Why Lascombe Consulting uses Harrison Assessments
Harrison Assessments’ extensive research has developed a unique assessment instrument that produces reliable and valid results with high test/retest scores. The assessment instrument incorporates performance research and in particular focuses on the relationship between job performance and behavioural traits. Rather than abstract concepts in psychology, Harrison Assessments measures the things that people like doing and the behavioural traits related to those things. When an individual’s personal traits match with his/her job description and job requirements, that individual tends to perform exceptionally well, demonstrating a close relationship between empirical data and construct validity.
This makes Harrison Assessments an excellent tool for accelerating and deepening self-awareness in relation to career and leadership development. The Assessments provide detailed information on personal traits, strengths, preferences, paradoxes and inconsistencies.
Assessing Eligibility
Organizations can employ the Harrison Assessment as part of an online system to assess job applicants’ match to a particular position’s eligibility requirements. These questions are related to education, work experiences, and skills, as well as behavioural characteristics and tendencies. Setting up online screening systems with the Harrison Assessment allows a company to get a complete assessment of an individual applicant even before reviewing the resume. This saves companies as much as 80% of the time typically required for the selection process because it allows them to interview applicants that most closely fit the requirements without having to first sift through CVs and conduct interviews with individuals who do not match eligibility requirements.
In addition to new hires, the instrument can be applied to selection for promotion because it examines both performance and potential. When an individual is introspective and understands his/her own behaviour, that individual has the opportunity to develop certain behavioural preferences, which can impact whether or not he/she receives a promotion. However, Dr. Harrison cautions that it is important to evaluate whether the position for which a person is being considered for promotion is a good fit for them.
HATS off to Talent Management and Recruitment!
The latest enhancement to Dr. Harrison’s remarkable assessment provides a comprehensive resource for applications across talent management within an organization. Called Harrison Assessments Talent Solutions (HATS) it assesses eligibility as well as suitability, both essential to evaluating appropriate job or position fit. In the recruitment module, companies are able to customize online questionnaires for potential applicants and recruits, regarding education, training and skills, experience, and work preferences for specific positions. A person within the company then evaluates the questionnaire responses in lieu of reviewing resumes to determine which candidates to interview. As the candidates go through the interview process, companies can use the Harrison Assessment to assess behavioural suitability as well. This enables a company to more effectively determine which candidate is the best fit for any given position.
In the recruitment module organizations establish job criteria and requirements in detail before evaluating candidates, providing structure to the selection and hiring process. Additionally, the module enhances the legal standing of the selection process because the job requirements the clarified and quantified in advance so that all applicants go through the exact same process. Companies can integrate the recruitment module with their own automated HR systems so they can use both to screen and track applicants.
Reliable Results
HATS is designed to minimise “gaming” or manipulation of the assessment. The consistency score, together with the suitability assessment, tracks repetitive cycles throughout the system and cross-references them mathematically to measure whether an individual answers consistently. For eligibility, the questions are structured to elicit multiple responses, and questions can be revisited in the interview, which minimises manipulation.
Comprehensive and Expedient
The HATS pre-screening system presents a complete set of factors to give a comprehensive picture of how a person fits a job’s behavioural / suitability and competency / eligibility requirements. This helps companies minimize the number of unqualified candidates and increase the number of qualified individuals under consideration beyond the initial screening process. The HATS position template incorporates questions about education, training/skills, and experience as well as behavioural suitability questions in order to provide the most comprehensive picture of a candidate’s potential for success in a job. Additionally, organizations can weight the various aspects of the assessment and regulate other factors to determine the optimal picture of their applicants or employees for the assessment application they need. According to Dr. Harrison, the instrument eliminates an estimated 80 percent of the administrative workload by allowing companies to deal only with individuals who fit the job requirements. Dr. Harrison called this comprehensive, inclusive picture of applicants the “job success” formula.
Enjoyment Performance Theory
The general theory that has driven the development and effectiveness of Dr. Harrison’s instrument is rather simple and quite intuitive: people who enjoy their jobs are more responsive to their work situations, perform better, and possess the drive and motivation to succeed. Dr. Harrison calls this the “Enjoyment Performance Theory.” “It is counterproductive for an individual to perform in a role that does not match his or her behavioural preferences because not only the individual’s level of enjoyment and job satisfaction decreases, but so does job performance.” Dr. Harrison added that when mandatory tasks make up more than 25 percent of a position’s responsibilities for which there is a poor fit, job satisfaction and performance will often suffer. He emphasized that organizations should consider behavioural fit when they evaluate for hires and promotions and not focus exclusively on skills and eligibility. According to Dr. Harrison for optimal success, a job needs to be mostly about what you enjoy doing. Every job comprises tasks and responsibilities that can be mundane, and most positions will require us to try on different hats based on the circumstances. However, in general these conditions last for brief periods of time, and then we return to what we enjoy doing… or performance suffers.
Paradox Theory
In its simplest form the paradox theory suggests that an individual can possess and demonstrate seemingly contradictory traits simultaneously. Dr. Harrison illustrates this fascinating reality of the human psyche’s polarity with the following example:
“An individual possesses the qualities of frankness and diplomacy, two apparently antithetical behavioural traits. Most behavioural assessment instruments would score these traits on a linear scale, and eventually produce results that would reveal the individual as either a frank or a diplomatic person. In contrast, Harrison Assessments investigates just how frank an individual is compared to how diplomatic, since a person can possess both traits, or neither. The instrument compares the individual’s frankness to his/her diplomacy by measuring each trait independently and then analyzing the results together. The relationships between complementary behavioural traits are identified as part of an interconnected system, and therefore the tool reveals the complexities of the human behaviour and performance to produce results of enormous value.”
Paradox Traits – It’s a Balancing Act
By understanding the complex relationship between two antithetical traits, Harrison Assessments measures the potential for stress responses. An imbalance between paradoxical traits in individuals provides a clear insight into how they will respond under stress. Dr. Harrison again employs the example of the diplomatic and frank individual to illustrate how this works:
“If an individual tends to be much more diplomatic than frank and he/she encounters a situation that requires directness or frankness, the individual will immediately withdraw or become evasive in response to what he/she perceives to be a stressful situation. Tension and stress will build so that the individual eventually flips in the opposite direction and becomes overly blunt.”
This insight allows us to see where and how our natural tendencies can benefit us and also where they may hinder us in stressful situations.
Know Our Weaknesses and Give Power to Our Strengths
The paradox concept demonstrates how our strengths and weaknesses influence each other. Dr. Harrison emphasized that when it comes to the relationship between contradictory traits, it’s really all about understanding and balancing the two. For example, if a person has a strong sense of empathy, then they know that this quality’s corollary trait is permissiveness and less willingness to enforce rules. However, when a person understands their weakness, they can work on developing it: in this case if enforcement is important to the performance of their job, they can develop their ability to enforce. By doing this a person can actually give more strength, power, and depth to the empathy they naturally possess. How fascinating that we can actually add more value to a strength by developing and improving our weakness in a particular paradox! The additional advantage of developing balance in an imbalanced paradox is the elimination of the potential stress behaviour and the enhanced flexibility in responding to a given situation and in our interactions with others.
Improving Relationships by Mastering the Paradox
Understanding paradox and polarity in our own behaviour and in those around us can help quell fears of employment termination and neutralize office politics. Tense situations arise because people with opposing personality traits polarize each other. For example, if our boss is frank and blunt and we are diplomatic, there will inevitably be tension between us because we are each other’s “disowned selves.” In other words, any antagonism a person feels toward their boss stems from the reality that they have “disowned” the frank trait in themselves in favour of being diplomatic. To counter these tense situations, Dr. Harrison suggests knowing what our natural stress behaviours are and teaching ourselves to exercise the opposite behaviour in stressful situations. For example, if a person tends to be more diplomatic than frank, just being a little more direct in the beginning of an interaction will significantly help that interaction to stay on track, usually avoiding the stressful situation in which the other person doesn’t respond to what we want and we need to tell them.
A Panoramic View of Career or Position Fit
While other behavioural instruments measure 10 to 20 behavioural traits, the Harrison Assessments evaluates over 150, providing a range and depth of information that is comparable to a broad picture window view of behavioural preferences vs. the limited kitchen window view of many style indicators. Any given position, job, or work situation requires more than five, 10, or even 20 qualities because there are so many situations that elicit different behaviours. For any career or position success profile, the Harrison Assessment evaluates a set of 30 to 40 traits that influence performance. Harrison Assessments provides a comprehensive evaluation of an individual’s potential fit with careers and positions making it ideal for both career evaluation and selection for hiring and promotion.
Personal Growth and Career Selection
Individuals can use the feedback from Harrison Assessments for personal growth by investigating how one of their paradox traits has the potential to help or hinder its complementary trait and their performance. In addition, the instrument adds value to job searches and career transitions because individuals can review their report and see how their behavioural traits match with over 600 careers. This allows them to determine the degree to which they fit various roles and identify what careers will give them the greatest amount of satisfaction.
Understanding our strengths is the most important variable in the career selection process, and after completing the assessment a person can begin to look at how their strengths apply to various career paths. When we really know ourselves we can go through the process of researching, investigating, and gaining knowledge for suitable careers. This is a very valuable way of determining and validating a person’s career path.
Behavioural Questions for Hiring
For organizations, the Interview Report objectifies the interview by providing behavioural questions specific to the position. For example, if an individual’s assessment reveals that he/she is enthusiastic about their goals an interviewer can probe further to learn how their goals relate to the job for which they are being interviewed.
About the creator of Harrison Assessments
Dan Harrison, PhD., has a diverse background and over 30 years of experience in Mathematics, Personality Theory, Counselling Psychology, Human Potential Psychology, and Organizational Psychology. He used the Paradox Theory to create and develop Harrison Methodologies, and in 1990 he founded Harrison Assessments with a vision of helping companies optimize their human capital by leveraging their deep understanding of human resources and psychology.
Throughout his early career Dr. Harrison was involved in clinical and human potential psychology. He later became interested in organizational psychology, and as he consulted with companies he began investigating assessment instruments to help facilitate his team building and coaching work. As he analyzed various instruments he found that many lacked significant psychological depth, so he decided to create his own assessments. As a result, Harrison Assessments has gained international acclaim and enjoys impressive commercial success.