ManagementAsim Tufail (Group Chief, Consumer & Personal Banking) Iqbal Zaidi (Group Chief, Compliance) Mohammad Aftab Manzoor (Chief Executive Officer) Muhammad Shahzad Sadiq (Group Chief, Audit & CRR) Mujahid Ali (Group Chief, Information Technology) Khawaja Mohammad Almas (Head, Core Banking Projects) Tariq Mehmood (Group Chief, Operations) Zia Ijaz (Group Chief, Commercial & Retail Banking) Fareed Vardag (Chief Risk Officer) Mohammad Abbas Sheikh (Group Chief, Special Assets Management) Muhammad Jawaid Iqbal (Group Chief, Corporate & Investment Banking) Muhammad Yaseen (Group Chief, Treasury) Shafique Ahmed Uqaili (Group Chief, Human Resources) Tahir Hassan Qureshi (Chief Financial Officer) Waheed ur Rehman (Company Secretary)

Privatisation Commission, Government of Pakistan12

Annexure B: ABL Organizational StructureKhalid Sherwani PresidentIslamic Banking & Planning Audit & Inspection International Division Treasury Regional Offices (16)

M. Naveed MasudEstablishment Human Resources Business Promotion Special Assets Management Credit Finance Information Technology

Comparative Analysis of Domestic Banking Industry of Pakistan (Rs. million) Bank ACB BAH Bop BB FB UNION BANK KB MB Metro MCB NBP PCB PB SPB SB UB UBL Deposit 51,732 34,240 23,767 7,761 24,554 328,182 2,640 5,079 28,515 182,706 362,866 21,155 14,640 12,341 20,545 37,760 154,915 Advances 30,035 23,775 6,621 3,298 21,935 167,523 490 3,532 19,444 78,924 140,547 10,876 9,016 8,522 11,378 28,890 74,117 Investments 26,759 18,831 8,295 1,328 6,842 142,877 2,118 856 15,013 89,610 143,525 10,306 7,534 6,365 9,844 11,822 69,385

performance appraisal, employee appraisal, performance review, or (career) development discussion[1] is a method by which the job performance of an employee is evaluated (generally in terms of quality, quantity, cost, and time) typically by the corresponding manager or supervisor[2]. A performance appraisal is a part of guiding and managing career development. It is the process of obtaining analyzing and recording information about relative worth of an employee to the organization.

Contents[hide]

1 Aims 2 Methods 3 Criticism 4 See also 5 References 6 Sources 7 External links

[edit] AimsGenerally, the aims of a performance appraisal are to:

Give an employees feedback on performance Identify employee training needs Document criteria used to allocate organizational rewards Form a basis for personnel decisions: salary increases, promotions, disciplinary actions, bonuses, etc. Provide the opportunity for organizational diagnosis and development Facilitate communication between employee and administration Validate selection techniques and human resource policies to meet federal Equal Employment Opportunity requirements

[edit] MethodsA common approach to assessing performance is to use a numerical or scalar rating system whereby managers are asked to score an individual against a number of objectives/attributes. In some companies, employees receive assessments from their manager, peers, subordinates, and customers, while also performing a self assessment. This is known as a 360-degree appraisal and forms good communication patterns.

The most popular methods used in the performance appraisal process include the following:

Management by objectives 360-degree appraisal Behavioral observation scale Behaviorally anchored rating scales

Trait-based systems, which rely on factors such as integrity and conscientiousness, are also commonly used by businesses. The scientific literature on the subject provides evidence that assessing employees on factors such as these should be avoided. The reasons for this are two-fold: 1) Because trait-based systems are by definition based on personality traits, they make it difficult for a manager to provide feedback that can cause positive change in employee performance. This is caused by the fact that personality dimensions are for the most part static, and while an employee can change a specific behavior they cannot change their personality. For example, a person who lacks integrity may stop lying to a manager because they have been caught, but they still have low integrity and are likely to lie again when the threat of being caught is gone. 2) Trait-based systems, because they are vague, are more easily influenced by office politics, causing them to be less reliable as a source of information on an employee's true performance. The vagueness of these instruments allows managers to fill them out based on who they want to/feel should get a raise, rather than basing scores on specific behaviors employees should/should not be engaging in. These systems are also more likely to leave a company open to discrimination claims because a manager can make biased decisions without having to back them up with specific behavioral information.

[edit] CriticismPerformance appraisals are an instrument for social control. They are annual discussions, avoided more often than held, in which one adult identifies for another adult three improvement areas to work on over the next twelve months. You can soften them all you want, call them development discussions, have them on a regular basis, have the subordinate identify the improvement areas instead of the boss, and discuss values. None of this changes the basic transaction... If the intent of the appraisal is learning, it is not going to happen when the context of the dialogue is evaluation and judgment.

QUESTION NO. 1 (B)

Care to step onto a business-version of a land mine? Try to make sense of the economically sensitive and emotionally loaded topic of pay.Pay is a subject loaded with emotion because it communicates an individual's value to an organization and describes a cornpany's commitment to its employees. Employees' attitudes about the fairness of pay affect their motivation and productivity. Yet businesses trying to compete in the marketplace and provide profitable returns to shareholders are under constant pressure to keep pay in line. The ability to attract and retain quality employees who add to your bottom line depends on your ability to craft an attractive compensation package. The traditional "salary-plusbonus, seniority-based' pay strategy is on its last legs. Fortunately, a variety of "new pay" options are offering business owners a wide array of new choices. Since the 1980's a new paradigm of pay determination has emerged to reflect business trends including leaner flatter organizational structures, customer focus, quality improvement, re-occuring and team-based work structures. Companies have struggled for years to develop individual merit pay programs, but many have come to realize that employee evaluations are to subjective and bear little relationship to how well the company is doing in achieving its financial goals. Many executives have found that while their employees may he rated above average on individual performance and may have earned corresponding merit increases, the company is actually losing market share profits, or both. The challenge, then, is how to link individual and company performance in a way that will meet business goals.1. Skill-based pay (rewards employees for learning and using new skills) 2. Team pay (rewards employees for solving particular business problems) 3. Gainsharing (rewards employees for creating direct benefits for the bottom line)

Sharing the risks and rewardsThe principal concept behind "new pay" is that individual performance and overall organizational success are, in fact. inexorably linked. What follows is that salaries and pay increases. which are derived from company revenues must be tied a least in part to productivity and performance improvement. New pay options shift a certain amount of bottom line responsibility onto the employees who also collect a greater share of the rewards of outstanding performance. But new pay strategies cannot be expected to succeed in a vacuum. Instead, pay determination should flow directly from a company's business plan. When the business plan changes, companies need to review their pay strategies, too. A trend toward nontraditional pay programs, particularly among small and growing companies, has emerged over the past five to eight years.

Among the army of new pay strategies evolving within companies. the most prevalent right now are skill-based pay, team pay, and gainsharing.

Paying for playingSkill-based pay systems reward employees according to the competencies they learn and use in the work setting. The highest value is placed on cross-trained employees who can perform multiple functions. This compensation system parallels traditional merit pay in that employees are evaluated individually instead of as a team; however. raises are not automatic. Raises are granted only when the skills an employee learns and displays enable the company to avoid additional hires or realize other tangible benefits, such as better use of existing employees. Skill-based pay systems work best in an environment where on-the-job training is emphasized: where he company's business goals are communicated among all employees: and where an effort is being made to promote a strong sense of ownership rather than entitlement. The critical task of human resources in a skill-based pay scenario is to establish pay levels that not only match identifiable skills across all job descriptions. but also reflect the button of an employees learned skills to the achievement of company goals.

Paying for winningTeam-pay systems place a premium on achieving specific, measurable goals, rather than on having employees display certain skills that may be used to achieve those outcomes. For instance, in a team pay system, groups of up to 10 employees work together to solve specific problems or to achieve benchmark improvements such as increased customer satisfaction. Bonuses then are awarded to individuals based on the performance of the group-providing that the team meets its objectives. A key difference between team pay and traditional merit pay is that with team pay, one employee's word affects another person's compensation. This underscores the importance or having every function within an organization contribute to the company's success in a measurable way.

Paying for playing nicelyGainsharing systems encourage employees and managers to work together to solve problems of cost, quality, safety, or efficiency that lead to a monetary gain for the company. The company then shares the gain with employees, typically retaining 50 percent of the monetary gain and distributing the other half among members of the employee-management team. In a manufacturing environment for example, payouts for a specified gain would be distributed not only among the line workers involved, but also among employees within business units linked to production, such as purchasing, sales, shipping, and accounts receivable.

Compared with a traditional salary-plus-bonus pay structure, gainsharing over time tends to provide larger financial rewards to provide employees at a lower cost to the company. (Gainsharing systems have produced an average of 8 percent pay increases for employees, with companies realizing an equivalent benefit to their P&Ls.) Further, because employee payouts must be earned from year to year, gainsharing systems do not add to the fixed cost of employee base salaries, but instead are considered a variable expense.

Revamping your pay plansAs new economic pressures and social patterns add complexity to compensation issues, more companies, even small businesses, are looking to outside council for help. Before doing this however, ask yourself the following questions:What is your business plan? Unless the company mission and goals are clearly articulated, it will be difficult to develop a compensation strategy to support them. Companies also need to understand what kinds of workers they will have in determining the companies future. How do we want to pay in comparison to our competitors? Knowing what your competitors pay their employees will better position your company to develop a strong recruiting message, regardless of how it pays in comparison. Companies that cannot afford to pay at or above the market average for base salaries may be able to offer rapid advancement, access to training. or bonuses and long term incentives instead. In fact, a growing number of highly skilled managers are leaving large corporations and substantial salaries behind in favor of the hands-on challenges and ownership potential offered by small companies. What activity do we want to reward?

If your company's business plan calls for an empowered, customer-focused workforce organized into self-directed teams, its compensation program should reinforce that goal by asking employees to help determine their own performance targets and how they will be paid for achieving them.How much pay should be maintained as fixed cost, and how much placed at risk?

The amount of pay at risk(pay that is tied to team or company performance) will vary depending upon an employee's position within the organization. Employees at lower end of the pay scale cannot afford to place much pay at risk, but more substantial incentive pay helps motivate those with greater bottom-line responsibility.What percentage of total pay should be distributed annually versus long term?

More companies are adopting long-term employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)or, in companies that are not publicly traded, phantom share plans, that reward employees for increasing shareholder value. The value of shares awarded to employees generally ranges from one half of base salary for lower level support staff to four or five times base salary for top executives. However, if the company

cannot afford to pay competitive base salaries or annual bonuses, those multiples should be increased to reflect business conditions. Finally, when developing a new compensation plan, seek input from participating employees. This proposition may be uncomfortable to think about, but asking employees how they would like to be paid can unearth some surprisingly creative - and often workable- solutions. For example, in 1993 I was approached by president of a mediumsized, heavy equipment dealer here in the Midwest. He said that his five departments were not working together. Each department was meeting its goals but company profits were not increasing. A meeting was held with the president and the five department heads. We learned that since their bonus plans were tied only to department performance, there was no reward for interdepartmental teamwork, nor were their performance goals attached to company profitability. After several more meetings, we scrapped the old bonus plan entirely, disposing of all department targets, and instead, we crafted a new plan that rewarded sales volume and profits company-wide with bonuses payable only after the owners had received at least a 5 percent return on invested capital. By the end of the first year, the company had exceeded its sales targets by 30 percent and its profit targets by 50 percent. The executives doubled their bonuses. Clearly, pay systems that require individual and team contributions to overall company performance are here to stay. For companies, new pay systems offer greater control over costs and profits, along with more ways to attract and retain top-notch employees. For employees, new pay means more responsibility for personal income, along with monetary and psychological rewards gained by contributing to the company's success.

QUESTION NO. 5(B)

Program EvaluationSome Myths About Program Evaluation1.. Many people believe evaluation is a useless activity that generates lots of boring data with useless conclusions. This was a problem with evaluations in the past when program evaluation methods were chosen largely on the basis of achieving complete scientific accuracy, reliability and validity. This approach often generated extensive data from which very carefully chosen conclusions were drawn. Generalizations and recommendations were avoided. As a result, evaluation reports tended to reiterate the obvious and left program administrators disappointed and skeptical about the value of evaluation in general. More recently (especially as a result of Michael Patton's development of utilization-focused evaluation), evaluation has focused on utility, relevance and practicality at least as much as scientific validity. 2. Many people believe that evaluation is about proving the success or failure of a program. This myth assumes that success is implementing the perfect program and never having to hear from employees, customers or clients again -- the program will now run itself perfectly. This doesn't happen in real life. Success is remaining open to continuing feedback and adjusting the program accordingly. Evaluation gives you this continuing feedback. 3. Many believe that evaluation is a highly unique and complex process that occurs at a certain time in a certain way, and almost always includes the use of outside experts. Many people believe they must completely understand terms such as validity and reliability. They don't have to. They do have to consider what information they need in order to make current decisions about program issues or needs. And they have to be willing to commit to understanding what is really going on. Note that many people regularly undertake some nature of program evaluation -- they just don't do it in a formal fashion so they don't get the most out of their efforts or they make conclusions that are inaccurate (some evaluators would disagree that this is program evaluation if not done methodically). Consequently, they miss precious opportunities to make more of difference for their customer and clients, or to get a bigger bang for their buck.

So What is Program Evaluation?First, we'll consider "what is a program?" Typically, organizations work from their mission to identify several overall goals which must be reached to accomplish their mission. In nonprofits, each of these goals often becomes a program. Nonprofit programs are organized methods to provide certain related services to constituents, e.g., clients, customers, patients, etc. Programs must be evaluated to decide if the programs are indeed useful to constituents. In a for-profit, a program is often a one-time effort to produce a new product or line of products.

So, still, what is program evaluation? Program evaluation is carefully collecting information about a program or some aspect of a program in order to make necessary decisions about the program. Program evaluation can include any or a variety of at least 35 different types of evaluation, such as for needs assessments, accreditation, cost/benefit analysis, effectiveness, efficiency, formative, summative, goal-based, process, outcomes, etc. The type of evaluation you undertake to improve your programs depends on what you want to learn about the program. Don't worry about what type of evaluation you need or are doing -- worry about what you need to know to make the program decisions you need to make, and worry about how you can accurately collect and understand that information.

Where Program Evaluation is HelpfulFrequent Reasons:Program evaluation can: 1. Understand, verify or increase the impact of products or services on customers or clients - These "outcomes" evaluations are increasingly required by nonprofit funders as verification that the nonprofits are indeed helping their constituents. Too often, service providers (for-profit or nonprofit) rely on their own instincts and passions to conclude what their customers or clients really need and whether the products or services are providing what is needed. Over time, these organizations find themselves in a lot of guessing about what would be a good product or service, and trial and error about how new products or services could be delivered. 2. Improve delivery mechanisms to be more efficient and less costly - Over time, product or service delivery ends up to be an inefficient collection of activities that are less efficient and more costly than need be. Evaluations can identify program strengths and weaknesses to improve the program. 3. Verify that you're doing what you think you're doing - Typically, plans about how to deliver services, end up changing substantially as those plans are put into place. Evaluations can verify if the program is really running as originally planned.

Other Reasons:Program evaluation can: 4. Facilitate management's really thinking about what their program is all about, including its goals, how it meets it goals and how it will know if it has met its goals or not. 5. Produce data or verify results that can be used for public relations and promoting services in the community. 6. Produce valid comparisons between programs to decide which should be retained, e.g., in the face of pending budget cuts. 7. Fully examine and describe effective programs for duplication elsewhere.

Basic Ingredients: Organization and Program(s)

You Need An Organization:This may seem too obvious to discuss, but before an organization embarks on evaluating a program, it should have well established means to conduct itself as an organization, e.g., (in the case of a nonprofit) the board should be in good working order, the organization should be staffed and organized to conduct activities to work toward the mission of the organization, and there should be no current crisis that is clearly more important to address than evaluating programs.

You Need Program(s):To effectively conduct program evaluation, you should first have programs. That is, you need a strong impression of what your customers or clients actually need. (You may have used a needs assessment to determine these needs -- itself a form of evaluation, but usually the first step in a good marketing plan). Next, you need some effective methods to meet each of those goals. These methods are usually in the form of programs. It often helps to think of your programs in terms of inputs, process, outputs and outcomes. Inputs are the various resources needed to run the program, e.g., money, facilities, customers, clients, program staff, etc. The process is how the program is carried out, e.g., customers are served, clients are counseled, children are cared for, art is created, association members are supported, etc. The outputs are the units of service, e.g., number of customers serviced, number of clients counseled, children cared for, artistic pieces produced, or members in the association. Outcomes are the impacts on the customers or on clients receiving services, e.g., increased mental health, safe and secure development, richer artistic appreciation and perspectives in life, increased effectiveness among members, etc.

Planning Your Program EvaluationDepends on What Information You Need to Make Your Decisions and On Your Resources.Often, management wants to know everything about their products, services or programs. However, limited resources usually force managers to prioritize what they need to know to make current decisions. Your program evaluation plans depend on what information you need to collect in order to make major decisions. Usually, management is faced with having to make major decisions due to decreased funding, ongoing complaints, unmet needs among customers and clients, the need to polish service delivery, etc. For example, do you want to know more about what is actually going on in your programs, whether your programs are meeting their goals, the impact of your programs on customers, etc? You may want other information or a combination of these. Ultimately, it's up to you. But the more focused you are about what you want to examine by the evaluation, the more efficient you can be in your evaluation, the shorter the time it will take you and

ultimately the less it will cost you (whether in your own time, the time of your employees and/or the time of a consultant). There are trade offs, too, in the breadth and depth of information you get. The more breadth you want, usually the less depth you get (unless you have a great deal of resources to carry out the evaluation). On the other hand, if you want to examine a certain aspect of a program in great detail, you will likely not get as much information about other aspects of the program. For those starting out in program evaluation or who have very limited resources, they can use various methods to get a good mix of breadth and depth of information. They can both understand more about certain areas of their programs and not go bankrupt doing so.

Key Considerations:Consider the following key questions when designing a program evaluation. 1. For what purposes is the evaluation being done, i.e., what do you want to be able to decide as a result of the evaluation? 2. Who are the audiences for the information from the evaluation, e.g., customers, bankers, funders, board, management, staff, customers, clients, etc. 3. What kinds of information are needed to make the decision you need to make and/or enlighten your intended audiences, e.g., information to really understand the process of the product or program (its inputs, activities and outputs), the customers or clients who experience the product or program, strengths and weaknesses of the product or program, benefits to customers or clients (outcomes), how the product or program failed and why, etc. 4. From what sources should the information be collected, e.g., employees, customers, clients, groups of customers or clients and employees together, program documentation, etc. 5. How can that information be collected in a reasonable fashion, e.g., questionnaires, interviews, examining documentation, observing customers or employees, conducting focus groups among customers or employees, etc. 6. When is the information needed (so, by when must it be collected)? 7. What resources are available to collect the information?

Some Major Types of Program EvaluationWhen designing your evaluation approach, it may be helpful to review the following three types of evaluations, which are rather common in organizations. Note that you should not design your evaluation approach simply by choosing which of the following three types you will use -- you should design your evaluation approach by carefully addressing the above key considerations.

Goals-Based EvaluationOften programs are established to meet one or more specific goals. These goals are often described in the original program plans.

Goal-based evaluations are evaluating the extent to which programs are meeting predetermined goals or objectives. Questions to ask yourself when designing an evaluation to see if you reached your goals, are: 1. How were the program goals (and objectives, is applicable) established? Was the process effective? 2. What is the status of the program's progress toward achieving the goals? 3. Will the goals be achieved according to the timelines specified in the program implementation or operations plan? If not, then why? 4. Do personnel have adequate resources (money, equipment, facilities, training, etc.) to achieve the goals? 5. How should priorities be changed to put more focus on achieving the goals? (Depending on the context, this question might be viewed as a program management decision, more than an evaluation question.) 6. How should timelines be changed (be careful about making these changes - know why efforts are behind schedule before timelines are changed)? 7. How should goals be changed (be careful about making these changes - know why efforts are not achieving the goals before changing the goals)? Should any goals be added or removed? Why? 8. How should goals be established in the future?

Process-Based EvaluationsProcess-based evaluations are geared to fully understanding how a program works -- how does it produce that results that it does. These evaluations are useful if programs are longstanding and have changed over the years, employees or customers report a large number of complaints about the program, there appear to be large inefficiencies in delivering program services and they are also useful for accurately portraying to outside parties how a program truly operates (e.g., for replication elsewhere). There are numerous questions that might be addressed in a process evaluation. These questions can be selected by carefully considering what is important to know about the program. Examples of questions to ask yourself when designing an evaluation to understand and/or closely examine the processes in your programs, are: 1. On what basis do employees and/or the customers decide that products or services are needed? 2. What is required of employees in order to deliver the product or services? 3. How are employees trained about how to deliver the product or services? 4. How do customers or clients come into the program? 5. What is required of customers or client? 6. How do employees select which products or services will be provided to the customer or client? 7. What is the general process that customers or clients go through with the product or program? 8. What do customers or clients consider to be strengths of the program? 9. What do staff consider to be strengths of the product or program? 10. What typical complaints are heard from employees and/or customers? 11. What do employees and/or customers recommend to improve the product or

program? 12. On what basis do emplyees and/or the customer decide that the product or services are no longer needed?

Outcomes-Based EvaluationProgram evaluation with an outcomes focus is increasingly important for nonprofits and asked for by funders.An outcomes-based evaluation facilitates your asking if your organization is really doing the right program activities to bring about the outcomes you believe (or better yet, you've verified) to be needed by your clients (rather than just engaging in busy activities which seem reasonable to do at the time). Outcomes are benefits to clients from participation in the program. Outcomes are usually in terms of enhanced learning (knowledge, perceptions/attitudes or skills) or conditions, e.g., increased literacy, self-reliance, etc. Outcomes are often confused with program outputs or units of services, e.g., the number of clients who went through a program. The United Way of America (http://www.unitedway.org/outcomes/) provides an excellent overview of outcomes-based evaluation, including introduction to outcomes measurement, a program outcome model, why to measure outcomes, use of program outcome findings by agencies, eight steps to success for measuring outcomes, examples of outcomes and outcome indicators for various programs and the resources needed for measuring outcomes. The following information is a top-level summary of information from this site. To accomplish an outcomes-based evaluation, you should first pilot, or test, this evaluation approach on one or two programs at most (before doing all programs). The general steps to accomplish an outcomes-based evaluation include to: 1. Identify the major outcomes that you want to examine or verify for the program under evaluation. You might reflect on your mission (the overall purpose of your organization) and ask yourself what impacts you will have on your clients as you work towards your mission. For example, if your overall mission is to provide shelter and resources to abused women, then ask yourself what benefits this will have on those women if you effectively provide them shelter and other services or resources. As a last resort, you might ask yourself, "What major activities are we doing now?" and then for each activity, ask "Why are we doing that?" The answer to this "Why?" question is usually an outcome. This "last resort" approach, though, may just end up justifying ineffective activities you are doing now, rather than examining what you should be doing in the first place. 2. Choose the outcomes that you want to examine, prioritize the outcomes and, if your time and resources are limited, pick the top two to four most important outcomes to examine for now. 3. For each outcome, specify what observable measures, or indicators, will suggest that you're achieving that key outcome with your clients. This is often the most important and enlightening step in outcomes-based evaluation. However, it is often the most challenging and even confusing step, too, because you're suddenly going from a rather intangible concept, e.g., increased self-reliance, to specific activities, e.g., supporting clients to get themselves to and from work, staying off drugs and alcohol, etc. It helps to

have a "devil's advocate" during this phase of identifying indicators, i.e., someone who can question why you can assume that an outcome was reached because certain associated indicators were present. 4. Specify a "target" goal of clients, i.e., what number or percent of clients you commit to achieving specific outcomes with, e.g., "increased self-reliance (an outcome) for 70% of adult, African American women living in the inner city of Minneapolis as evidenced by the following measures (indicators) ..." 5. Identify what information is needed to show these indicators, e.g., you'll need to know how many clients in the target group went through the program, how many of them reliably undertook their own transportation to work and stayed off drugs, etc. If your program is new, you may need to evaluate the process in the program to verify that the program is indeed carried out according to your original plans. (Michael Patton, prominent researcher, writer and consultant in evaluation, suggests that the most important type of evaluation to carry out may be this implementation evaluation to verify that your program ended up to be implemented as you originally planned.) 6. Decide how can that information be efficiently and realistically gathered (see Selecting Which Methods to Use below). Consider program documentation, observation of program personnel and clients in the program, questionnaires and interviews about clients perceived benefits from the program, case studies of program failures and successes, etc. You may not need all of the above. (see Overview

Selecting Which Methods to UseOverall Goal in Selecting Methods:The overall goal in selecting evaluation method(s) is to get the most useful information to key decision makers in the most cost-effective and realistic fashion. Consider the following questions: 1. What information is needed to make current decisions about a product or program? 2. Of this information, how much can be collected and analyzed in a low-cost and practical manner, e.g., using questionnaires, surveys and checklists? 3. How accurate will the information be (reference the above table for disadvantages of methods)? 4. Will the methods get all of the needed information? 5. What additional methods should and could be used if additional information is needed? 6. Will the information appear as credible to decision makers, e.g., to funders or top management? 7. Will the nature of the audience conform to the methods, e.g., will they fill out questionnaires carefully, engage in interviews or focus groups, let you examine their documentations, etc.? 8. Who can administer the methods now or is training required? 9. How can the information be analyzed? Note that, ideally, the evaluator uses a combination of methods, for example, a questionnaire to quickly collect a great deal of information from a lot of people, and then interviews to get more in-depth information from certain respondents to the questionnaires. Perhaps case studies could then be used for more in-depth analysis of

unique and notable cases, e.g., those who benefited or not from the program, those who quit the program, etc.

Four Levels of Evaluation:There are four levels of evaluation information that can be gathered from clients, including getting their: 1. reactions and feelings (feelings are often poor indicators that your service made lasting impact) 2. learning (enhanced attitudes, perceptions or knowledge) 3. changes in skills (applied the learning to enhance behaviors) 4. effectiveness (improved performance because of enhanced behaviors) Usually, the farther your evaluation information gets down the list, the more useful is your evaluation. Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to reliably get information about effectiveness. Still, information about learning and skills is quite useful.

Analyzing and Interpreting InformationAnalyzing quantitative and qualitative data is often the topic of advanced research and evaluation methods. There are certain basics which can help to make sense of reams of data. Always start with your evaluation goals: When analyzing data (whether from questionnaires, interviews, focus groups, or whatever), always start from review of your evaluation goals, i.e., the reason you undertook the evaluation in the first place. This will help you organize your data and focus your analysis. For example, if you wanted to improve your program by identifying its strengths and weaknesses, you can organize data into program strengths, weaknesses and suggestions to improve the program. If you wanted to fully understand how your program works, you could organize data in the chronological order in which clients go through your program. If you are conducting an outcomes-based evaluation, you can categorize data according to the indicators for each outcome. Basic analysis of "quantitative" information (for information other than commentary, e.g., ratings, rankings, yes's, no's, etc.): 1. Make copies of your data and store the master copy away. Use the copy for making edits, cutting and pasting, etc. 2. Tabulate the information, i.e., add up the number of ratings, rankings, yes's, no's for each question. 3. For ratings and rankings, consider computing a mean, or average, for each question. For example, "For question #1, the average ranking was 2.4". This is more meaningful than indicating, e.g., how many respondents ranked 1, 2, or 3. 4. Consider conveying the range of answers, e.g., 20 people ranked "1", 30 ranked "2", and 20 people ranked "3".

Basic analysis of "qualitative" information (respondents' verbal answers in interviews, focus groups, or written commentary on questionnaires): 1. Read through all the data. 2. Organize comments into similar categories, e.g., concerns, suggestions, strengths, weaknesses, similar experiences, program inputs, recommendations, outputs, outcome indicators, etc. 3. Label the categories or themes, e.g., concerns, suggestions, etc. 4. Attempt to identify patterns, or associations and causal relationships in the themes, e.g., all people who attended programs in the evening had similar concerns, most people came from the same geographic area, most people were in the same salary range, what processes or events respondents experience during the program, etc. 4. Keep all commentary for several years after completion in case needed for future reference.

Interpreting Information:1. Attempt to put the information in perspective, e.g., compare results to what you expected, promised results; management or program staff; any common standards for your services; original program goals (especially if you're conducting a program evaluation); indications of accomplishing outcomes (especially if you're conducting an outcomes evaluation); description of the program's experiences, strengths, weaknesses, etc. (especially if you're conducting a process evaluation). 2. Consider recommendations to help program staff improve the program, conclusions about program operations or meeting goals, etc. 3. Record conclusions and recommendations in a report document, and associate interpretations to justify your conclusions or recommendations.

Reporting Evaluation Results1.The level and scope of content depends on to whom the report is intended, e.g., to bankers, funders, employees, customers, clients, the public, etc. 2. Be sure employees have a chance to carefully review and discuss the report. Translate recommendations to action plans, including who is going to do what about the program and by when. 3. Bankers or funders will likely require a report that includes an executive summary (this is a summary of conclusions and recommendations, not a listing of what sections of information are in the report -- that's a table of contents); description of theorganization and the program under evaluation; explanation of the evaluation goals, methods, and analysis procedures; listing of conclusions and recommendations; and any relevant attachments, e.g., inclusion of evaluation questionnaires, interview guides, etc. The banker or funder may want the report to be delivered as a presentation, accompanied by an overview of the report. Or, the banker or funder may want to review the report alone. 4. Be sure to record the evaluation plans and activities in an evaluation plan which can be referenced when a similar program evaluation is needed in the future.

Contents of an Evaluation Report -- ExampleAn example of evaluation report contents is included later on below in this document. Click Contents of an Evaluation Plan but, don't forget to look at the next section "Who Should Carry Out the Evaluation".

Who Should Carry Out the Evaluation?Ideally, management decides what the evaluation goals should be. Then an evaluation expert helps the organization to determine what the evaluation methods should be, and how the resulting data will be analyzed and reported back to the organization. Most organizations do not have the resources to carry out the ideal evaluation. Still, they can do the 20% of effort needed to generate 80% of what they need to know to make a decision about a program. If they can afford any outside help at all, it should be for identifying the appropriate evaluation methods and how the data can be collected. The organization might find a less expensive resource to apply the methods, e.g., conduct interviews, send out and analyze results of questionnaires, etc. If no outside help can be obtained, the organization can still learn a great deal by applying the methods and analyzing results themselves. However, there is a strong chance that data about the strengths and weaknesses of a program will not be interpreted fairly if the data are analyzed by the people responsible for ensuring the program is a good one. Program managers will be "policing" themselves. This caution is not to fault program managers, but to recognize the strong biases inherent in trying to objectively look at and publicly (at least within the organization) report about their programs. Therefore, if at all possible, have someone other than the program managers look at and determine evaluation results.

QUESTION NO. 5 (B) Assessment centerDisciplines > Human Resources > Selection > Assessment center Description | Development | Discussion | See also

DescriptionThe Assessment Center is an approach to selection whereby a battery of tests and exercises are administered to a person or a group of people across a number of hours (usually within a single day). Assessment centers are particularly useful where: Required skills are complex and cannot easily be assessed with interview or simple tests. Required skills include significant interpersonal elements (e.g. management roles). Multiple candidates are available and it is acceptable for them to interact with one another.

Individual exercisesIndividual exercises provide information on how the person works by themselves. The classic exercise is the in-tray, of which there are many variants, but which have a common theme of giving the person an unstructured large pile of work and then see how they go about doing it. Individual exercises (and especially the 'in tray') are very common and have a correlation with cognitive ability. Other variants include planning exercises (heres problems, how will you address them) and case analysis (heres a scenario, what wrong? How would you fix it?).

One-to-one exercisesIn one-to-one exercises, the candidate interacts in various ways with another person, being observed (as with other exercises) by the assessor(s). They are often used to assess listening, communication and interpersonal skills, as well as other job-related knowledge and skills. In role-play exercises, the person takes on a role (possibly the job being applied for) and interacts with someone who is acting (possibly one of the assessors) in a defined

scenario. This may range from dealing with a disaffected employee to putting a persuasive argument to conducting a fact-finding interview. Other exercises may have elements of role-play but are in more 'normal' positions, such as making a presentation or doing an interview (interesting reversal!).

Group exercisesGroup exercises test how people interact in a group, for example showing in practice the Belbin Team Roles that they take. Leaderless group discussions (often of a group of candidates) start with everyone on a relatively equal position (although this may be affected by such as the shape of the table). A typical variant is to assign roles to each candidate and give them a brief of which others are unaware. These groups can be used to assess such skills as negotiation, persuasion, teamwork, planning and organization, decision-making and, leadership. Another variant is simply to give a give topic for group to discuss (has less face validity). Business simulations may be used, sometimes with computers being used to add information and determine outcomes of decisions. These often work with 'turns' that are made of data given to the group, followed by a discussion and decision which is entered into the computer to give the results for the next round. Relevant topics increases face validity. Studies (Bass, 1954) have shown high interrater reliability (.82) and test-re-test results (.72).

Self-assessment exercisesA neat trick is to ask candidates to assess themselves, for example by asking them to rate themselves after each exercise. There is usually a high correlation between candidate and assessor ratings (indicating honesty). Ways of improving these exercises include: Increasing length of assessment form to include behavioral dimensions based on selection competencies Change instructions to promote a more realistic appraisal by applicant of their skills Imply that candidate would be held accountable if a discrepancy is found between their and assessor ratings.

Those with low self-assessment accuracy are likely to find behavioral modification and adaptation difficult (perhaps as they have low emotional intelligence).

DevelopmentDeveloping assessment centers involves much test development, although much can be selected 'off the shelf'. A key area of preparation is with assessors, on whose judgment candidates will be rejected and selected.

Identify criteriaIdentify the criteria by which you will assess the candidates. Derive these from a sound job analysis. Keep the number of criteria low -- less than six is good -- in order to help assessors remember and focus. This also helps simplify the final judgment process.

Develop exercisesMake exercises as realistic as possible. This will help both candidates and assessors and will give a good idea what the candidate is like in real situations. Design the exercises around the criteria so they can be identified rather than find a nice exercise and see if you can spot any useful criteria. Allow for confirmation and for disconfirmation of criteria. Include clear guidelines for player so they can get 'into' the exercises as easily as possible. You should be assessing them on the exercise, not on their memory. Include guidelines also for role-players, assessors and also for those who will set up the exercises (eg. what parts to include in exercise packs, how to set them up ready for use, etc.). Triangulate for results across multiple exercises so each exercise supports others, showing different facets of the person and their behavior against the criteria.

Select assessorsSelect assessors based on their ability to make effective judgments. Gender is not important, but age and rank are. There are two approaches to selecting assessors. You can use a small pool of assessors who become better at the job, or you can use many people to help diffuse acceptance of the candidates and the selection method. Do use assessors who are aware of organizational norms and values (this militates against using external assessors), but do also include specialists, e.g. organizational psychologists (who may well be external, unless you are in a large company).

Develop tools for assessorsAsking assessors to make personal judgments is likely to result in bias. Tools can be developed to help them score candidates accurately and consistently. Include behavioral checklists (lists of behaviors that display criteria) and behavioral coding that uses prepared data-gathering sheets (this standardizes between-gatherers data). Traditional assessment has a process of observe, record, classify, evaluate. Schemabased assessment has examples of poor, average and good behavior (there is no separation of evaluation and observation).

Prepare assessors and othersEnsure the people who will be assessing, role-playing, etc. are ready beforehand. The assessment center should not be a learning exercise for assessors. Two days of training are better than one. Include theory of social information processing, interpersonal judgment, social cognition and decision-making theory. Make assessors responsible for giving feedback to candidates and accountable to organization for their decisions. This encourages them to be careful with their assessments.

Run the assessment centerIf you have planned everything well, it will go well. Things to remember include: Directions to the center sent well beforehand, including by road, rail and air. Welcome for candidates, with refreshments and waiting area between exercises. Capturing feedback from assessors immediately after sessions. A focus with assessors on criteria. Swift and smooth correction of assessors who are not using criteria. A timetable for everyone that runs on time. Lunch! Coffee breaks! Thanks to everyone involved. Finishing the exercises in time for the assessors to do the final scoring/discussion session.

Follow-upAfter the center, follow up with candidates and assessors as appropriate. A good practice is to give helpful feedback to candidates who are unsuccessful so they can understand their strengths and weaknesses.

DiscussionAssessments have grown hugely in popularity. In 1973 only about 7% of companies were using them. By the mid-1980s, this had grown to 20%, and by the end of the 1990s it had leapt again to 65%. Assessment centers allow assessment of potential skill and so are good when seeking new recruits. They allows a wide range of criteria to be assessed, including group activity and aggregations of higher-level, managerial competences. Assessment centers are not cheap to put on and require multiple assessors who must be available. Organizational psychologists can be of particular value to assess and identify the subtler aspects of behavior.

OriginsThe assessment center was originated by AT&T, who included the following nine components:1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Business game Leaderless group discussion In-tray exercise Two-hour interview Projective test Personality test q sort intelligence tests Autobiographical essay and questionnaire

ValidityReliability and validity is difficult, as there are so many parts and so much variation. A 1966 study showed high validity in identifying middle managers. There is a lower adverse effect on individuals than separate tests (eg. psychometrics).

CriticismsThe outcome of assessment centers are based on the judgments of the assessors and hence the quality of those judgments. Not only are judgments subject to human bias but they also are affected by the group psychology effects of assessors interacting.

Assessors often deviate from marking schemes, often collapsing multiple criteria into a generic performance criterion. This is often due to overburdening of assessors with more than 4-5 criteria (so use less). More attention is often given to direct observation than other data (eg. psychometric tests). Assessors even use their own private criteria especially organizational fit.

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Assessment Center DefinedAn assessment center consists of a standardized evaluation of behavior based on multiple inputs. Multiple trained observers and techniques are used. Judgments about behaviors are made, in major part, from specifically developed assessment simulations. These judgments are pooled in a meeting among the assessors or by a statistical integration process.

Essential Features of an Assessment Center Job analysis of relevant behaviors Measurement techniques selected based on job analysis Multiple measurement techniques used, including

simulation exercises Assessors behavioral observations classified into meaningful and relevant categories (dimensions, KSAOs) Multiple observations made for each dimension Multiple assessors used for each candidate

Assessors trained to a performance standard

QUESTION NO. 4 (B)According to R.D. Gatewood and H.S. Field, employee selection is the "process of collecting and evaluating information about an individual in order to extend an offer of employment." Employee selection is part of the overall staffing process of the organization, which also includes human resource (HR) planning, recruitment, and retention activities. By doing human resource planning, the organization projects its likely demand for personnel with particular knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), and compares that to the anticipated availability of such personnel in the internal or external labor markets. During the recruitment phase of staffing, the organization attempts to establish contact with potential job applicants by job postings within the organization, advertising to attract external applicants, employee referrals, and many other methods, depending on the type of organization and the nature of the job in question. Employee selection begins when a pool of applicants is generated by the organization's recruitment efforts. During the employee selection process, a firm decides which of the recruited candidates will be offered a position. Effective employee selection is a critical component of a successful organization. How employees perform their jobs is a major factor in determining how successful an organization will be. Job performance is essentially determined by the ability of an individual to do a particular job and the effort the individual is willing to put forth in performing the job. Through effective selection, the organization can maximize the probability that its new employees will have the necessary KSAs to do the jobs they were hired to do. Thus, employee selection is one of the two major ways (along with orientation and training) to make sure that new employees have the abilities required to do their jobs. It also provides the base for other HR practicessuch as effective job design, goal setting, and compensationthat motivate workers to exert the effort needed to do their jobs effectively, according to Gatewood and Field.

Job applicants differ along many dimensions, such as educational and work experience, personality characteristics, and innate ability and motivation levels. The logic of employee selection begins with the assumption that at least some of these individual differences are relevant to a person's suitability for a particular job. Thus, in employee selection the organization must (1) determine the relevant individual differences (KSAs) needed to do the job and (2) identify and utilize selection methods that will reliably and validly assess the extent to which job applicants possess the needed KSAs. The organization must achieve these tasks in a way that does not illegally discriminate against any job applicants on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or veteran's status.

AN OVERVIEW OF THE SELECTION PROCESSEmployee selection is itself a process consisting of several important stages, as shown in Exhibit 1. Since the organization must determine the individual KSAs needed to perform a job, the selection process begins with job analysis, which is the systematic study of the content of jobs in an organization. Effective job analysis tells the organization what people occupying particular jobs "do" in the course of performing their jobs. It also helps the organization determine the major duties and responsibilities of the job, as well as aspects of the job that are of minor or tangential importance to job performance. The job analysis often results in a document called the job description, which is a comprehensive document that details the duties, responsibilities, and tasks that make up a job. Because job analysis can be complex, time-consuming, and expensive, standardized job descriptions have been developed that can be adapted to thousands of jobs in organizations across the world. Two examples of such databases are the U.S. government's Standard Occupational Classification (SOC), which has information on at least 821 occupations, and the Occupational Information Network, which is also known as O*NET. O*NET provides job descriptions for thousands of jobs.

An understanding of the content of a job assists an organization in specifying the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to do the job. These KSAs can be expressed in terms of a job specification, which is an

Exhibit 1 Selection Process Source: Adapted from Gatewood and Field, 2001. The systematic study of job content in order to determine the major duties and responsibilities 1. Job Analysis of the job. Allows the organization to determine the important dimensions of job performance. The major duties and responsibilities of a job are often detailed in the job description. Drawing upon the information obtained through job analysis or from secondary sources 2. The Identification of KSAs or Job Requirements such as O*NET, the organization identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform the job. The job requirements are often detailed in a document called the job specification. 3. The Identification Once the organization knows the KSAs needed

by job applicants, it must be able to determine the degree to which job applicants possess them. The organization must Once the organization knows the KSAs needed by job of Selection Methods to Assess KSAs applicants, it must be able to determine the degree to which job applicants possess them. The organization must Selection methods include, but are not limited to, reference and background checks, interviews, cognitive testing, personality testing, aptitude testing, drug testing, and assessment centers. The organization should be sure that the 4. The Assessment of the Reliability and Validity of Selection Methods selection methods they use are reliable and valid. In terms of validity, selection methods should actually assess the knowledge, skill, or ability they purport to measure and should distinguish between job applicants who will be successful on the job and those who will not. The organization should use its selection methods to make selection decisions. Typically, 5. The Use of Selection Methods to Process Job Applicants the organization will first try to determine which applicants possess the minimum KSAs required. Once unqualified applicants are screened, other selection methods are used to make distinctions among the remaining job candidates and to decide which applicants will receive offers. organizational document that details what is required to successfully perform a given job. The necessary KSAs are called job requirements, which simply means they are thought to be necessary to perform the job. Job requirements are expressed in terms of desired education or training, work experience, specific

aptitudes or abilities, and in many other ways. Care must be taken to ensure that the job requirements are based on the actual duties and responsibilities of the job and that they do not include irrelevant requirements that may discriminate against some applicants. For example, many organizations have revamped their job descriptions and specifications in the years since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act to ensure that these documents contain only jobrelevant content. Once the necessary KSAs are identified the organization must either develop a selection method to accurately assess whether applicants possess the needed KSAs, or adapt selection methods developed by others. There are many selection methods available to organizations. The most common is the job interview, but organizations also use reference and background checking, personality testing, cognitive ability testing, aptitude testing, assessment centers, drug tests, and many other methods to try and accurately assess the extent to which applicants possess the required KSAs and whether they have unfavorable characteristics that would prevent them from successfully performing the job. For both legal and practical reasons, it is important that the selection methods used are relevant to the job in question and that the methods are as accurate as possible in the information they provide. Selection methods cannot be accurate unless they possess reliability and validity.

VALIDITY OF SELECTION METHODSValidity refers to the quality of a measure that exists when the measure assesses a construct. In the selection context, validity refers to the appropriateness, meaningfulness, and usefulness of the inferences made about applicants during the selection process. It is concerned with the issue of whether applicants will actually perform the job as well as expected based on the inferences made during the selection process. The closer the applicants' actual job performances match their expected performances, the greater the validity of the selection process.

ACHIEVING VALIDITY

The organization must have a clear notion of the job requirements and use selection methods that reliably and accurately measure these qualifications. A list of typical job requirements is shown in Exhibit 2. Some qualificationssuch as technical KSAs and nontechnical skillsare job-specific, meaning that each job has a unique set. The other qualifications listed in the exhibit are universal in that nearly all employers consider these qualities important, regardless of the job. For instance, employers want all their employees to be motivated and have good work habits. The job specification derived from job analysis should describe the KSAs needed to perform each important task of a job. By basing qualifications on job analysis information, a company ensures that the qualities being assessed are important for the job. Job analyses are also needed for legal reasons. In discrimination suits, courts often judge the job-relatedness of a selection practice on whether or not the selection criteria was based on job analysis information. For instance, if someone lodges a complaint that a particular test discriminates against a protected group, the court would (1) determine whether the qualities measured by the test were selected on the basis of job analysis findings and (2) scrutinize the job analysis study itself to determine whether it had been properly conducted.

SELECTION METHODSThe attainment of validity depends heavily on the appropriateness of the particular selection technique used. A firm should use selection methods that reliably and accurately measure the needed qualifications. The reliability of a measure refers to its consistency. It is defined as "the degree of self-consistency among the scores earned by an individual." Reliable evaluations are consistent across both people and time. Reliability is maximized when two people evaluating the same candidate provide the same ratings, and when the ratings of a candidate taken at two different times are the same. When selection scores are unreliable, their validity is diminished. Some of the factors affecting the reliability of selection measures are:

Emotional and physical state of the candidate. Reliability suffers if candidates are particularly nervous during the assessment process. Lack of rapport with the administrator of the measure. Reliability suffers if candidates are "turned off" by the interviewer and thus do not "show their stuff" during the interview.

Inadequate knowledge of how to respond to a measure. Reliability suffers if candidates are asked questions that are vague or confusing. Individual differences among respondents. If the range or differences in scores on the attribute measured by a selection device is large, that means the device can reliably distinguish among people.

Question difficulty. Questions of moderate difficulty produce the most reliable measures. If questions are too easy, many applicants will give the correct answer and individual differences are lessened; if questions are too difficult, few applicants will give the correct answer and, again, individual differences are lessened.

Length of measure . As the length of a measure increases, its reliability also increases. For example, an interviewer can better gauge an applicant's level of interpersonal skills by asking several questions, rather than just one or two.

Exhibit 2 A Menu of Possible Qualities Needed for Job Success1. Technical KSAs or aptitude for learning them 2. Nontechnical skills, such as 1. Communication 2. Interpersonal 3. Reasoning ability 4. Ability to handle stress 5. Assertiveness 3. Work habits 1. Conscientiousness 2. Motivation

3. Organizational citizenship 4. Initiative 5. Self-discipline 4. Absence of dysfunctional behavior, such as 1. Substance abuse 2. Theft 3. Violent tendencies 5. Job-person fit; the applicant 1. is motivated by the organization's reward system 2. fits the organization's culture regarding such things as risk-taking and innovation 3. would enjoy performing the job 4. has ambitions that are congruent with the promotional opportunities available at the firm In addition to providing reliable assessments, the firm's assessments should accurately measure the required worker attributes. Many selection techniques are available for assessing candidates. How does a company decide which ones to use? A particularly effective approach to follow when making this decision is known as the behavior consistency model. This model specifies that the best predictor of future job behavior is past behavior performed under similar circumstances. The model implies that the most effective selection procedures are those that focus on the candidates' past or present behaviors in situations that closely match those they will encounter on the job. The closer the selection procedure simulates actual work behaviors, the greater its validity. To implement the behavioral consistency model, employers should follow this process: 1. Thoroughly assess each applicant's previous work experience to determine if the candidate has exhibited relevant behaviors in the past. 2. If such behaviors are found, evaluate the applicant's past success on each behavior based on carefully developed rating scales. 3. If the applicant has not had an opportunity to exhibit such behaviors, estimate the future likelihood of these behaviors by administering various

types of assessments. The more closely an assessment simulates actual job behaviors, the better the prediction.

ASSESSING AND DOCUMENTING VALIDITYThree strategies can be used to determine the validity of a selection method. The following section lists and discusses these strategies: 1. Content-oriented strategy: Demonstrates that the company followed proper procedures in the development and use of its selection devices. 2. Criterion-related strategy: Provides statistical evidence showing a relationship between applicant selection scores and subsequent job performance levels. 3. Validity generalization strategy: Demonstrates that other companies have already established the validity of the selection practice. When using a content-oriented strategy to document validity, a firm gathers evidence that it followed appropriate procedures in developing its selection program. The evidence should show that the selection devices were properly designed and were accurate measures of the worker requirements. Most importantly, the employer must demonstrate that the selection devices were chosen on the basis of an acceptable job analysis and that they measured a representative sample of the KSAs identified. The sole use of a content-oriented strategy for demonstrating validity is most appropriate for selection devices that directly assess job behavior. For example, one could safely infer that a candidate who performs well on a properly-developed typing test would type well on the job because the test directly measures the actual behavior required on the job. However, when the connection between the selection device and job behavior is less direct, content-oriented evidence alone is insufficient. Consider, for example, an item found on a civil service exam for police officers: "In the Northern Hemisphere, what direction does water circulate when going down the drain?" The aim of the question is to measure mental alertness, which is an important

trait for good police officers. However, can one really be sure that the ability to answer this question is a measure of mental alertness? Perhaps, but the inferential leap is a rather large one. When employers must make such large inferential leaps, a content-oriented strategy, by itself, is insufficient to document validity; some other strategy is needed. This is where a criterion-related strategy comes into play. When a firm uses this strategy, it attempts to demonstrate statistically that someone who does well on a selection instrument is more likely to be a good job performer than someone who does poorly on the selection instrument. To gather criterionrelated evidence, the HR professional needs to collect two pieces of information on each person: a predictor score and a criterion score.

Predictor scores represent how well the individual fared during the selection process as indicated by a test score, an interview rating, or an overall selection score.

Criterion scores represent the job performance level achieved by the individual and are usually based on supervisor evaluations.

Validity is calculated by statistically correlating predictor scores with criterion scores (statistical formulas for computing correlation can be found in most introductory statistical texts). This correlation coefficient (designated as r ) is called a validity coefficient. To be considered valid, r must be statistically significant and its magnitude must be sufficiently large to be of practical value. When a suitable correlation is obtained ( r > 0.3, as a rule of thumb), the firm can conclude that the inferences made during the selection process have been confirmed. That is, it can conclude that, in general, applicants who score well during selection turn out to be good performers, while those who do not score as well become poor performers. A criterion-related validation study may be conducted in one of two ways: a predictive validation study or a concurrent validation study. The two approaches differ primarily in terms of the individuals assessed. In a predictive validation

study, information is gathered on actual job applicants; in a concurrent study, current employees are used. The steps to each approach are shown in Exhibit 3. Concurrent studies are more commonly used than predictive ones because they can be conducted more quickly; the assessed individuals are already on the job and performance measures can thus be more quickly obtained. (In a predictive study, the criterion scores cannot be gathered until the applicants have been hired and have been on the job for several months.) Although concurrent validity studies have certain disadvantages compared to predictive ones, available research indicates that the two types of studies seem to yield approximately the same results. Up to this point, our discussion has assumed that an employer needs to validate each of its selection practices. But what if it is using a selection device that has been used and properly validated by other companies? Can it rely on that validity evidence and thus avoid having to conduct its own study? The answer is yes. It can do so by using a validity generalization strategy. Validity generalization is established by demonstrating that a selection device has been consistently found to be valid in many other similar settings. An impressive amount of evidence points to the validity generalization of many specific devices. For example, some mental aptitude tests have been found to be valid predictors for nearly all jobs and thus can be justified without performing a new validation study to demonstrate job relatedness. To use validity generalization evidence, an organization must present the following data:

Studies summarizing a selection measure's validity for similar jobs in other settings. Data showing the similarity between the jobs for which the validity evidence is reported and the job in the new employment setting. Data showing the similarity between the selection measures in the other studies composing the validity evidence and those measures to be used in the new employment setting.

MAKING A FINAL SELECTIONThe extensiveness and complexity of selection processes vary greatly depending on factors such as the nature of the job, the number of applicants for each opening, and the size of the organization. A typical way of applying selection methods to a large number of applicants for a job requiring relatively high levels of KSAs would be the following: 1. Use application blanks, resumes, and short interviews to determine which job applicants meet the minimum requirements for the job. If the number of applicants is not too large, the information provided by applicants can be verified with reference and/or background checks. 2. Use extensive interviews and appropriate testing to determine which of the minimally qualified job candidates have the highest degree of the KSAs required by the job. 3. Make contingent offers to one or more job finalists as identified by Step 2. Job offers may be contingent upon successful completion of a drug test or other forms of back-ground checks. General medical exams can only be given after a contingent offer is made. One viable strategy for arriving at a sound selection decision is to first evaluate the applicants on each individual attribute needed for the job. That is, at the conclusion of the selection process, each applicant could be rated on a scale (say, from one to five) for each important attribute based on all the information collected during the selection process. For example, one could arrive at an overall rating of a candidate's dependability by combining information derived from references, interviews, and tests that relate to this attribute.

Exhibit 3 Steps in the Predictive and Concurrent Validation ProcessesPredictive Validation

1. Perform a job analysis to identify needed competencies. 2. Develop/choose selection procedures to assess needed competencies. 3. Administer the selection procedures to a group of applicants. 4. Randomly select applicants or select all applicants. 5. Obtain measures of the job performance for the applicant after they have been employed for a sufficient amount of time. For most jobs, this would be six months to a year. 6. Correlate job performance scores of this group with the scores they received on the selection procedures. Concurrent Validation

1 and 2. These steps are identical to those taken in a predictive validation study. 3. Administer the selection procedures to a representative group of job incumbents. 4. Obtain measures of the current job performance level of the job incumbents who have been assessed in step 3. 5. Identical to step 6 in a predictive study.

Decision-making is often facilitated by statistically combining applicants' ratings on different attributes to form a ranking or rating of each applicant. The applicant with the highest score is then selected. This approach is appropriate when a compensatory model is operating, that is, when it is correct to assume that a high score on one attribute can compensate for a low score on another. For example, a baseball player may compensate for a lack of power in hitting by being a fast base runner. In some selection situations, however, proficiency in one area cannot compensate for deficiencies in another. When such a non-compensatory model is operating, a deficiency in any one area would eliminate the candidate from further consideration. Lack of honesty or an inability to get along with people, for

example, may serve to eliminate candidates for some jobs, regardless of their other abilities. When a non-compensatory model is operating, the "successive hurdles" approach may be most appropriate. Under this approach, candidates are eliminated during various stages of the selection process as their non-compensable deficiencies are discovered. For example, some applicants may be eliminated during the first stage if they do not meet the minimum education and experience requirements. Additional candidates may be eliminated at later points after failing a drug test or honesty test or after demonstrating poor interpersonal skills during an interview. The use of successive hurdles lowers selection costs by requiring fewer assessments to be made as the list of viable candidates shrinks.

Question no. 4 (a) Substantial research examining the efficacy of Realistic Job Previews (RJPs) has been conducted in the past decade (Wanous, 1989). Nearly all of this research has focused on the effects of RJPs on one or more desirable organizational outcomes, such as some measure of job acceptance, job persistence, or job satisfaction. Concern has been expressed that the reported results of RJP interventions have been, at best, equivocal (Milkovich and Boudreau, 1994). Nearly as many RJP studies have been conducted that found no relationship between realistic job information and reduced turnover rates as the number of studies which found a significant reduction (e. g., Premack and Wanous, 1985; Taylor, 1994; Wanous and Colella, 1989). Results have been less than overwhelming even in those situations in which statistically significant relationships were demonstrated. As a result of these mixed findings, considerable effort is now being directed toward uncovering the theoretical processes explaining the role of RJPs in influencing these positive organizational outcomes (Fedor et al., In Press). An inference can reasonably be drawn from this RJP literature that, absent positive organizational utility, an RJP cannot be seriously proposed as an appropriate recruiting or socialization tool. This article explores the possibility that the provision of realistic pre-employment and post-employment job information is ethically required, absent any positive, or even in the face of negative, returns to the organization. In fact, one of the suggested explanations for RJP's influence on the reduction of turnover implies an ethical underpinning -- employer honesty (Meglino et al., 1988; Suszko and Breaugh, 1986). The frequent incidence of positive organizational utility may merely be a fortuitous benefit on an ethically mandatory practice. Efforts directed toward isolating the most efficient RJP contents, methods and media, while not without practical importance, do nothing to establish or enhance an organizational imperative to provide recruits and new employees with accurate job information. RJPs are designed to provide "realistic" job information. This realistic information is sometimes thought to include only the negative aspects of a job -- that information which is thought to be more likely to be withheld from the recruit An RJP, however, provides positive and neutral information, as wen. It is, of course, the provision of negative information that sets RJPs off from what might be characterized as the "traditional" recruiting situation. Theoretically, at least, where the organization and the recruit have unlimited time and financial resources, the RJP provides all of the information necessary to provide the recruit with a complete picture of the job and the organization. Furthermore, what is or isn't a negative job aspect is frequently determined within the sole purview of the recruit (Meglino et al., 1993). It is difficult for the recruiting organization to recognize which job/organization characteristics may have important consequences for the prospective employee. For purposes of this article, the RJP is considered to truthfully provide all relevant positive, neutral, and negative job information, despite the impracticality, of such a requirement. The totality of this information is what we characterize in this article as "accurate" information. The importance and ethics of providing employment recruits with accurate job information was made abundantly evident during the United States' war with Iraq. The truthfulness of the recruiting information the U.S. military services dispensed to attract men and women to active and reserve duty was questioned by many military personnel.

In particular, the call of many Reserve and National Guard personnel to active duty in a combat zone generated reactions among many of these individuals, ranging from surprise and shock to outrage. Of course, the body of knowledge common to all potential employees (in this case, the general citizenry's awareness of military affairs and reserve status in time of war) may be an input into consideration of the ethical adequacy of recruiting information. While the individual and societal consequences of the transmission of inaccurate job information is substantial in the military context, the consequences in other organizational settings are only slightly less substantial. Review of the personnel literature and the expanding body of business ethics literature uncovers little direct consideration of the ethical imperative of organization recruiters and trainers to dispense truthful and realistic job information by direct face-to-face communication, in recruiting advertisements or other recruiting literature, or in employee training media. While much has been written about the ethics and legalities of selection, little has directly considered the organizational tactics ...

QUESTION NO. 2 (B)Human Resource Management (HRM) is the term used to describe formal systems devised for the management of people within an organization. These human resources responsibilities are generally divided into three major areas of management: staffing, employee compensation, and defining/designing work. Essentially, the purpose of HRM is to maximize the productivity of an organization by optimizing the effectiveness of its employees. This mandate is unlikely to change in any fundamental way, despite the ever-increasing pace of change in the business world. "The basic mission of human resources will always be to acquire, develop, and retain talent; align the workforce with the business; and be an excellent contributor to the business. Those three challenges will never change."

Until fairly recently, an organization's human resources department was often consigned to lower rungs of the corporate hierarchy, despite the fact that its mandate is to replenish and nourish the company's work force, which is often citedlegitimatelyas an organization's greatest resource. But in recent years recognition of the importance of human resources management to a company's overall health has grown dramatically. This recognition of the importance of HRM extends to small businesses, for while they do not generally have the same volume of human resources requirements as do larger organizations, they too face personnel management issues that can have a decisive impact on business health. "Hiring the right peopleand training them wellcan often mean the difference between scratching out the barest of livelihoods and steady business growth. Personnel problems do not discriminate between small and big business. You find them in all businesses, regardless of size." =============================================================

PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT There is a simple recognition that human resources are the most important assets of an organization; a business cannot be successful without effectively managing this resource. Business success "is most likely to be achieved if the personnel policies and procedures of the enterprise are closely linked with, and make a major contribution to, the achievement of corporate objectives and strategic plans." A third guiding principle, similar in scope, holds that it is HR's responsibility to find, secure, guide, and develop employees whose talents and desires are

compatible with the operating needs and future goals of the company. Other HRM factors that shape corporate culturewhether by encouraging integration and cooperation across the company, instituting quantitative performance measurements, or taking some other actionare also commonly cited as key components in business success. HRM, "is a strategic approach to the acquisition, motivation, development and management of the organization's human resources. It is devoted to shaping an appropriate corporate culture, and introducing programs which reflect and support the core values of the enterprise and ensure its success." ========================================================================= = POSITION AND STRUCTURE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Human resource management department responsibilities can be broadly classified by individual, organizational, and career areas. Individual management entails helping employees identify their strengths and weaknesses; correct their shortcomings; and make their best contribution to the enterprise. These duties are carried out through a variety of activities such as performance reviews, training, and testing. Organizational development, meanwhile, focuses on fostering a successful system that maximizes human (and other) resources as part of larger business strategies. This important duty also includes the creation and maintenance of a change program, which allows the organization to respond to evolving outside and internal influences. The third responsibility, career development, entails matching individuals with the most suitable jobs and career paths within the organization. Human resource management functions are ideally positioned near the theoretic center of the organization, with access to all areas of the business. Since the HRM department or manager is charged with managing the productivity and development of workers at all levels, human resource personnel should have access toand the support ofkey decision makers. In addition, the HRM department should be situated in such a way that it is able to effectively communicate with all areas of the company. HRM structures vary widely from business to business, shaped by the type, size, and governing philosophies of the organization that they serve. But most organizations organize HRM functions around the clusters of people to be helpedthey conduct recruiting, administrative, and other duties in a central location. Different employee development groups for each department are necessary to train and develop employees in specialized areas, such as sales, engineering, marketing, or executive education. In contrast, some HRM departments are completely

independent and are organized purely by function. The same training department, for example, serves all divisions of the organization. In recent years, however, observers have cited a decided trend toward fundamental reassessments of human resources structures and positions. "A cascade of changing business conditions, changing organizational structures, and changing leadership has been forcing human resource departments to alter their perspectives on their role and function almost over-night," "Previously, companies structured themselves on a centralized and compartmentalized basis head office, marketing, manufacturing, shipping, etc. They now seek to decentralize and to integrate their operations, developing cross-functional teams. Today, senior management expects HR to move beyond its traditional, compartmentalized 'bunker' approach to a more integrated, decentralized support function." Given this change in expectations, Johnston noted that "an increasingly common trend in human resources is to decentralize the HR function and make it accountable to specific line management. This increases the likelihood that HR is viewed and included as an integral part of the business process, similar to its marketing, finance, and operations counterparts. However, HR will retain a centralized functional re