Assessment Centres and Development Centres

Assessment Centres

FLAME Human Capital Management works in partnership with its clients to design and implement Assessment Centres for the selection of candidates, whether new recruits or existing people for key positions or promotions.

There is no substitute for objectively observing and systematically measuring how people actually perform "on the ground". A well designed Assessment Centre is the most effective tool available for assessing individuals in both individual and group based environments for selection.

Assessment Centres are a series of extended selection procedures with each lasting one or two days or sometimes longer. Usually, these are after the first round of interviews and before the final selection but they can be used as an initial selection process as well. They are commonly held either on employers’ premises or in a hotel and are considered by many organisations to be the fairest and most accurate method of selecting staff. This is because a number of different selectors get to see the prospective candidates over a longer period of time and have the chance to see what they can do, rather than what they say they can do, in a variety of situations.

Assessment Centres can be used to select new people or in making the right choice for a promotion and is effective in getting additional information from candidates that can’t be tested at an interview. We analyse how people handle tests under pressure and their ability to talk through problems.

Development Centres

FLAME Human Capital Management works in partnership with its clients to design and implement Development Centres for the management and staff.

Research demonstrates that there is no substitute for objectively observing and systematically measuring how people actually perform "on the ground". A well designed Development Centre is the most effective tool available for assessing individuals in both individual and group based environments for development.

A development centre will consist of a set of exercises that demonstrate one crucial characteristic - namely that it is behaviour that is being observed and measured. This represents a significant shift from the traditional subjective judgement of the management and poses many advantages in identifying gaps in employee and management competencies by using a combination of exercises and sometimes other assessment methods like psychometric testing and interviews, which simulate the activities carried out in the target job. This is a more accurate and fair process by which targeted training and development programmes could be carried out to bridge individual and organisational deficiencies based on evidence of such gaps.

The particular competencies used will depend upon the target job but one will often find competencies such as relating to people; resistance to stress; planning and organising; motivation; adaptability and flexibility; problem solving; leadership; communication; decision making and initiative.