HR Focus in Start-ups to Succeed

Start-up companies can come in all forms and sizes. They seem to have high failure rates, but the minority who succeed can become large and influential.

It has been seen that most start-up founders more often have a casual or off-beat culture in their thinking, dress, office space, HR practices and Marketing, as compared to traditional corporations. Some of these casual approaches, such as the use of “flat” organizational structure, in which employees can directly communicate with the Founders or CEOs informally, are practiced to promote efficiency and to enthuse employees in the workplace.

Business Strategies for Finance, Marketing, Production, Product Development and Innovation are made without a robust HR and People strategy. The importance of this needs to be highlighted as this is one pillars of the foundation on which the businesses is built, and if this pillar is weak or not there the dangers will always loom. Having a HR and People plan is like a having Finance plan which is absolutely essential to a success of a start-up. If people are not the key focus area the start-up cannot succeed. The HRand People plan needs to be budgeted in the initial phase itself.

Hiring the right person is one of the biggest challenges for the start-up – it is not that getting people is a problem but getting the right-fit certainly is for most start-up organizations. Many a times compromises are likely to be made to get the organization moving quickly hoping that the incumbents will learn and adapt as we go along – something which a start-up needs to be careful about in my opinion.

All start-ups need people who are innovative, adaptable and flexible, analytical, emotionally intelligent, team players and have willingness to learn. They should be willing multi-taskers. Easily said than done – how do we find this out in an interview of an hour or two at the most?  The founder’s or CEO’s experience or gut-feel may not be sufficient to make those judgements. There is a professional way of doing thisby putting the person through professional Competency Assessment or Personality (Psychological) Tests.

As the organization matures and grows retention of good people becomes the challenge.Attracting,developing and retaining an amazing team are the hallmarks of success for any start-ups success. If there are right people they will design and redesign success strategies and fight for the organization’s success.

What HR policies should be there? How shouldthe elements of legality, predictability, fairness, equity and control be built into them require in-depth thought and insight as does the business plan. What has succeeded in one organization may not in another as each organization have a unique character and personality. Having policies is not good enough it is their proper implementation which is the tougher part and leads to dissatisfaction in most organizations over a period of time.

Just like business strategies and plans change the HR policies need to be revised and re-engineered keeping in view the business needs.

Making sure that the there is adequate focus on people besides other areas is most important in my opinion.

More Visit :- http://www.cengrow.com/

Employee Satisfaction Survey

Making Performance Management Work effectively

Managing Performance and keeping the workforce motivated is becoming increasingly complex and difficult particularly for the young brigade who is far more mobile and impulsive.
No system is perfect and permanent in any organisation. We need to continuously improve and adapt our processes to the changing environment.
Most organizations do have some form of Performance Management System as in recent times even Performance Appraisal is called the same. Firstly, let me clarify that Performance Appraisal is only one of the elements of the Performance Management System.
A robust Performance Management System (PMS) has 4 distinct sub-processes:
1. Formal Target Setting Process cascading down from the Annual Business Plan. It encompasses a participatory approach and is an open, transparent,data-based and an alignedprocess wherein the organization seeks to set challenging but realistic targets for all its employees.
2. Monitoring and Control involves an institutionalised and an on-going process for giving feedback, coaching and counselling to keepthe performance on track. This is the most important part of PMS and the organization needs to build the competence of its employees – it requires specialized training. This has invariably been a weakness in most organizations we have worked for in the last 30 years
3. The Performance Appraisal against the targets set in step 1 and any revisions thereafter. This requires the elements of subjectivity to be reduced and objectivity brought in. For this the appraisal form needs to be well designed. Self-appraisal often helps to bring acceptance and reasoning in the whole process. Appraiser and Reviewer both need to be data-based and objective to keep personal biases out.
4. A clearly defined Reward and Recognition Policy linked with thePerformance Appraisal contributes to building a motivated work-force. This needs constant review and updating year on year.
It is desirable to have the whole process fully documented with timelines with responsibilities clearly demarcated.
Other process such as Career and Succession Planning need to be in place for Performance Management to be more effective. Some Organizations do keep the two processes independent. However, the retention of talent has thrown a big challenge to many organizations as they grapple with balancing these processes.
More Visit :- http://www.cengrow.com/

How to Use Psychometric Testing in Hiring

According to a survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, approximately 18% of the companies these days are using personality tests in the recruitment procedure, and surprisingly, this number is growing at the rate of 10-15% on an annual basis- as per many industrial and organizational psychologists and the Association of Test Publishers.

Psychometric testing proves that there are certain cognitive and personality tests which help the new employees to succeed in their field and boost them for their future. Since the cost of a bad hire is extensively estimated to be a year’s salary; there are huge incentives for organizations to get hiring right. Due to lack of knowledge, unfortunately, many organizations use the wrong psychometric assessments in a wrong way and here are the followings they ought to know to minimize the potential risks and maximize their predictive accuracy, as Cengrows is helping you to achieve:

  • Know the law: the organization ought to keep in mind, the legal compliance when they want to add psychometric tests to their pre-employment screening system. The assessment tools, especially cognitive ability tests need to be job- relevant due to the presence of anti- discrimination laws. Competency mapping is included too for psychomotor testing.
  • Business needs should be known: these tests won’t help you unless you don’t have well- established measures of job performance. These days, organizations are focusing more on the predictors or independent variables rather than concentrating on dependent variables. It is important to know that if an industry doesn’t have quantitative measures of employee performance on the job, then there is no source for statistical correlations of how good these tests predict their performance. In such a case, you need to be dependent on the assessment center.
  • Risk of cheating is reduced: the tests like cognitive ability tests are conducted in order to safeguard the candidate; organizations should ‘proctor’ the assessment test, either by monitoring him via video conference, or noting their activities directly. But keep in mind that some candidates may be tempted to play a smart act with the result. You must compare the reference of the candidate and his interview ratings with their results to ensure whether the two are consistent or not. Such things are useful in the sales department where to need to have a smart candidate and you can be easily fooled by people by ‘impression management’. Using multiple psychometric tests can actually help the organizations to get a more consistent picture. You have to perform such tests in limit and never try to over-do it because sometimes, even a well-developed, predictive assessment battery and legally defensible won’t be of any worth if the candidate feels it being over time-consuming.
  • Must share the results with the candidates: every candidate has the right to see their effect these days- as per “informed consent” and few organizations also provide access to the reports based on the psychometric tests that the applicants take. Whether the candidate accepts the employment offer or not, there are both- the ethical as well as the pragmatic benefits of sharing the result.
  • Test the tests: job performance of an individual must be evaluated quantitatively, which give the company criteria for correctness. While hiring managers and HR, one must consume the right methodology to select and retain the authentic psychometric tests.

To undergo all these points as mentioned earlier, one ought to know and understand the business needs and make sure that you find a test that evaluates the characteristics. Some laws prohibit the company from discriminating the privacy of the candidate, but no legislation prohibits the company from using strange assessment tools.

To know more visit: Cengrow

Psychometric test for children: Assure your child’s future

Psychometric test for childrenPsychometric tests offer an extensive evaluation of thought process and emotions in the child. For example, there is no physical test that measures depression, so there is no way you can make sure your child is undergoing a psychological disturbance, yet find him low, quirky in nature, and annoyed most of the time. He may at times have a learning disability that shows from his school complaints and class work updates. These problems may NOT primarily be due to visual, hearing or motor troubles, NOR due to mental retardation, or because of environmental, cultural, or economic causes. The child is considered to have a learning disorder if his achievements are not commensurate with age and caliber in one or more of the specific gray areas when he is subject to an outside learning exposure or social activity.

The virtue of intelligence refers to quickness and accurateness of mental stimulation. It is often believed to have originated from knowledge, wisdom, memory, or a fantasy of other attributes but in general has some meanings depending on the context in which it is used. And people tend to despise whatever is a little short of these ultimate implications, but the truth is intelligence does not always mean exceptional intellectual instinct for problem-solving, it may also be attributed to an adept art in a person depending on his personal caliber.

Cognitive assessments are something that can be of vital importance in this field and can be used to determine a child’s learning capability by identifying his cognitive strengths and weaknesses. When interpreted in combination with comprehensive background information, parent, and teacher’s interviews, the results of cognitive tests can provide an effect which can be used to assist the development plans and strategies in a child’s personal growth.

Psychometric testing for children requires the administration of standardized assessment tools by experienced psychologists and trainers. These tools can assess various areas of cognitive capacity, for example:

  • Intellectual Giftedness: A cognitive assessment will help to assess whether a child can access gifted and talented programs or individual classes.
  • Diagnosing learning difficulties or disabilities in children: This helps in identifying the presence of a learning problem or disorder in children and helping teachers make right decisions for students.
  • Intellectual difficulty or disability: Testing this give parents a better understanding of around how an intellectual disability impacts the child’s learning power through accurate assessments.

Cengrow provides all kinds of assessment and psychometric tests for children that can help you make a better choice for your child when it comes to choosing the right career path for your child. And this can go a long run in making and baking the future of your child. We design and develop future-forward psychometric assessments for your child, and uses the latest technology to connect competencies and personalities by measuring intellect, emotional intelligence and behavioral values of your child. Trust us with your child’s present, and we will make his future shine!

Projective tests: Have a keener eye for talent

 COMPETENCY BASED INTERVIEWA projective test is a type of personality test in which the individual is made to respond to ambiguous scenes, words or riddles. This kind of analysis emerged from the psychology of thought, which suggests that people have their behavioral traits and urges which might leave an impact on the business organizations they work with. These projective tests were intended to uncover such unconscious desires that are hidden from a normal behavior of an individual.

The projective techniques require more time and skill to administer than more objective testing methods and hence are an efficient method in assessing an individual’s competencies on the organization. They are very useful to employers in helping them obtain a comprehensive picture of a person’s personality mark the traits that they foresee as valuable to their organization and channelize it for their own as well as individual’s benefit.

The projective techniques directly or indirectly imply to competency based interviews, which have a sole purpose in an organization:  to test employee’s skill. So, as interviewers you may be more interested in candidate’s  experience or previous qualifications, what you need to know is whether you have the right skills to take the position on in your firm as different companies compete with different goals. You can also practically test how candidates would react in given situations. So rather than concerning yourselves with candidate’s past achievements, place emphasis on predicting how he/she would behave in a certain scenario in a business is driven environment.

The tasks in a competency based interview would range from oral and written communication to planning, organization and problem-solving. So, it is time for you as an entrepreneur to match the right skills with the right candidate and see your business grow. Cengrow has achieved this mastery with time; it is equipped with all modern techniques in analyzing candidate’s profile and his behavior to make sure your he/she does justice to the role been given. It is all a growing corporate firm needs, a workforce not smartest in the room but brightest to do the job that is assigned. Cengrow will help organizations grow through these everyday situations in which most of the business leaders fail to identify the right talent for their needs of activities. Some key competencies that employers look for in a candidate include:

  • Teamwork
  • Responsibility
  • Communication skills
  • Decision making
  • Leadership
  • Problem-solving
  • Goal orientation

A consultation firm helps you have a plethora of all these in the working class you hire. But where do you find one reputable company? Cengrow has been the people’s choice since past 30 years. The applications designed here helps organizations make prudential decisions when it comes to recruiting the right talent, getting relevant data from past and current and optimally utilizing the talented workforce to encourage them to do better. Cengrow, to sum up, is not just a consultation firm, but a potential power you can trust for fulfilling your ambitious business goals.

Psychometric Test and Finding the Right Benefits for Leadership

imaghjghjges

Psychometrics is the study of educational and psychological measurements. A psychometric test is an assessment technique that provides feedbacks that defines leadership specific personality traits and identifies key features that the person may have for leadership roles. Psychometric Testing is becoming popular with employers who want to gain insight into an individual’s leadership qualities, motivational style and other personality traits that can help them become better efficient executive leader.

Psychometric Test – Finding the Right Fit

A critical challenge for companies today is hiring and assessing the right talent. Identifying a potential candidate for their skills is difficult and can affect the business performance. Psychometric test uses cutting edge technology that is practical and easily applicable to business environments. It combines critical reasoning tests and psychometric tools to identify capabilities in a person which an organisation requires for better enhanced business performance.

A psychometric test provides employers an accurate analysis and insight of the candidate’s suitability to the required role. Recruitment also becomes easier once employers and the human resource development team gets accessible well-validated results and know how ‘fit’ the candidate will be for the job role based on his personality and ability.

It is a more objective approach to measure and access personality profiles and traits than the otherwise subjective measurements and offers an impartial judgement for selection. It is a fair way to judge with consistent results. It is indeed a powerful and a proven tool for delivering significant business value to organisations looking for the best fit and helps decision making process more streamlined. Further understanding people’s strengths and weaknesses will also help know what motivates them or how one can improve their potential by added skills etc. This can be beneficial for organisations to make decisions regarding promotions and offering them work depending on their abilities to perform better.

Additionally the assessment also helps discover new potential employers that may not have been identified at first, but have the ability to transform with added skills and trainings for succession management.

Cengrow designs and develops future-forward psychometric assessments, which uses technology to connect competencies and personalities by measuring intellect, emotional intelligence and behavioural values.  Psychometric tests are transforming the modern workplace and is also improving the ability to perform or carryout the designated tasks in a much efficient way. It requires close collaboration and assists companies to select those candidates who are performers and will be a good ‘fit’ to both the company’s culture and role and also drive business performance to success.

Sales Aptitude Test – Helps Evaluate Sales Skills

xxx

Sales profession is an important and crucial aspect to any organisations growth & success. Technology is radically changing the field of sales and many organisations today are transforming their sales force with an honest assessment of current skills. As a development tool, a sales aptitude test is kind of a predictive analysis that is perfectly designed to help you gain and understand certain skills that could help you achieve the kind of sales career you always wanted.

Managers often benchmark candidates or their employees on the ‘hunger for work’ and on the ‘drive to perform’, but they often miss evaluating them for the skill they have.

A sales aptitude test helps companies make the right recruitment decision for sales team and is also helpful for candidates who can understand more and know if they have the right edge for a selling profile.

When it comes to selecting employees for the sales force, it is important to consider their personality, consultative selling skills and abilities and whether the person has the right motivation to go through the sales process even with challenges. Often it is the sales person’s personality that hinders in the salesperson’s success. Energy and the drive to work are reflected in the candidate’s resilience and that depicts his selling personality. It is often their consultative selling skills that makes a lasting first impression and can help make the sale.

A sales aptitude test can help evaluate the right salesman spirit and performs better as compared to other personality tests. It is a highly developed test assessment that works in conjunction with other sales force selection including a sales skills assessment and sales competency assessment. It also helps your bottom line to improve and an efficient sales force is sure to help the business grow.

So how does one evaluate a sales candidate?

To be successful in a sales environment, a person has to have ability to understand what the buyer wants, engage &establish trust, communicate succinctly, demonstrate the product or service clearly and personalise their interactions for effective sale. These are just a few skills that make the core set of selling skills and make the entire selling experience exceed an organisations expectation.

A sales competency assessment helps understand strengths and identify areas that can help explore the potential for making a sales career. The sales aptitude test or sales skills assessment is designed using a mix of scenarios, self-assessment and interactive questions. The candidate’s response to each of these questions reflects on how he behaves and reacts to similar situations. The answers help experts identify the right personality required to become a professional sales person and the results are often shared within a quick turnover.

Understanding the buyer is important but is it equally important on what kind of experience the buyer is looking for.

Demonstrate the value of the product, but also highlight the benefits the product has and how it will help the buyer. That is what makes a true salesman.

Cengrow uses psychological profiling that uses various techniques and tools to create deeper engagement with your clients and sales assessment tests help filter candidates that have specific industry knowledge and can efficiently handle sales processes and conduct better sales activities.

Personality Tests Importance

we-provide-best-possible-business-solutions-cengrow-1Our personality is what reflects are behaviour towards ourselves and how we approach or react to people and situations around us. Personality is also an important factor while considering someone for a job. Undergoing a personality test helps understand your personality and behavioural style of thinking and working practises and that influences an employer’s decision for choosing the right candidate.

A personality test is a self-report questionnaire that has a set number of questions relating to your own personality and situational based questions that require your response on how well you reflect on that statement. More the information available, better and more efficient the recruiter can be with referrals. Personality predicts how a person will work—diligently, intelligently, cheerfully, and cooperatively

Assists in Decision Making While Hiring

Remember, there is never a right or wrong answer while giving a personality test. The key lies in selecting a candidate with the right attitude and then having him trained for the required skillset needed for the job. This also helps the employee adapt well to the organisation and with its work culture.

It analysis and measures your behaviour in certain situations and how your peers think about you. As an employer, your objective of conducting a personality test is to establish

  • What the employee can do at work
  • How will he conduct himself at work
  • Will he be the right choice at work

Enhance & Drive Performance

Improving the quality of your organisations workforce is always a challenge. Training & development is vital and so are the on-going mentoring, coaching, and employee-assistance programs. But are you able to comprehend the employee’s behaviour or values that help you understand him well. An employer may want to gauge the mental stability for a police department profile or the introvert/extrovert tendency for someone applying for sales and marketing job.

Aptitude and practical-skill tests have been in common practise and with changing work styles, more and more companies are now including a pre-employment test or psychometric profiling tests that help and assist employers to evaluate how a candidate would react to situations and instils problem solving skills to handle challenges better in their work-related activities. It could be leading others, coping with stress and work pressure and solving project challenges in a practical manner.

As an individual too, you can take this test to learn about what your strengths and weaknesses are and if your skills are relevant to the job you applied for. It is a great way to measure your persanlity traits, temperament or dispositions. It also assists you in overcoming your weaknesses with a broader mindset.

Cengrow designs and develops unique personality tests and psychometric profiling tools that can be tailored to your organisations need. Being an online test format, these tests are short and easy to follow and focus on delivering all you need for success.

360-degree feedback Helping People Grow And Developing Better Employees

we-provide-best-possible-management-consultancy-services-and-keep-our-clients-happy-cengrow

People need feedback to develop and improve and a 360 degree feedback helps companies understand employees better to foster collaboration and improve productivity within the organisation.

Helping People Grow

Most organisations that focus on employee engagement and development use the 360 degree feedback tool to assess their potential and enable them to perform better with valuable feedback. It enables employees to create a career roadmap for themselves and make the right professional decisions too. It helps people grow their strengths and work towards their weaknesses to make them become better.

Exchanges Ideas for Improvements and Performance

A 360 degree feedback creates an open exchange of ideas for improvement and provides leaders with the right set of information on their employees that can help them become more effective in how they perform. Usually used for employees at middle and senior level, this method uses multiple questions that assist each employee an opportunity to receive performance feedback and uses appreciative inquiry from his or her supervisors, peers, staff members, co-workers and sometimes from customers too.

Besides sharing a meaningful assessment and assisting in making administrative decisions such as a pay appraisal or a promotion, a 360 feedback system is also a perfect way to bring together people without blaming anyone or naming anyone and work towards concluding organisations key highlighted objectives. A 360 degree performance appraisal has four integral components:

  • A Self Appraisal
  • Superior’s Appraisal
  • Subordinate’s Appraisal
  • Peer Appraisal

Offering a comprehensive view towards employee’s performance, a 360 degree appraisal is a powerful tool that tracks changes in other’s perceptions about each other and hence recommended to be adapted on a regular interval at an organisation. Not only does it help assess their leadership skills but will also let them understand their management styles. With a focus on teamwork, character and leadership effectiveness, a 360 degree feedback program also addresses skills including listening, planning and goal-setting.

Numerous methods including a 360 degree survey, quality reports and even a 360 degree performance appraisal tool can help companies a secure and comprehensive way to understand and help people reach their potential.

Experienced and accredited consultants like Cengrow understands the importance of knowing your employees for better productivity and provides integrated solutions for all kinds of assessment and psychometric testing requirements that help organisations understand their people better. They offer organisations a fully customized 360 degree feedback solution which is a comprehensive web service for groups or projects of all sizes and is easy & flexible to use, strictly confidential and quite cost effective. In fact Cengrow is also the only agency in India that deploys psychomotor tests for manufacturing and service set-ups.