Many aptitude diagnostic procedures currently available on the market only determine absolute values of personality traits of candidates and can, however, in most cases, if at all, only mirror these against a demographic group. The test result is therefore only of limited value. The absolute result of a personality trait does not say whether this value is good or bad. Only in comparison with candidates of the same occupational group can a statement be made about the quality of the trait.
An example of this is the problem of the relation. Here is an example: In high jumping, the question is how high the cleared bar is. However, the height alone is of little significance. Because the jump only becomes interesting when the height is put in relation to the other high jumpers. What can be very good for school performance is not competitive at the Olympics.
Figures such as 80%, which are still common in some aptitude testing procedures, are irrelevant because they are not set in relation to a comparison group. Only the comparison with a group or best group allows a statement to be made as to whether a value is to be classified as good or bad.
The system developed by the HR Consult Group in aptitude diagnostics includes the mirroring of the candidate against one of currently 115 norm and best practice profiles of persons operating successfully on the market. This enables the assessors not only to compare the proposed candidates directly, but also to mirror them against a much larger group of candidates who are successful in the market. This explicitly visualises development potentials, but also personal strengths in concrete reference to the occupational group.
If a result value of the candidate, as shown in the example (see figure: Deviation of the candidate from the comparison group), lands within the coloured bandwidth, the candidate is within the comparison profile. If the result is lower, i.e. to the left of the spread of the comparison group, he has a clearly different assessment of this characteristic than his comparison group. If the candidate's result is to the right of the coloured range, he or she is stronger than the comparison group in this respect, which is usually a sign of strength. The percentages on the far right indicate the exact values of the average of the comparison group, the candidate's value and the delta calculated from this, i.e. the exact deviation from the average of the comparison group.
Such norm and best practice profiles do not exist per se, but must be generated from the test inventory. It must therefore be ensured that enough tests are available to be able to create such norm and best practice profiles. If, for example, a candidate is to be mirrored against the position of a sales manager, there must be enough test results from sales managers to be able to create a norm or best-practice profile from them, which serves as a reference for comparison with the candidate profile.
The norm or best-practice profile is the average and standard deviation of all test results per characteristic in relation to this specific group. In order to be able to form these groups, however, more data of the candidate must be collected than is the case with most test procedures. Only the knowledge of the candidate's framework data such as current position, current salary, with or without employee responsibility etc. as well as personal information enable the formation of corresponding groups. This assignment is unambiguous, i.e. the candidate can only belong to one of these groups. Thus, all corresponding tests can be filtered from the entire pool and a norm and best practice profile can be created.
A norm and best practice profile serves as a comparison. Based on the comparison, conclusions can be drawn about the positioning of the candidate in the individual personality traits and possible areas of development and potential can be uncovered and exploited by means of personnel development.
The Best Practice Profile (BPP) is a norm profile of the best. It is created by applying an additional filter. From these tests, the best 10 - 20 % are picked out according to previously defined benchmarks and combined into a separate group.
The example of a car salesman is the best way to explain the creation of a best-practice profile. This is done on the basis of certain criteria, which are used to select the participants who are used for best-practice profiles. The criteria for selection are manifold and must be adapted and applied to the individual example. In this case, the top 10% of salespeople in terms of margin achieved and cars sold by a car manufacturer were selected as the relevant test group. The BPP created showed how the best salespeople of a car manufacturer are "knitted" and which characteristics are particularly necessary and conducive to success in this job profile.
To verify this, the best salespeople of another car manufacturer were tested and it turned out that the two best-practice profiles had extremely high similarities.
It was particularly astonishing that characteristics emerged across all participants for which the absolute values were almost identical, there was virtually no more spread in the candidates' answers. We would like to go into more detail on how this phenomenon is to be evaluated in the next article.
The next article in this series will deal with key criteria. What are key criteria actually? And how are key criteria determined?
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
Purchasing in particular is vulnerable to compliance breaches due to unclear rules and bait-and-switch offers from suppliers.
Billions are turned over in the purchasing departments of German companies. Many suppliers are under enormous pressure to sell their goods and services. The temptation is great to sometimes use unfair methods to generate an order.
Purchasing is therefore particularly susceptible to breaches of the rules. Here, insecure contracts as well as unethical behaviour of suppliers can favour corruption and violations of antitrust law. Criminal energy on the part of purchasing is not always involved; often buyers do not know whether they are already in a legal grey area. According to a survey by the Allensbach Institute, transgressions of legal regulations occur most frequently in the purchasing department, even before the sales or finance department.
Suppliers can be a major risk for companies.
It is therefore of utmost importance for purchasing that suppliers work according to ethical principles, as their violations represent a great risk for companies. If companies enter into business relationships with foreign suppliers who, for example, violate labour guidelines (child labour, non-compliance with occupational safety requirements) and are prosecuted, enormous reputational damage can result for the purchasing company. A conviction of the supplier can also lead to delivery failures.
Intensive auditing of the supply chain is essential.
Early and comprehensive information about existing or potential suppliers can prevent the company from violating compliance guidelines, especially in the case of partners abroad or from other cultural groups. The beneficial owner of a company is often not immediately recognisable at a glance. This is especially true if there is an extensive international interlocking structure that inevitably has to be checked. In such cases, it is important for the purchasing decision-maker to allow sufficient time for research on the potential supplier and the identification of the beneficial owner.
Purchasing and compliance must work more closely together.
Management must promote cooperation between the purchasing and compliance departments. Both sides can usefully complement each other in the conduct of business, for example when it comes to defining and adhering to process specifications. The goal should always be a high level of transparency in the procurement process.
The prerequisite is always the identification of the relevant risks.
Within the framework of a specific purchasing risk audit, the relevant risks of the purchasing department should therefore be identified and evaluated. On the basis of a needs-based risk strategy, suitable measures should then be derived to effectively counter the identified risks.
Eckart Achauer, studied law and business administration, postgraduate studies to become a Master of Business Administration (MBA). In-service training to become a European Quality Manager (DGQ), a mediator specialising in business mediation and a Certified Compliance Manager (TÜV).
He worked for around 10 years in the international insurance industry in the management of a Swiss insurance group in various functions (claims department, sales, assistance) before moving into management and business consulting in 1997.
As a consultant and managing director of various consulting companies, Mr Achauer has specialised thematically in organisational and process optimisation as well as in the development and implementation of management systems - quality management, risk and compliance management.
At Senator Executive Search Partners, Mr Achauer is responsible for the area of compliance management. Within the scope of compliance audits, he analyses their organisational "compliance fitness", he sensitises and trains the management, executives and employees and supports the companies in setting up and implementing individual compliance management systems. In doing so, he always takes into account the specific risk situation of the companies. Due to his many years of experience as a manager and consultant, he is very familiar with the entrepreneurial challenges from practice.
Why do some people cope better with exceptional situations than others? "Resilience is the answer," says clinical psychologist J. Christopher Kübler and reveals how he helps his clients train their psychological resilience.
We all know them: People who have "nerves of steel", are "a rock in the storm" or prove to be "stand-up guys" time and again. Phrases like these describe a remarkable quality that experts call resilience. They mean an experience and behaviour that not only allows us to defy massive stresses - in keeping with the Latin meaning of "resilire = to bounce back" - but with which we can master our challenges and even grow from them in the process.
Those who think they are born with little psychological resilience will be pleased to learn that experience in counselling, coaching and psychotherapy has shown time and again that most people have resilience skills that are simply not activated. This means that there is more to us than we let ourselves dream.
General resilience factors
Thanks to extensive research, scientists can now name a whole range of central resilience factors. These include, for example, intellectual abilities, social competence, problem-solving skills, good self-efficacy and self-control, and successful stress management. Resilient people also prove to be solution-oriented, able to relate, open, interested, self-motivated, determined, goal-oriented, sense-oriented, positive-thinking, self-careful, calm and at peace with themselves. With this list of ideal characteristics, which cannot be extended any further, the question inevitably arises: How can I become such a resilience personality? And above all: Is it really necessary to have all the factors at one's disposal in order to be able to cope with life's adversities?
Resilience as an individual competence
In this regard, it is important to understand the following: Lists such as those of resilience factors make general statements related to a statistical average of the people studied. For the coach, counsellor or psychotherapist working in practice, this form of scientific knowledge is less useful. In their everyday work, they are concerned with individuals and their specific life situations. Here, the question is rather about individual resilience competence. In other words, what challenges does this particular person face? Which resilient behaviours would be appropriate for him or her? And what resilience factors does he need to be able to behave in this way? A person who is constantly in an exposed position professionally, who is expected to be diplomatic (despite his choleric temperament) and who has time constantly breathing down his neck (which does not exactly help his high blood pressure) needs competencies that are tailored to this. Yet other resilience factors help someone who is expected to be highly concentrated all the time, who tends to have a certain phlegmatism and who has more or less severe headache attacks at least once a day. This is what the practice of resilience coaching is all about: individual answers and approaches for each individual.
Resilience coaching practice
Depending on the resilience and personality concept, there are certainly very different approaches in coaching. One very helpful approach, for example, is based on the potential hypothesis. This states that most people do not have a significant deficit in resilience competence that needs to be compensated for or plugged somehow. We have what we need in terms of competence, it is just not (sufficiently) activated (at times). Resilience coaching in this sense means "treasure hunting" and "treasure utilisation". It is about finding already existing competences and activating them. Psychological methods can help here, which each of us also uses in everyday life in our own "psycho-management" - mostly, however, without noticing it and sometimes not yet as versatile and skilful as possible. This is because this "psychomanagement" usually takes place unconsciously and involuntarily. Experts speak of hypno-imaginative, psycho-energetic and systemic constellation techniques, which we somehow manage every day and which need to be optimised in coaching. For example, by learning to access our involuntary competence. Because this type of resilience coaching builds on existing competencies as well as on "psycho-techniques" that are already used in everyday life, there is a good chance of achieving a noticeable improvement in one's own resilience competencies within a short period of time. Because as I said: There is more in us than we can dream of!
History of resilience research
Jack Block introduced the term "resilience" to science in 1950. At first, however, it remained without further attention. It was not until 20 years later that Emmy Werner and Ruth Smith took up the topic again in a highly regarded long-term study of children on the island of Kauai. Their question: Why do children develop so differently under equally bad conditions? They had observed that some grew up severely stressed and psychologically impaired, while others appeared to be able to cope with the circumstances. The researchers attributed this to differences in resilience. Since then, a large part of resilience research has been concerned with the question of which psychological factors bring about resilience and which environmental or educational conditions have a decisive influence on these factors. The current popularity of the term "resilience" is related to the growing sensitivity to topics such as stress, coping, burnout, salutogenesis and mindfulness. They all target a core practical problem: How can people promote and develop their mental competence in such a way that they can master the challenges of everyday life in a healthy way?
A management audit is a systematic assessment or analysis of the competencies and performance potential of managers. The focus is on the needs and success of the company. These audits are used, for example, when the management team needs to be assessed as to whether it is up to the current challenges. What measures can be taken to strengthen the leadership team? Another application is in the context of integrating newly acquired companies. Do the leadership teams fit together? But also the targeted promotion of members of a talent pool can be supported by such an audit. In addition, there are a multitude of other possible applications.
This article explains the preparation as well as the implementation of the process of a management audit.
In order to be able to meet the challenges of a management audit, some preparations have to be made.
The first step is to define the objective of the audit. It must become clear what the intended result of the management audit should be.
Depending on the intended outcome, the company names the employees who will participate in the audit. At the same time, the topic areas on which statements are to be made from the company's point of view are defined and discussed. A catalogue of questions is then drawn up for these areas, which is specifically adapted to the topic areas to be examined. On the basis of this information and specifications, the team of consultants is put together to carry out the management audit. From this team, a central contact person is appointed as project manager who is available to the company at all times.
The smooth implementation and evaluation of the management audit is based on a schedule agreed with the stakeholders.
Once all the preparations have been made, the audit starts with the entrance briefing for the participating employees of the company. At the beginning, the participants carry out an aptitude diagnostic procedure. This is a self-assessment that can be carried out online and is tailored to the respective position of the participant. This self-assessment is mirrored against known best practice or norm profiles. The result of this mirroring shows the participant's suitability, strengths and fields of action in relation to his or her current position.
As part of an extended procedure, multi-profile matching can be used to examine the participant's suitability for other possible positions.
Using the results of the suitability diagnostics, structured interviews are then conducted along the specific questionnaire prepared beforehand. Due to the four-eyes principle, two experienced counsellors always take part in each interview. The results obtained are discussed with the project manager.
If several teams of consultants conduct the interviews, the results are validated again by the project manager.
Overarching findings are also summarised by the project manager and presented to the company.
The second part of this topic will deal specifically with the evaluation of a management audit. How does the evaluation proceed? Which results are intended for the employees and which are important for the company?
As part of his training as an officer, he studied electrical engineering and graduated as a graduate engineer. This was followed by extra-occupational studies leading to a degree in industrial engineering with a focus on "organisation and planning" and "marketing".
After his career as an officer, he joined a subsidiary of EADS in Paris, where he was responsible for international marketing, communications, trade fairs and exhibitions for several years.
Back in Germany, his path in a technology company led him via the strategy division, later head of a product division, to the management. There he was responsible for sales, technical studies, strategy and business development.
In 2010, he moved to Rheinmetall to join a subsidiary as COO. After 2 years, he was responsible for a division with 2,500 employees as Business Unit Manager. Extensive successful restructuring in Germany and Switzerland, successful founding of a joint venture in the USA as well as representation in several political and technological committees rounded off this phase.
He used the experience he gained in the field of technology and general management to become a member of the supervisory board of both HR Consult Group AG and the technology company MECOMO AG. Accompanying the strategic development of HR Consult Group AG over several years then convinced him to become a board member of HR Consult Group AG. Because one experience is central: "It is all about people."
Would you like to receive regular information from us about interesting job offers? This is one of the questions the HR experts of HR Consult Group AG wanted to know in a survey with more than 10,000 responses. The aim of the study is to capture the needs and wishes of candidates and to gain an insight into their opinion of the service and image of personnel consultancies.
At 49 per cent, just under half of the respondents want to receive information about current and suitable job offers once a month. 38 percent of the candidates, and thus more than a third, even prefer weekly information.
This shows that even candidates who have not currently applied for a specific position would like to be permanently informed about new job offers. With a total of 87 percent, the offer therefore meets with broad approval in the target group. Only 13 percent reject this service.
"The candidates' great need for information clearly shows how important it is for recruitment consultancies to offer a good service. It is important to strike the right balance: if candidates receive information too frequently, they can quickly feel pressured or harassed. If, on the other hand, they hear too little from their recruitment agency, this can quickly be interpreted as poor service. The recruiter should therefore discuss with each candidate individually their information needs and also the desired type and delivery of information in advance. This creates a pleasant and profitable cooperation for both sides," explains Dr. Armin Betz.
After graduating as an automotive engineer and industrial engineer, he began his career in the automotive industry in the areas of sales, development and marketing and also spent a year in Japan with one of the largest automotive suppliers.
He then moved to a world-renowned premium car manufacturer, where he was responsible for product marketing in Japan and South America and marketing strategy in North and South America.
In 1994 he decided to become self-employed and founded a personnel consultancy in Munich, where he has been driving development and expansion for over 20 years. As managing director, his industry focus is naturally on the automotive world as well as mechanical and plant engineering.
With his doctorate in the field of aptitude diagnostics, he ideally rounds off his fields of competence, especially with regard to personnel and management consultancy. The dissertation deals with the identification and proof of typical personality traits of engineers as well as the definition of development areas for a successful professional career.
These are scientifically derived and presented in the book "Eignungsdiagnostik im Praxiseinsatz".
At the same time, his focus is on building networks and cooperation models as well as the continuous further development of systems and processes in HR consulting.
Within the last 20 years in personnel consulting, he has developed several brands that are still successful on the market today.
