Psychometric Testing & HRM» Performance at Work

Work Performance, Sleep, Circadian Rhythms, Safety & Human Resources Advice

Psychometrics — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 13:15:18 +0000

It’s not news that fatigued workers perform less well and are less safe on the job. However, according to the Monitor on Psychology (January 2011), it is more difficult than we think to adjust to shift work or lack of sleep.

This is a pertinent issue. With the demands of the modern workplace, more and more workers play hard after work and sleep less. The lack of sleep not only results in eye bags and wrinkles, but makes the body less effective at reducing toxins and more susceptible to illness and disease. This is true for all regular day workers. For night workers, the dangers are multiplied because they are forcing their body’s circadian rhythm to change. It’s possible to have the circadian rhythm gradually adjust and realign, but for many shift workers, their hours are irregular.

For example, many hotel staff will work overnight one day and then work a day shift the next. The body never has time to realign its rhythm.
Human Resources staff need to take this issue seriously when planning and training because it can lead to safety issues in addition to increased absenteeism, poor moods at work and lower overall performance. There are no permanently effective solutions to this issue, but the following research backed advice may assist:

1. Try to have staff work regular night shifts and educate them as to the importance of trying to keep their circadian rhythms in their adjusted state. They can do this by spending their day off on the same time episodes as their night shift days. This however may not be sellable to the employee who perhaps wants to spend time with friends or go out shopping.

2. For non-shift staff, ensure they understand the effects of not sleeping enough. It impacts on everybody at work due to mood, motivation and performance deficits. Try to make their work more interesting and fun so that they look forward to it each night and thus don’t feel they need to use up every minute of spare time having fun rather than sleeping.

Written and Published by PsyAsia International’s Psychometric Tests and HRM News Team

Chinese Personality Testing – Can Indigenous Tests Predict Work Performance?

Psychometrics — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:00:43 +0000

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!

Chinese Personality at Work – How Chinese are the Chinese?

Psychometrics — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:46:52 +0000

FREE HRM WEBINAR

PsyAsia International is pleased to announce the next webinar in our series of professional HR webinars. This time we will be discussing the topic of Chinese Personality and performance at work.

Some HR people in Asia believe that culture plays such a significant role in personality that indigenous personality attributes need to be assessed at recruitment/selection. To this end, personality tests have been developed “in Chinese for the Chinese by the Chinese”. A significant question to ask is: Do these tests add any prediction over and above that afforded by mainstream personality tests developed by world renowned experts in the field?

The above questions will be answered through discussion of the trait model of personality and its biological basis. Peer-reviewed and published research conducted by PsyAsia International’s award-winning Psychologist, Dr. Graham Tyler; award-winning Dr. Peter Newcombe of the University of Queensland; and world-renowned Professor Paul Barrett, formerly of the University of Auckland will be presented in an easy to understand format.

Click to register…

FORTUNE: Motivate without Spending Millions

psychometrics — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 02:29:02 +0000

I’m thrilled to share with you a feature article in April 12 issue of Fortune magazine: Motivate without Spending Millions.”

The article discusses employee recognition, fully capturing our position that frequent, smaller rewards across the vast majority of employees is the best approach towards creating the most effective recognition program. This stance was validated in the article by Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Hayagreeva Rao and the Corporate Executive Board, with additional narrative about our client Intuit’s employee recognition program.

Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

Assessing the impact of healthy work organization intervention

psychometrics — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:33:03 +0000

This research evaluates a healthy work organization intervention implemented in a retail setting. Using a participatory process, employee teams in 11 intervention stores developed customized plans for improving work organization at their sites. Ten comparable stores served as controls. Employee surveys were administered prior to the intervention and twice again at 12-month intervals. Business results were compiled monthly for each store. The baseline data were used by the teams to identify needs and establish action priorities for their stores. Most study outcomes declined across time for all stores, due primarily to internal corporate events and a generally adverse economic environment. However, the intervention process appeared to buffer some of these declines; intervention stores fared better in terms of selected aspects of organizational climate and psychological work adjustment. Intervention stores also performed better than controls on general indices of perceived health and safety and two of the four business outcomes: employee turnover and sales per labour hour. These results are discussed in terms of the challenges involved in evaluating organizational-level interventions in work settings.

View the full article

Achieving High Performance with Leader Athletes

psychometrics — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 03:30:35 +0000

Today’s elite athletes are performing at levels few can hope to achieve, yet with each race, each competition, they consistently demonstrate the capacity to push themselves and reach heights once thought unobtainable. In the business world, it should be the goal of every leader to emulate world-class athletes. This is a reachable objective and we see examples of exceptional adaptability and agility as chief among common traits shared by leaders of high performing organizations.

Outstanding leaders have traditionally been associated with coaches rather than athletes. They guide, teach, motivate and inspire. But they are not usually thought of as demonstrating the dynamic, heroic effort of sports figures in the course of leading companies. But that’s changing quickly.

Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

Agile Leaders Generate Greater Corporate Performance

psychometrics — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:30:03 +0000

In an environment of rapid technological advances, economic turmoil and changing consumer behaviors, most companies recognize that to be successful, they have to be adaptable. And yet, fewer than half of companies say they are good at making changes, according to a new research report on leadership agility by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp).

The Organizational and Leadership Agility Survey asks business professionals to report on the stability of their business environment, the ability of their leaders to adapt to environmental changes and the extent to which executive leadership culture has a negative influence on organizational agility.

Over 75% of respondents reported that their business environment is changing or rapidly changing, which is no great surprise. However, only 44% of companies reported being adept at identifying and making needed incremental changes to a high or very high extent, while a scant 40% said their organizations are adept at recognizing and responding to strategic challenges in a timely manner. And less than a third (32%) said their organizations were proactive in anticipating and initiating the changes needed for sustained high performance beyond their immediate strategic challenges.

Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

Survey: Developing Successful Global Leaders

psychometrics — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:55:26 +0000

The American Management Association (AMA), in conjunction with the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), is conducting a study to examine leadership initiatives that organizations have taken to coordinate actions across global locations. We’re looking for your input on the topic. In return, you’ll receive the preliminary results report once available. Please take this survey now.

Estimated survey length: 5 minutes

You’ll receive: Preliminary results report

Survey closes: Wednesday, March 17

Receive a complimentary results report

In exchange for completing the survey, you’ll receive a copy of these valuable results, which otherwise are exclusive to i4cp members. Thank you for your participation.
Read More…

Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

Podcast: Multi-Generational Workforce

psychometrics — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:19:38 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, my buddy Chris Ferdinandi over at Renegade HR and I talked about multi-generational workforces and what they mean to employers for his podcast (one of the few I actually listen to). Want to have a listen? Of course you do:

Listen Here

So what are always my main points about generations?

There are differences between various generations.
Sometimes these differences are blown out of proportion to their importance.
Often these differences relate to career level rather than generations.
Truly skilled managers rarely have issues dealing with a multi-generational workforce.
Problems with managing certain generations often point to greater leadership issues.
Generation Y can talk about whatever they want but businesses speak the language of action.

Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail- and How To See it Coming

psychometrics — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:52:28 +0000

Ten years ago – heck, five years ago – few people worked on teams with geographically dispersed members. Today, this is very common. Every manager needs or will need to learn how to manage and inspire team members they regularly see “live.”

Pal and witty guy Wayne Turmel (a.k.a. The Crank Middle Manager) has written this helpful white paper: 3 Reasons Virtual Teams Fail- and How To See it Coming. You can down load it for free by clicking on the link. A couple interesting quotes from the paper:

“70% of managers above 1st-level supervisor now have at least one team member who is not co-located with them.”
“Technology and online tools are great but they are effective only if they are used to create context and human connections. Mere data transfer will result in short-term time savings and long term communication problems of the project.”
“A good project requires a mix of synchronous (people can talk at the same time) and asynchronous (people use them at different times) tools to be truly effective.”

Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts