Challenges in Assessment Centres: Lessons from Experience
Subhra Pattnaik, Mousumi Padhi
Apr 20, 2021
Citations
0
Citations
Journal
Management and Labour Studies
Full text
Semantic Scholar
Key Takeaway Key Takeaway: Design, implementation, and inferential challenges in assessment centers can undermine their strengths, but interventions can minimize these errors.
Abstract
The success of the assessment centre (AC) approach has been widely acknowledged and its widespread practice testifies to this. In India, its adoption as a tool for HRD is increasing slowly and steadily. Its proven success is due to its strong criterion and content-related validity. However, certain challenges during design and development of AC can undermine its very strengths. Using an interpretative, qualitative approach, this article builds on the first-hand experiences of the authors as well as 26 other Indian assessors in conducting ACs to highlight the issues faced at 3 different levels of the AC methodology—design, implementation, and inferential. It also highlights the interconnectedness between these issues at various levels and suggests interventions to minimize assessment errors. The article adds on to the AC literature by detailing the challenges faced in ACs in a developing country, which had rarely been done before. This study holds significant relevance for assessors, consulting agencies providing assessment services, and even to client organizations envisaging AC for their employees.