Term paper

OF

Industrial Psychology

Topic: Psychological tests used by CONNECT for employee selection and

job performance appraisal.

Submitted To: Submitted By:

Miss. Priyanka Chhibber Prachi Bansal

(RT1803-A02)

Regd.no,-
10808879

Nitika Sharma

(RT1803-B35)

Regd.no.-
10807187
Company Profile:

HFCL Infotel Ltd. (connect) is a business venture of the HFCL Group. Infotel is a "Total
Telecom Solutions Provider" offering Fixed Line telephony (Telephone Services), Mobile
telephony, Broadband Services, Customized Data Services and Value Added Services.

Infotel provides a world class telecom experience when it comes to technology, products,
customer services, Launched in Punjab in the year 2000 under the Connect brand name.
Infotel has set up state-of-the-art networks with coverage in over 200 towns of Punjab with
an extensive optical fiber network coverage of over 4,000 km. Today, Infotel is one of
Punjab's leading private sector telecommunication service providers with an aggregate
customer base of 5,10,263 as on 31st Dec 09.

Infotel Broadband network supports interactive multi media services, and can handle high
quality content, high speed internet access and a large number of interactive applications
including B2B and B2C e-commerce.

Infotel supports a wide Public Call Office (PCO) network across the state of Punjab &
Chandigarh. Now with over 45,000 PCOs, Infotel is deemed to have the largest PCO
network in India among all private fixedline services operator in a single circle.

The Average Revenue per Line (ARPL) for Infotel is among the highest in the country.
There is a clear focus on acquiring quality subscribers through well planned rollouts and
focused revenues in marketing strategy.
 Introduction:
Psychological Testing
Psychological tests are used in all walks of life to assess ability, personality and behaviour.
A test can be used as part of the selection process for job interviews, to assess children in
schools, or offenders in prisons. The Psychological Testing Centre (PTC) at the British
Psychological Society is the first point of contact for anyone who uses, takes or develops
tests. Tests are also used in the National Health Service.

What is psychological testing?

By definition there are two types of psychological test - tests of ability, aptitude or
attainment, which are known as measures of maximum performance and those designed to
assess personal qualities, such as personality, beliefs, values and interests and to measure
motivation or drive. These are known as measures of typical performance.

Types
1. There are two types of employee selection tests used to screen candidates before the
formal selection and interview process.
A psychological personality test measures such things as honesty in the workplace,
ability to work in a team, motivation, interests and one's work ethic.
An aptitude test that measures one's skills and abilities. This is more of an objective
testing method, measuring the potential employee's processing speed, math skills,
reasoning and analytical skills, and spatial abilities.

Controversies
Two main controversies surround the use of psychological tests in employee screening.
The first controversy involves the fairness of the tests. The concern for many people is that
there are no "right" or "wrong" answers on a psychological personality test so there is no
 reason to use them for screening potential employees.
The second controversy concerns impression management. Potential employees can try to
"cheat" on a psychological test by answering the questions that they think would be correct
even though it is not how they would answer in real life. This can cause confusion and
trouble for the employer trying to select the right candidate.

Psychometric Test

Psychometric test is a scientific way of assessing a person’s ability or personality in a structured

way. There are 3 main types of tests: ability, personality and interest (although both personality and
interest are more like psychometric questionnaires). Some tests are used by employers to help them
in their recruitment process while other tests can help people with career decision making.

Psychometric tests are designed to produce a quantitative assessment of one or more psychological
attributes like reasoning ability, interests, propensity, and disposition, etc.

Psychometric tests give clear picture of personality traits, a person’s perception, tendency and view
towards different circumstances. It reveals ability and planning skills and visionary skills as well. It
measures strength of a person and his ability to lead.

Why Psychometric Tests for Recruitment?

Psychometric tests enable one to select the right candidate(s), who in turn would be instrumental in
enhancing the productivity of the company;

For being cost effective - Psychometric test prevents wrong hiring of the candidate(s) & HR
department very well knows the cost attached to the bad hire;

 These assessment tools will make the employer identify the right candidate for the right
position;

For future planning – The results can be saved in data base for the future development and
improvement of an individual, as the tests cover all the major aspects of an individual in the context
of personal feelings, professional attitude and motives;

 For measuring the leadership qualities of a person;

 For taking the decision at the time of promotion;

 Psychometric test will also give a clear view about what training the staff requires like
professionalism, integrity, confidence building, effective communication skills etc., which
will benefit the company;

 For getting the details of all important aspects in relation with the personality, interest,
quality, ability etc of the candidate(s);

 Psychometric tests are one of the best assessment tools in this fast moving world. It is being
widely used in all the domains - BPOs, Manufacturing Companies, Service Industry, Career
Counseling, Banking, Retail, Telecom, FMCG etc.

For getting the psychological assessment of the candidate –

 Psychometric tests reveal the attitude and approach of the candidate(s). As it is not easy to
judge certain personality traits, like Temperament, motivation, confidence, reliability etc.
even after meeting candidate(s) number of times. Here comes the role of the Psychometric
tests - as it shows the psychological view of the candidate

 For faster results – As these test consume less time (15 to 45 minutes) and the results are
available within maximum 48/24 hours.

Forms:

NUMERICAL ABILITY TEST TAKEN BY CONNECT FOR SELECTING THE

EMPLOYEES

In this test your task is simply to calculate the correct answer.

1. 7+45 =

2. 15+21 =
3. 12-107 =

4. 54-58 =

5. 21÷7 =

6. Which number comes next in this series ?

1 4 7 10 13 16

a) 17 b) 19 c) 21 d) 25 e) none of these

7. What is p in this equation ?

2 + (3xp) = 14

a) 2 b) 3 c) 4 d) 6 e) none of these

8. Which number comes next in this series?

0 1 3 6 10 15

a) 19 b) 21 c) 26 d) 32 e) none of these

Numerical Reasoning

9 . The Telecom Company Limited provides international telephone calls for its customers. Its call
charges in Euro per minute are shown below.
 CUSTOMER LOCATION
Call Germany UK France Call Destination
Cost 1.00 2.50 2.00 India
2.50 1.50 1.20 United States
2.00 2.00 1.00 Australia
2.00 3.00 2.50 Singapore

i) A ten minute call to the United States would be cheapest from which country?

a) Germany b) UK c) France

ii) A businessman travels regularly between Germany, France and the UK. He wishes to
make a 5 minute call to each of India, the United States and Australia. assuming he is free to
choose which country he makes each of the calls from what would be the least amount of
money he could do it for ?

a) 12.50 b) 14 c) 16 d) 16.70 e) none of these

iii) Which customer location has the cheapest average international call rates ?

a) Germany b) UK c) France

CAREER MAPPING FOR THEIR EMPLOYEES.

The Career Mapper Report

The comprehensive report on this test can be generated within minutes of assessment and instant
feedback is also received. The report provides a comprehensive set of outputs that include:

• Guidance on its use and interpretation

• A graph of the candidate's scores
• An overview narrative summarizing the test results
• A scale by scale detailed report
A report on the individual's working characteristics will include

• Attitude to Pay
• Work orientation - Work to live/live to work
• Risk orientation
• Change orientation

Once a candidate knows their employability profile this can help to:

• Identify suitable and appropriate jobs and careers according to the level of knowledge, skills,
abilities and qualities.
• Identify specific areas that require development to be able to access different career paths.
• Provide a comprehensive source of information that will help compile high quality CVs and
letters of application
• Provide an "aide-memoire" for preparing for interviews and meetings.

Applications and context

The Career Mapper report can be used for a number of applications including:

• Adults - looking for a change in career

• Students - Seeking first steps towards a fruitful career
• Careers Advisors, Careers Guidance & Teachers/lecturers - Looking for tools to support
candidates in their work
• Parents - Seeking support
• to guide their children towards a successful life

INTERVIEW FORMAT
 • How important to you is the need to succeed?
From "How Well Do You Cope Under Pressure . . ."
a) Quite important
b) Very important
c) It is not something I think about a great deal
• Does working to deadlines give you a buzz?
a) No, but working to deadlines is a necessary evil
most of us have to cope with
b) No. I find working to deadlines quite a worry and
prefer to set my own pace
c) Yes, I believe that I work well under pressure
• You are sitting in a traffic jam. Which of the following is
likely to be your strongest feeling?
a) Anger
b) Frustration
c) Boredom
 • Choose the statement that is most like you as #1, and
From "Asking for What You Want . . ."
a) I try to convey the right sort of body language
whenever I ask for something
b) When I ask I need to be clear about my
requirements and stick to my guns
c) If you wait until the time is right before asking
you could be waiting forever
d) I feel it is right to wait until the time is right
before asking
 In each of the following, choose from a scale of 1-5 to
show those you most agree with, or which are most
applicable to you. Choose just one number for each (5 is
most like you, 1 is least like you, etc.):
• From "Do You Have the Secret to Success?"
a) I can be ruthless when it comes to getting what I
want
54321
b) I find it easy to focus my mind on one subject for
very long periods of time
54321
c) Perfection is an impossible ideal
54321
d) I would be prepared to give up my favorite
hobby, even though I love it dearly, if it meant
success in my chosen career

54321
Following are the types of the test that Connect is using for the
Selection:

a) 16PF (Personality Factors) Test (Even known as 15 Trait Test): All the 16 personality factors
are considered in relation with the general view of personality. It reveals the leadership quality,
reasoning, stress tolerance, change adoptability, behavior, motivations, and values. This test focuses
different major management dimensions like Decision making, Leadership style, Initiative, Personal
adjustment.

b) Leadership Test: The leadership test gives idea about whether the person is capable enough to
lead and assign the authority. Is he really responsible or a casual person? The right degree of
delegation of authority brings balance in the execution of the different projects in the company. The
dynamic and energetic attitude of a person makes him/her a leader, who is liable for his/her deeds.
Co-operative, judicious and devotion are also covered in this test results.

The test result shows the degree till which a person can be empowered and allowed to lead or not.

c) Temperament Test: Temperament test puts stress on person's emotional and sensible factors as
well and considers intuition and rationalism and his/her implication at work.

Ability of taking initiative, dominating others or not, involvement, ambition, willingness to work in
group or individualism are other aspects covered by temperament test.

d) Recruitment Personality Test: Recruitment Personality Assessment tool helps you to identify
strengths, weaknesses, competencies and positive factors of an individual.

This test plays very vital role as it helps to avoid the costly mistake of wrong hiring
Most Popular

• Emotional IQ Test: People with high emotional intelligence tend to be more

successful in life than those with lower EIQ - even if their classical IQ is average. The
Emotional Intelligence Test will evaluate several aspects of a person's emotional
intelligence and will suggest ways to improve it.
• Sales Personality Test: The Sales Personality Test is designed to assess certain
aspects of a person's personality and skills that could help him or her land a successful
career in sales. The assessment is meant to help you understand a person's strengths and to
identify areas in which he or she may need additional training.
• Classical IQ Test: This IQ test measures several factors of intelligence, namely
logical reasoning, math skills, language abilities, spatial relations skills, knowledge
retained and the ability to solve novel problems.
• AMPM Personality Profile: The AMPM stands for the "Advanced
Multidimensional Personality Matrix". It is based on the Five Factor Model credited to
Costa, McRae, and Goldberg. This full version of the AMPM test includes five main
factors, which are each broken down further into several more specific elements.
• Communications Skills Test: Communicating with others is an essential skill in
business dealings and work relations. The Communication Skills Test will assess whether
a person is able to communicate and listen effectively

Employee selection systems reduce turnover

• With the cost of increasingly sophisticated call center equipment and facilities, it is
surprising that 70 percent of the cost of running the average call center is related to
staff. Staff turnover, which often exceeds 50 percent and can reach 75 to 100 percent
in Connect, contributes to the high ratio of staff costs to overall operating costs.
 • Staff turnover is of concern to call centers because of the significant investment that
is usually made in worker training. In addition, a constant influx of new workers
makes it difficult to keep productivity high and provide consistent customer service.

What is the key to reducing staff turnover, thereby improving productivity, customer service
and customer retention?

• One answer is an effective employee selection system. Good employee selection

techniques do more than identify people who have call center experience.

• They identify staff members who have the potential to succeed even if they lack
experience. An employee selection system can also help address staff shortages that
are resulting from the fast growth of call center in Connect.

• A study recently published by the American Productivity and Quality Center

(APQC), "Measuring Call Center Performance," affirms that "the hiring and
screening process is vital to successful call center operation because the selection of
skilled, professional representatives has a direct impact on customer satisfaction and
service levels."

• A proper employee selection system includes: structured interviews, professionally

developed skills assessments and in depth training.

• Training Provides a Job Preview Once your interviews and skills assessments
identify candidates with the potential to succeed, it is essential to provide the
training necessary to develop the skills for successful performance.

• The training process is especially valuable for candidates who have never worked in
a call center, because training can provide a preview of the environment. Trainees
can evaluate the demands of call center work and determine if its a good fit for
them.
Perhaps the best argument for training call center candidates is that not training carries a
higher price. Inadequately trained workers can lower productivity, misuse technology and
cause you to lose customers by providing misinformation and committing customer service
errors. Training gives workers the ability to perform to your expectations.

However, training development poses a challenge. "In most call centers, training must
teach a combination of technology skills, customer service skills and product
knowledge,” "The training must be flexible enough to suit the learning styles and
experience levels of a wide variety of candidates. It also has to be fast, because it is
important for new hires to become productive quickly."

While a well-designed selection system results in good job-employee matches that help
reduce turnover, minimizing turnover requires continuous effort. Savvy call center
managers know that making the workplace desirable and consistently rewarding good
performance helps keep turnover rates low.

However, even the best selection systems and retention programs cannot completely
eliminate turnover. But it is better for turnover to occur during the selection process - as a
result of structured interviews, skills assessment and training - than after people are on the
job. Employees who emerge from a complete selection process designed for your call center
are likely to be more satisfied and productive and to stay with the job longer. That will
translate into happier customers.

In this section of the Best-Workplaces, the Naurkihub team presents the rankings of
the ten companies in the Indian Telecom sector on the basis of their workforce
relationship factors. Ten companies were selected on random basis from the sector, and
more companies will be added to the rankings in the future. The companies like Connect
were given a consolidated rank on a scale of 1-10 on the basis of sum of their individual
ranks on various HR practices, procedures, policies and parameters like recruitment
practices, compensation policies, work culture, recognition for good work, retention,
training and development, performance appraisals et al. The scores are consolidated on the
basis of data collected through recent surveys and studies by renowned names like
Business Today, Hewitt, IDC Data Quest, NASSCOM and our own study of the
organizations.

Employee Performance Appraisal

Employee performance appraisal does not date too back in the pages of history but
employee performance appraisal began its journey in early 20th century. It is basically the
judgment by the senior on employee's performance for the said period of time and employee
performance appraisal process also includes:
 Improvement in employee's performance through training if required.
 The pay hike and other rewards are associated with the employee performance
appraisal so it is longed by all the employees working in any organization across the
world.
 The time period for the appraisal varies from organization to organization, which
can be annual, half yearly and quarterly. It is also called performance appraisal or
employee appraisal.
 Employee’s performance appraisal is also a good way to check that to what extent
the needs of the organization and employee are met.
 Senior comes to know about their working behavior and employees can know what
is expected from them, area of their improvement and development, their strengths
and weaknesses.
Objectives of Employee Performance Appraisal at Connect:

• To check the performance of an employee for the given time period.

• Find out the gap between actual performance and the expected performance.
• Find out the reason for the negative gap, if any.
• Clarify the role and expectation from the employee.
• Find out the training need and area of improvements.
• Give employee a platform to vent off any grievance.
In employee performance appraisal process self appraisal plays a very crucial role in which
the employee judges his or her own performance. This is the first activity of the whole
appraisal process. But here you will have to be honest, objective and work with positive
attitude. If asked then explain what more responsibilities you can take in your department.
This will give you the growth. Also take the full responsibilities of what you have done
whether it is on the positive or negative side.
 Employee Performance Appraisal Process

• Goal Setting and establishing performance standards

• Communicating the same to the employee
• Explaining him or her the way of doing it
• Performance Measurement (Actual Performance)
• Documentation of Employee Progress
• Performance Feedback
• Decision making to correct the performance further
For the employee performance appraisal process to be effective, it should be an open
discussion and simple to understand. Standards set must also be achievable, measurable and
bounded by time. Also the communication during the entire appraisal must be two way and
open so that both the sides can present their views in a clear way.
 Ways of Doing Employee Performance Appraisal

Straight ranking method, easy appraisal method, paired comparison, critical incident
method, field review, check list method, graphic rating scale and forced distribution are the
traditional employee performance appraisal methods. Where as the below given are the
modern appraisal methods and used by most of the organizations.
• 360 Degree Performance Appraisal
• Management by Objectives (MBO)
• Behavioral Observation Scale
• Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale
360 degree performance appraisal is the most extensively used and has four components
including self appraisal, superior's appraisal, subordinate's appraisal and peer appraisal. 360
degree performance appraisal is mostly done for the managers as in this their leadership
qualities and style of management is checked to the full extent.

You can also get online employee performance appraisal forms and questionnaires that are
in well defined format so can be used. Or you can make your own performance appraisal
form based on your organization's policies and ways of measuring the performance. Also
there are many employee performance appraisal softwares few of them are
• Halogen eAppraisal by Halogen Software
• TrakStar Professional by Promantek
• ReviewSNAP by Applied Training Systems
• Talent Platform by iCIMS
HR (employment) in Connect:
With more and more players entering the industry, the competition in the industry in terms
of attracting and retaining the best talent is also increasing. The employment scenario in
the telecom sector is very promising. The sector is creating employment opportunities and
adding around 1 lakh people in its workforce. The telecom sector has a huge demand for
the trained and qualified engineers and other professionals specializing in
telecommunications.

Compensation:
According to various studies in recent times, the telecom sector offers the best salary
packages at the entry level i.e. an average of 20k. The average hike in salaries across the
various levels in the telecom sector ranges from 15 to 20 percent. Incentives also form a
part of the compensation till the middle levels.

Attrition and retention:

Although the sector faces the moderate attrition rates of 20 to 25 percent, the HR’s prime
strategic function in the sector is retaining the talent and employee engagement. The only
functional area which faces the high attrition rate is the sales people in the telecom
industry.

Conclusion:
As the connect is using latest techniques of employee selection and performance appraisal,
most of the employees are satisfied with it because these test helps them in enhancing their
skills and also their hidden talent comes out with it. The psychometric test helps in selecting
right person at right job which is very beneficial for the company and employee turnover is
also decreasing.

As Connect is using 360 degree appraisal technique so that employee can get the feedback
from all and improve their skills. And employees are happy with this appraisal technique
and their satisfaction level also increases after taking the feedback.
 References:
http://www.psychtesting.org.uk/about-psych-test/about-psych-test_home.cfm

http://www.ehow.com/about_5576582_psychological-tests-used-employee-selection.html

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9263682/Indian-Telecom-Industry

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25182091/Performance-Appraisal-Analysis-of-BPO-
Industry#fullscreen:off

http://www.manpowerindia.net/articles/employee-performance-appraisal.html

http://www.dhruvcounseling.com/psychometric.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3700/is_199701/ai_n8744200/pg_2/?
tag=content;col1

http://www.naukrihub.com/best-workplaces/telecom-employers/

http://connectbroadband.in/company_profile.php