During a global career succession assessment of leadership talent pipeline, a ca

Question

During a global career succession assessment of leadership talent pipeline, a candidate was asked to complete a personality/behavioral tendency profile. The candidate asked to speak to the program administrator about the validity of the assessment. The assessment is based on first responses to several sets of word values. The instructions were to respond with first instinct to the set of words listed in several different categories. The candidate stated that some of the words could have different interpretations based on values, beliefs, and cultural origin. Therefore, the validity of the assessment could be biased in terms of results/outcomes. The program administrator removed the weighting of the assessment (not part of the overall assessment scoring) to be used for informational and team building purposes only. Use the above information to answer the following in 500-700 words: Analyze whether the candidate has a valid discrimination concern about the assessment. Determine what EEOC regulations could potentially be at risk of violation. Evaluate how the assessment could be altered so that it could still be used for the program. Cite all sources according to APA formatting guidelines. Click on the Assignment Files tab to submit your case study.

Explanation / Answer

The candidate does have a valid discrimination concern about the assessment. The test is based on instinctive response to word values. Now, we need to keep in mind that, instincts or reflexes are developed over time. Naturally, it is very difficult to change these things in short period. Considering such factors, it is very likely that people from different background and ethnicity will respond to different words in a variety of ways.

If we mix the factor of culture to the above, then there is a possibility that the assessment may be skewed in favor of a particular group of people. This in turn will be an unfair practice for career succession assessment.

The challenge with such assessment is that, we cannot measure every individual on the same scale. However, unfortunately the scales are usually built for the majority of the population and ignores the ethnic minority. For example, let’s say the response to the word A is B by majority of the people but C for a small minority of people, it is likely that we will consider the answer C to be unacceptable or not a leadership material. However, considering his/her cultural background some may feel C to be an acceptable answer. In such cases, it may not necessarily be the fault of the assessor but the system.

EEOC has some regulations when it comes to selection procedure. Once such regulation is called “Uniform guidelines on employee selection procedures (1978)”. Under this there is another section that covers “Adoption of questions and answers to clarify and provide a common interpretation of the uniform guidelines on employee selection procedure”. This regulation was at the risk of being violated.

The assessment could be altered as a platform for debate. For example, two respondents with different answer for same word value could debate as to why their response was more meaningful. This could allow the assessor to see the logic they use, the path they take to put forward their argument and how they negotiate.

[The information collected is from EEOC website -> laws -> regulations section. I cannot provide the direct link, but you should be able to find details by searching on the website]

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