applicant for employment

• To be effective – keep it structured, standard, • To be effective – keep it structured, standard,

and focused on accomplishing small goals

– Quantitative ratings for observable behaviors (ex.

ability to express oneself)

– Avoid rating abilities that are better measured by tests

(intelligence)

Perfect employee Still Interviewing

• Situational Interviews

– Experienced-based – What did you do?

– Future-oriented – What would you do?

• Group/Panel (vs. individual)• Group/Panel (vs. individual)

– “Trained” panel (for consistency)

– With scoring/rating

• Video Recording

• Live video (Skype)

Perfect employee Background Checks and Bio Data

• References are unreliable due to applicant choose those who think highly of them

• Biographical data supplied by applicant should be verifiable be verifiable

• Interestingly, background checks – only in America (and the Philippines?) compared to Europe

– Illegal in many countries

– Europeans carry less debt compared to Americans

Perfect employee Physical Ability Tests

• Tend to favor males over females

• Adverse impact on those with disabilities and

females

• 2 Key questions for this test• 2 Key questions for this test

– Essential to performing the job – firefighters

– Failure to adequately perform results in risk to

safety and health of applicant, co-workers, and

others

Perfect employee Cognitive Ability Tests

• Tests individuals based on their mental rather

than physical abilities

• 3 Most Dominant – 3R+1

– Verbal Comprehension – Reading wRiting (and – Verbal Comprehension – Reading wRiting (and

spoken)

– Quantitative Ability – aRithmetic

– Reasoning Ability – ability to invent solutions to

diverse problems

Perfect employee Personality Inventories

• What the applicants are like

• Remember Leadership class? - Enneagram

• Big 5 – Extroversion, Adjustment, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience

• Conscientiousness – which captures the concept of self-regulationand self-motivation and one of the most important characteristic of employees lack validity and self-motivation and one of the most important characteristic of employees lack validity

• Despite generic lack of validity, becoming more popular possibly due to wider-use of team-based structures that put emphasis on collaboration

• Choices: Similar (for harmony) versus dissimilar (for diversity and creativity)

• EQ – self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy, social skills

Perfect employee Sample! Sample!

• Work Samples – through case study, role play, job tryout, hire temporary (6 mos. to a year)

• TV contests? Prize is a contract

• More “business-like” –• More “business-like” –

– Google code jam (programming problems, develop software or game in say 2 hours ), Google also hires the finalists (identifies pool of talents)

– HSBC Young Entrepreneur Challenge

– The Apprentice

• Assessment center – for managerial selection

Perfect employee Honesty and Drug Tests

• Lie detector/Polygraph – banned in 1988.

Now, paper-based

• Drug test

– Invasive– Invasive

– Invasion of privacy issues

Perfect employeeHow Selection Methods

Measure UpMETHOD RELIABILITY VALIDITY GENERALIZABILITY UTILITY LEGALITYInterviews Low when unstructured and

when assessing non observable

traits

Low if unstructured and non

behavioral

Low Low, especially because of

expense

Low because of subjectivity and

potential interviewer bias also,

lack of validity makes job

relatedness low

Reference Checks Low, especially when obtained

from letters

Low because of lack of rang of

evaluations

Low Low, although not expensive to

obtain

Those writing letters may be

concerned with charges of libel

Biographical Information High test-retest specially for

verifiable information

High criterion-related validity,

low in content validity

Usually job specific, but have

been successfully developed

for many job types

High, inexpensive way to

collect vast amounts of

potentially relevant data

May have adverse impact, thus

often develop separate scoring

keys based on sex or race

Physical ability tests High Moderate criterion-related Low, pertain only to physically Moderate for some physical Often has adverse impact on Physical ability tests High Moderate criterion-related

validity, high content validity

for some jobs

Low, pertain only to physically

demanding jobs

Moderate for some physical

jobs, may prevent expensive

injuries and disability

Often has adverse impact on

women and people with

disabilities; need to establish

job- relatedness

Cognitive ability tests High Moderate criterion-related

validity, content validation

inappropriate

High, predictive for most jobs,

although best for complex jobs

High, low cost and wide

application across diverse jobs

in companies

Often has adverse impact on

race especially for African

Americans, though decreasing

over time

Personality Inventories High Low to moderate criterion-

related validity for most traits,

content validation

inappropriate

Low, few traits predictive for

many jobs, except for

conscientiousness

Low, although inexpensive for

jobs where specific traits are

relevant

Low because of cultural and sex

differences on most traits, and

low job-relatedness in general

Work-sample Tests High High criterion and content

validity

Usually job specific, but have

been successfully developed

for many job types

High, despite the relatively high

cost to develop

High because of low adverse

impact and high job-

relatedness

Honesty tests Insufficient independent

evidence

Insufficient independent

evidence

Insufficient independent

evidence

Insufficient independent

evidence

Insufficient history of litigation,

but will undergo scrutiny

Drug tests High High High Expensive but may yield high

payoffs for health-related costs

May be challenged on invasion-

of-privacy grounds

Perfect employee Summary

• Measure Stable Characteristics

• Use a Mix of Selection Methods

• Structured Interview

Research indicates that one of the best Research indicates that one of the best combinations of selection methods includes work-sample tests with a highly structured interview and a measure of general cognitive ability. The validity coefficient expected from such a combined battery often exceeds .60

Perfect employee

• Stumbled upon a book

• By Nolan Bushnell

– Inventor of Pong

– Founder of Atari, Chuck E. Cheese’s – Pizza – Founder of Atari, Chuck E. Cheese’s – Pizza

restaurant/arcade

– Father of Electronic gaming

Perfect employee The Book

• Book on Selection and Placement? – Book on Creativity!

• How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent

• Another book of lists? – 51 “Pongs”

• Also contains where/how to look for “creatives”• Also contains where/how to look for “creatives”

• Based on conversations with Steve Jobs (a former Atari Employee) that he wrote down– Steve looking at evolution of apple, looking at the rest

of the team to spur creativity, not just himself (the leader)

– Looking for his own – next Steve Jobs!

Perfect employee Pong

• Pong – A piece of advice, only where it applies,

flexible, unlike

• Rules – applies to everything, restricts creativity

• “Key to survival to this New World is Creativity”• “Key to survival to this New World is Creativity”

• Creativity at all levels - must not reside in one person or a few people

• Creativity Chain – different people contributing to a product/process

• Real life examples, real companies

Perfect employee Some Interesting Pongs

#1 – Make your workplace an advertisement of your company (Atari – lobby was a games arcade)

#3 – Advertise (job openings) creatively Atari

“Play Games, make Money”“Play Games, make Money”

“Make Games that Make Money, Keep Some of It”

Chuck E. Cheese’s“Work for a rat, Earn lots of Cheese”

“Make Dough, Make Fun. Have Fun, Earn Dough”

IKEA“Career Assembly Instructions” with their packaging

Perfect employee More Interesting Pongs

#4 – Hire for Passion and Intensity

You can train employees with the ways of the

company, but you can’t train them to be

passionate passionate

How do you find passion? …Like pornography, it’s

hard to define, but you know it when you see it

You see it in the eyes. Like Steve they look you in

the eye. They talk about ideas not themselves. You

cannot create passion if it is not there

Perfect employee More Interesting Pongs

#5 – Ignore credentials (dropouts – Steves, Jobs & Wozniack, Bill Gates, David Geffen, Mark Zuckerberg, Coco Chanel)

#21 – Celebrate. Keep creatives happy#21 – Celebrate. Keep creatives happy

#27 – Champion the bad ideas. Learn to debate both sides of an issue

#28 – Celebrate Failure to avoid fear of failure

WD-40 stands for “Water Displacement – 40th

Formula”

Perfect employee More Interesting Pongs

#33 – Create a creative chain. Products/ideas evolve

#43 – Make Something for the Rich.

Do not be limited by a wide target market

The Rich are able to makes ideas happen that eventually become cost effective

Ex. Car, Bicycle, Telephone, Microwave Oven, etc.

#45 – Throw the Dice, to make important decisions. Biased ranking of To-Do lists, putting off some indefinitely at the bottom

Perfect employee Last Pong

ACT!

“Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had

a good idea, the thing that matters is what a good idea, the thing that matters is what

you do with that idea once you get out of the

shower.” – Nolan Bushnell

Perfect employee

HUMRES

Patrick L. Reyes

MM2012