PsyAsia International is pleased to once again be supporting Singapore’s Human Resource professionals as a sponsor of the Singapore Human Resources Institute’s Annual Human Resource Congress.

The Singapore HR Congress and Business-Connect Exposition 2010 will address the newly derived term of HR TransmutationTM and explore the topic in deeper context.  The current economic churning has made it explicitly clear that industry is not just facing another downturn but it is accompanied by impactful structural, demographic and mindset changes across industry and top management cannot afford to respond with anything less than a complete overhaul of the system to survive and sustain. Renowned speakers and leaders from the HR fraternity will share their experiences and provide useful insights on the know-how of managing paradoxes in a turbulent world.

PsyAsia’s clients are entitled to a 35% discount on the price of conference tickets.  Please contact us in the first instance to avail of this special offer.
“A strong and capable HR community can be the catalyst and change agents to initiate and implement people development efforts in organisations, and help build stronger capabilities amongst our business leaders and managers.”
 
PM Lee Hsien Loong
11th World HR Congress 2006 organised by SHRI

PsyAsia International is Asia’s leading independent distributor of Psychometric Tests of Personality and Aptitude. From offices across Asia, including Singapore and Hong Kong, our psychologists assist the world’s top organisations and local governments to recruit, select, assess and retain the best employees. Our services are only offered by fully registered organisational psychologists with years of experience in their field. PsyAsia also offers world-class training in Psychometric Testing in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Online.

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This 90-minute webinar will cover some basic principles in recruitment and selection.  Despite being basic, the principles are essential in ensuring integrity in delivery of service to the client of a recruitment consultant.  In our work in Asia we come across many recruitment consultants each week.  We value them as clients and recognise from our interactions that much of what they are doing goes against best practice and wish to help!

This webinar aims to address some of these issues and will cover topics such as:

- What information do I need from my client?
- What questions should I be asking my client when I meet with them?
- How do I do a brief job analysis?
- What is a person specification? Why is it important?
- How do I produce a person specification if my client doesn’t give me one?
- How do I choose which psychometric test(s) to use?
- Basic Behavioural Interviewing skills
- What other assessments could I use?
- Is there an easy way to collate all of my data on multiple candidates and rank order it for presentation to my client?

The webinar is aimed primarily at recruitment consultants, however the material covered will be useful and applicable to anybody involved in employee recruitment/selection.

There is a small US$10 fee for the webinar to be paid by credit card at paypal.com* and you will receive details after registration. All paid registrants will receive a one-week access to a recorded version of the webinar at our online learning center. This will help you recap information and will be useful if you are unexpectedly unable to attend the live session.

*Fee waived for PsyAsia clients who have made any purchase in the past 3 months.

The session will be conducted by a fully registered organisational psychologist with years of experience in recruitment, selection and development for multi-nationals as well as governments in Asia.  There will be ample time for questions and answers – if more time is needed, an additional session can easily be arranged without further fee.

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While it’s true that many companies have been forced to make difficult business decisions this year, many employers still plan to reward their employees for hard work with holiday perks like bonuses, gifts and parties — even if these perks are scaled back a bit. These results are from CareerBuilder’s recent survey about workplace holiday giving among more than 3,000 hiring managers and HR professionals. We’ve got the lowdown on what businesses are doing about bonuses, gifts, and the oft-infamous work holiday party.

Bonuses:

• Nearly three in ten (29 percent) employers plan to give their employees holiday bonuses this year.  Among that group, 16 percent are planning to give the same amount as in previous years, while 11 percent plan to give less.
• Twelve percent of employers say they will not be issuing holiday bonuses even though they have in previous years.

Gifts:

• More than a quarter (26 percent) of employers plan to give holiday gifts, with 15 percent planning to spend the same amount for workers as in previous years.  Eight percent plan to spend less.
• Another eight percent say they are not planning to give holidays gifts in 2009, even though they have in years past.

Parties:

• Almost half (49 percent) of employers are planning a holiday party for their employees this year.  Of that group, 30 percent plan to throw the same party as in previous years, while 18 percent are planning something on a smaller scale.
• Eleven percent of employers don’t plan to have a holiday party in 2009 even though they have in previous years.

“After a challenging year, some organizations are cutting back on the holiday perks that they may have offered in previous years,” said Rosemary Haefner, Vice President of Human Resources for CareerBuilder. “Even though holiday bonuses, gifts and parties may be trimmed back this season, employers are doing what they can to reward their workers and get their staffs in the holiday spirit.”

So with cutbacks more prevalent in the workplace,  how can you make your employees happy this holiday season? What do they really want?

Here are some alternative workplace gift-giving ideas:

• The gift of financial preparedness. Help employees be realistic in their holiday budgeting this holiday season. Workers often need to budget more carefully around the holidays, so let your employees know upfront and early whether or not they can expect a bonus this season. This way, they will be able to gauge whether they’ll have that extra money for a plane ticket — or whether they’ll have to stock up on canned soups for dinner this season. Give your employees the gift of preparedness; their pocketbooks will thank you.

• The gift of giving. Volunteering is a great workplace activity all year ’round, but if you’re looking for an alternative to the typical (and pricey) holiday bash, I can’t think of a better way than helping others in need by donating time to local charities.  Volunteering with your team or company still allows you to be out of the office in a social setting while fostering your holiday spirit, giving back to your local community, and making the holiday a bit nicer for someone else. Sites like VolunteerMatch let you search for volunteer opportunities in your local area. Read more tips about finding a charity here and here, find an extensive list of charities here, and check out the Better Business Bureau’s “Charities and Donors” section for more resources.

• The gift of fun. Even if your company holiday party is canceled, you can still  celebrate the season with your employees with some warm drinks and hot food. Office potlucks are a great and budget-friendly way to have a low-key celebration in the office with your employees. Even better, as commuting after work hours can sometimes present obstacles for employees, you can host a potluck breakfast or lunch during the work day. As an alternative, screen a movie of your employees’ choosing, pop some popcorn and provide sodas, and have a low-key but entertaining in-office party.
• The gift of appreciation. While material gifts are nice, sometimes nothing is better than getting a bit of recognition for work well done, whether it’s for a single project or an entire financial quarter’s worth of blood, sweat and tears. As we have learned, 79 of employees who quit their jobs cite a lack of appreciation as a key reason for leaving. Remember to say “thank you” to your employees this holiday season! Even small gestures, like a  card or letter with your sincere words of thanks can mean a lot to your employees. Spontaneity of gestures can also be a nice change in the work routine; grab your employees coffee and bagels unexpectedly one morning — or dream up your own creative way to say “thanks.”
  
  
• The gift of friends and family. While employees may enjoy coming to work, they may in fact be longing to spend more time with loved ones outside the office, especially around the holidays. Yes, businesses are busier than ever, often juggling fewer people and more work — but your employees will enjoy and appreciate even a small break from the grind. Consider letting them leave a bit early one afternoon, or offer a flexible work option for a week or two, like coming in early/leaving early, or working four 10-hour days so they can take a long weekend. Different options will work for different types of businesses — but employees will savor the gift of more time with loved ones — and they’ll likely come back more refreshed, relaxed, and focused post-holiday.
• The gift of choice. One final idea: Ask your employees what they want this holiday season! Let them know that budgets are tight, but that you want to celebrate with them and show them your gratitude for their work and dedication. Let them brainstorm ideas, and pick one or implement them all.

What are you giving your employees this holiday season?

Read More…

 Sourced from: HRM Today Featured Posts

Work References are a common assessment method utilized by most organizations in their recruitment and selection processes. Work references are based on the principle that the past performance of an individual is highly predictive of their future performance. Organizations obtain information from the candidate’s prior employers regarding relevant aspects of their work performance so as to get a perspective of how well the candidate would perform in the available job position.

Although this may appear to be a valuable selection tool for assessing candidates and seem to provide important information regarding their past performance, it is critical to be aware of the inherent limitations of such a method of assessment. Candidates who apply for job positions are likely to have a vested interest to market themselves to the organization and to ultimately obtain the job position that they were applying for. With this in mind, work references that the candidates provide are likely to be work references that would portray them in a favourable light. The result of this limits the validity and reliability of work references as a recruitment and selection assessment method.

Organizations who utilize work references as a significant component of their recruitment process need to keep this in mind when evaluating candidates. One way of ensuring that work references are more valid is to ask behaviour based questions regarding the relevant areas of the candidate’s past performance and obtain specific examples of situations which highlight the action that was taken by the candidate along with the final outcome. This provides a more accurate portrayal of the candidate’s past performance as it highlights specific references regarding the work behaviours that the candidate has demonstrated in the past.

Assessment Centres (ACs) are a commonly utilized tool for organizations in the selection and development of leadership talent. There is evidence demonstrating the utility of ACs as a work sample measure of work performance with favourable evidence in predicting the future work performance of the participants who have been assessed.

There is also evidence that personality is linked to the various areas that are commonly assessed by ACs. Of particular interest are the personality dimensions of Exhibition, Dominance and Achievement as these have been shown to predict leadership effectiveness.

Research conducted has shown that age can act as a moderating influence on personality and AC performance (Krajewski, Goffin, Rothstein & Johnston, 2007). Simply put, age influences the relationship between personality and AC performance. It is demonstrated that for Exhibition and Dominance, older managers seem to display these characteristics in a fashion that is more mature and effective at the workplace. The caveat to this is that age per se may not be the correct “term” but of greater importance is that years of relevant experience may be the better indicator regarding this relationship between personality and AC performance. Even so, ACs have nevertheless also demonstrated utility in assessing and predicting performance of individuals across age differences.

Krajewski, H.T., Goffin R.D., Rothstein M.G. & Johnston N.G. (2007). Is Personality Related to Assessment Centre Performance? That Depends on How Old You Are. Journal of Business Psychology, 22, 21-33.

Integrity tests, also known as honesty tests in recruitment and selection, refer primarily to self-report tests that are used during pre-employment screening to predict the possibility of dishonesty and counter productivity. Integrity tests work on the rationale that there are meaningful differences in behaviours, attitudes and values between individuals that could be used to identify individuals who are more likely to engage in dishonest behaviors and behaviours that are counter-productive at work. The results from integrity testing are then typically utilized to screen out individuals who may present a greater risk to an organization in areas such as absenteeism and other forms of counterproductive behaviour. The typical dimensions that integrity tests measure are perceived incidence of dishonesty, leniency towards dishonest behaviours, theft rationalization, theft temptation or rumination, perceptions regarding dishonest behaviours, impulse control and punitiveness towards self and others (Murphy, 1995).

Integrity tests typically come in two distinct forms, the first is overt integrity tests, also known as “clear-purpose” integrity tests and personality-based integrity tests, which are also known as “veiled-purpose” integrity tests (Gatewood & Feild, 2001). Overt integrity tests directly inquire about an individual’s attitudes and admissions about behaviours that are undesirable at the workplace such as workplace theft. Personality-based integrity tests are personality inventories that measure personality constructs that are linked with the undesirable behaviour.

Gatewood, R.D., & Feild, H.S. (2001). Integrity Testing, Drug Testing and Graphology. In Human Resource Selection (5th ed, pp. 667-679). Mason, Ohio: South-Western

Murphy, K.R, (1995) Integrity Testing. In N. Brewer & C. Wilson (Eds), Psychology and policing. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Competencies in Human Resources refer to the knowledge, skills, abilities and other qualities that an individual possesses which influences their performance at work. These competencies are typically assessed during a job analysis where the appropriate competencies for the role are identified and included in the position specification. During the recruitment and selection process, these identified competencies are utilized as criteria to assess prospective applicants through various methods such as interviews, psychometric assessments, assessment centres, etc. Identifying and utilizing the appropriate competencies as criteria during the recruitment and selection process is critical as these are key indicators of future performance on the job.