By Vernon Bryce, Kenexa

Today, we receive and transmit more information faster, cheaper, invisibly and internationally than ever. It’s getting cheaper, faster and even more inventive, day by day. The world’s share of and access to information individual by individual is accelerating. 

Inevitably experts predict this will globalize many business processes. This includes, for example, global assessment processes. But will it truly? Let’s look at some of these opportunities and problems.

Global Linguistics
Interestingly, by 2010, it’s said three principal languages will dominate globally: Cantonese, Hindi and English, in that order. So, why don’t we just get some basic functionality here? As always, fortunately, life’s not that simple. One of the challenges will be which form of Cantonese Hindi or English should be used? There are several well established forms. Second, who decides which language best fits?

Actually there are several more highly-significant, historically steeped languages where millions will challenge, rightfully too, the dominance of so-called principal languages; the several millions of Arabic, French, German, Japanese and Spanish speakers for instance. Furthermore, taking account of other wider sub-cultures on this planet, there are many hundreds if not thousands of national and local languages and their variations, dialects and accents. So what can we as assessment experts do practically about this?

Global Economics 
Before we develop answers to these promising technological innovations and various linguistic complexities, there’s a bigger economic picture. There is a massive demand for measures of “people attributes” as they move around within and between organizations internationally. This has led already to complex (and costly) assessment regimes and techniques. Simplified assessment solutions would obviously attract vast economies of scale. The stakes are high for “masters of the assessment universe;” those who can fully exploit the high speed and low cost of the Internet, cross culturally, pan-nationally and now. Rewards are even higher for those who do it right. 

Other global economic trends will influence pan national organizations of course. For example, there is an increasing dependence on scarce international labour as the so-called “War for Talent” heats up. So just imagine the attractive premiums that will be placed on measures that are simple yet valid, reliable and also just. We should soon see these economic forces shaping new ranges of fast transferable assessment solutions.

Global Assessment 
So, are there any “rules of the road” for would-be harvesters of the global technology promise, to help meet the linguistic challenges and respond to these oceans of economic opportunity? 

Fortunately we are not starting cold. For years many companies have been investing in international “cross cultural” assessment. At this very moment there are hundreds if not thousands of very carefully designed and planned assessment centers, multi-rater surveys, opinion surveys and psychometric assessment applications taking place earnestly across the globe. Every designer is fully convinced their tools are fair, accurate and reliable. Every designer is aware from their hard experience (hopefully) there are several “elephant traps” along the way. 

What can we learn from these “Masters of Global Assessment?”

Well, we can learn little vignettes from them. For example, highly rated managers in Thailand have very different answers to their “neighbors” in India in choosing between setting goals and getting to know the company as a priority when starting a new job. Also there are certain “taboos” in some cultures regarding for instance, standing up for what you believe in too openly.

The “honorable” thing to do in some places is protect a family member even when they have done wrong. In some cultures “no problem” means “let’s try it” even though “it” has not been done before. In other languages “yes” may mean “I understand” and “now” means “manana” whereas “now now” is the equivalent to the Western/European “now.” Closer to home, “OK” to some simply means “I hear you”, to others it’s a “yes.” This affects item design, content validity and fairness let alone international credibility.

Even when language issues are known, it may not be safe to declare your online assessment tools open for business. A final vignette: there are cultures that will claim their fit to a criterion item most positively, vehemently. Others, equally capable on the item will not claim because it’s simply not done to say so individually and publicly. This has deep major implications for benchmarking, also norming of assessment scoring and ranking people.

International Guidelines
Is it time to call in the assessment cavalry? Isn’t that us? As we travel deeper into this domain there are some international guidelines now agreed by the “International Test Commission” (ITC) in 1999. 

Helpfully, the ITC is a non-stock corporation incorporated in the U.S. whose list of advisers from Africa to Scandinavia to England and across to the Americas reads like the guest list for a marriage between the Freuds and Cattells. The ITC currently strongly positions nine basic “Rules of the Road:

1. Utility: Reasoned justification for assessment, needs and job analysis, correlation between scores and behavioral outcomes, full simultaneous use of other “collateral” sources of information
2. Soundness: Representativeness of assessment content, norm groups, difficulty levels, accuracy reliability and validity, freedom from bias, acceptability, practicality, responses to questions asked
3. Fairness: Lack of bias, meaningfulness for all groups regardless of gender, culture, education, ethnicity and age, data on group scores interpretation against local standards and legislation, rigorous methodology for each language or dialect. Managing disability
4. Preparation: Best advice, linguistic or dialectic issues, practice, rights responsibilities and consent, quality of materials and staff
5. Administration: Rapport, context, primary language, consistency, authentication, dealing with candidates’ difficulties or distress
6. Scoring: Standards, analysis, scale validity, records of calculation
7. Interpretation: Theoretical and conceptual basis of the measures, scales comparisons and limitations, norms, standard error limits, demographics, cut scores, social stereotyping, prior experience
8. Communications: Legitimate use and audience, candidate consent, linguistic levels, use of collateral evidence and its weighting, classification and feedback to candidates supportively
9. Review: Tracking against outcome criteria and adverse impact, review of population and criterion change, revalidation/updating 

Conclusion
Outstanding global assessment opportunities exist technologically, economically and psychologically. Linking Business Process, Science and Technology is a rewarding mission yet it’s still full of surprises and trapdoors. Internationally there’s a lot to learn from each other.

About the Author

Vernon Bryce, M.Sc., is managing partner of Kenexa’s European operations. Mr. Bryce has extensive expertise in organizational assessment and development, TQM solutions, leadership development, executive coaching and change management. He has worked for more than 30 years in senior human resource executive, behavioral science consulting and business school teaching roles, and has consulted for a wide range of businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. As a specialist in talent management, assessment and engagement survey solutions for Kenexa, Bryce supports several international research and consulting programs. He has published short articles on HRM and HCM. 

Mr. Bryce is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, and is a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. He holds an intercollegiate Masters degree in psychology from University College London, a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from Exeter University and a Diploma in Business Administration from Aston University Business School.