Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER CANADIAN HR REPORTER March 10, 2014 March 10, 2014 8 NEWS NEWS CPASource.com CPAs are Canada's most knowledgeable, skilled and respected accounting and business professionals. And this is where to find them. HIRE A PRO. supersedes or trumps everything else… e companies who take it too seriously do tend to cause themselves some problems." O'Grady has seen specifi c ex- amples where he thought a can- didate was not a good hire but, because she had a perfect psycho- metric match, the employer hired her — and three or six months later, she was gone. "If somebody's always using it blindly, then that is a mistake," he said. And while some companies might put too much weight on aptitude tests, others may go the other way, said O'Grady, who is based in Toronto. "You've got people who've agreed to the profi le they're look- ing for (in a candidate), then they interview the candidate, fall in love with the candidate and they're absolutely not a match through a psychometric profi le — but they'll decide to hire the person anyway, which is kind of a waste of time and money. If you're going to do it, it should hold some kind of weight."' Use with care To hire properly, employers should look at the strategic plan for the organization and try to work out exactly what the role will bring to the organization. en that should be openly discussed among the other members of the board, he said. " e testing has got to be part of that, it can't be the only part of it." Psychometric testing is never intended to be the whole picture — it's supposed to be used in conjunction with other forms of information-gathering, said Aid- an Miller, performance and talent development consultant at Psy- chometrics Canada in Edmonton. "We're not looking to replace interviews but we're looking to inform them a little bit better... the purpose of them is to simply diminish some of the uncertain- ty that is associated with using only one method or a couple of methods." So when someone does well on the test, it doesn't mean she should automatically be hired but it sheds light on diff erent areas. "It just helps (employers) view the candidate through a certain lens or helps them address some of the uncertainty or some of characteristics they can't tap into during an interview," said Miller. The notion of using assess- ments is becoming more popular, especially when it comes to CEO or executive management posi- tions, because the consequences of making the wrong decision are so huge, she said. "It has such massive implica- tions if they don't get the right fi t the fi rst time. It can be the diff er- ence between a successful organi- zation one day and a disaster the next week so, increasingly, the battery of assessments is going to be larger and comprehensive for something like an executive-level- functioning individual." With a greater focus on cor- porate governance, this kind of scrutiny makes sense, according to O'Grady. " at's why psychometric test- ing continues to be more popular because it's just another element of showing due diligence, to some extent, to say, 'We put them through the screening process, we did the psychometric testing, they did six interviews, they met everybody in the organization' — it's showing due diligence and hopefully people are taking that seriously and it really is part of the process as opposed to doing it literally for the sake of doing it." Merit-based recruiting At this point, there's not a lot of psychometric testing when it comes to the board level. But there's no reason it shouldn't ex- ist, according to Richard Leblanc, associate professor of governance, law and ethics at York University in Toronto. at's because per- sonality and fi t matter — and a lot of these intricacies are underde- veloped for directors because it's relationship-based as opposed to merit-based recruiting. "(With) a small group of 10, 12 directors, all it takes is one to re- ally dominate or unduly infl uence a board, so it's crucial that prior to the appointment — because it's diffi cult to extract them once the appointment happens… there's a greater eff ort made," he said. You want people at that board table that have the right back- ground, said Leblanc. Otherwise, what you see are legacy, pedigree directors who are selected on the basis of profi le instead of subject matter expertise, he said. "What's been happening is you have directors that just don't understand banking and how do they push back against deals and products when they have just a fundamental lack of understand- ing? So you need the best of the best, especially on bank boards." And the rules are changing, he said, as seen in the United King- dom, where people at the helm — and especially the chair — are required to understand banking. "It's very complex — they need to understand the subtleties, when you get into instruments like derivatives, they need to have that background," said Leblanc. "So it's entirely appropriate to scrutinize the industry back- ground of the non-executive chair of a bank board, absolutely, and also the behaviours — you know, how they interact, their integrity, their leadership style, the ability to chair meetings, an orientation to- wards consensus, communication skills, credibility, gravitas — these are words that are frequently be- ing used in director recruiting." Earlier this year, the Offi ce of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions recommended fi nan- cial institutions in Canada provide early notifi cation of a candidate's appointment or nomination for election to the board or an execu- tive position, including his CV, so the offi ce has time to express any specifi c concerns regarding the candidate's appropriateness. "There's going to be greater regulatory scrutiny over industry background, risk expertise, even the softer skills, preparation for meetings. ese softer skills are harder to detect outside a board- room but they're important," said Leblanc. "You need the brightest people there and these soft bios, these short two-paragraph bios that are disclosed, are just not going cut it so the regulators now are digging deep." Not a lot of psychometric testing at board level Not a lot of psychometric testing at board level TESTING < pg. 1 "We're not looking to replace interviews but to inform them a little bit better... to diminish some of the uncertainty associated with using only one method."

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