Welcome to issue 202 of the ukrecruiter newsletter. Also, don't forget to support our sponsors by reading the adverts each week.

CONTENTS

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Article One: Psychometric Product Review: The Quest Profiler

Company Name: ERAS Ltd
Product Name: The Quest Profiler (TM)
Website Address: www.eras.co.uk

Description (provided by ERAS): 
 “One of the fastest growing personality questionnaire in the UK, which offers 22 measures of behaviour, team/leader styles and competency prediction scores.”

Cost: 
 Software cost £700 (includes £400 worth of report credits). No license Fee and no charge for Test Administration. Each standard report costs £23 and a full report £40.

Do you have to be qualified to interpret the questionnaire: 
 Not if you stick to the report text. However they strongly recommend that people are British Psychological Society Level B trained.

Candidate Experience (“guinea pig” candidate was Camilla): 
 The questionnaire took just over the 20 minutes to complete. The instructions were very clear and easy to read. They emphasized that this as a work style questionnaire and looked at how you behaved in a work setting. There was an example on the instructions page which clearly showed you what to do. There were 44 blocks of 5 statements from each of which you had to indicate the behaviour that described you best and which described you least. Although at first glance it seemed like a lot of reading, it was easy to complete with the questions being simple and easy to understand. The statements themselves were easy to understand (very few statements were negatives) and it was simple to make decisions. The statements all related to work environments and included how you work in teams, how you manage tasks and reports and how you handle different situations.

The report seemed to take my most dominant character traits and exaggerate them. I could agree with the majority of what was written about me, but I felt that at times the scores were too high or too low to represent an accurate representation. It is not always easy to look in the mirror, I know, but to score a 1 for influence and a 9 for transparency! I would have been uncomfortable knowing a potential employer was judging me on the information in this report.  For me this highlights the importance of using additional evidence alongside a psychometric report.

Overview of Feedback Report: 
 Once the candidate has completed the questionnaire you can access the report via your own login area on the ERAS website. For each candidate you can choose the most relevant normative group (“general population”, “management and professional” or “non-managerial”). The full profile report I selected for Camilla was 19 pages long (some of the reports can be up to 23 pages). The report is split into six sections: accuracy score, full profile, leadership styles, team styles, candidate report (to be used for feedback to candidate) and competency profile. The full profile looks at 22 personality scales (outgoingness, reliability, optimism, etc). For each of these the candidate is “scored” on a one to 10 scale and a narrative is provided. As an example Camilla was rated as 9 on the “Team Working” scale. The narrative reads: “Is quite a natural when it comes to team working and actually operates best when sparked by the team process. Works productively in close co-operation with others and really enjoys the team environment. May not be able to operate quite so well in isolation”. The Leadership section of the report looks at six styles and indicates the “degree of match to type” for the candidate. It also gives an example of a famous person who has that style (which I thought was a nice touch). The Team Type section is similar, looking at 9 team styles and saying for which the candidate is the strongest and weakest match. The candidate report is very similar to the Full Profile but without the actual “scores” for each personality scale. The competency report looks at 20 competencies (such as decision making, strategic awareness and commercial orientation) and by combining various personality scales give a prediction of competence. However, as the report points out, ability, motivation and experience also play a part of competency so this report is just a guide. The only downside of the report (and this is a small point) is that the colour combinations used in the report make for headache inducing reading. I’d recommended printing on a black and white printer!

Summary
I found this to be a very thorough report and good value for money. If you don’t want to invest £700 in buying the software you can buy reports via the bureau service at £34 for a standard report and £60 for a full profile.

For more information: Alex Pearce, Director of Assessment was my contact at ERAS. He can be contacted on 01379 652171 or via email at alexp@eras.co.uk.  You have the opportunity to give The Quest Profiler a FREE trial. Log in to https://www.eras.co.uk/logindemo.asp for your free questionnaire and full report (worth £40).

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Article Two: Legal Questions - Flexible Working by Penn Legal

A long serving employee is currently on maternity leave. She is due to return to work soon following the birth of her child but wants to vary her hours of work on her return. I only employ a small number of staff and am not sure I can agree to her request. What should I do?

Regardless of the size of your business an eligible employee has the right to ask for “flexible working”. This can include a job share, flexi-time or simply working only during school term times.

Eligibility to make the request depends on a number of factors including the need for 26 weeks continuous employment and, in most cases, for the child to be under 6 years old at the time the request is made (although there are different rules relating to disabled children). The right is not limited to natural parents. Adoptive or foster parents or guardians may apply; so too may an employee whose spouse/partner is the parent of an eligible child. 

The employee should make a formal application in writing setting out the proposed changes, when they are to start, how it may affect the running of your business and how this may be overcome. Following receipt, you must meet with the employee within 28 days to discuss the request. Of course, if you agree to the request, a meeting is unnecessary and the varied working arrangement can be implemented by agreement.

If a meeting is required, even if you are reluctant for valid business reasons to agree to the request, it should be used to explore ways to accommodate both the employee’s needs and the needs of your business. In the majority of cases there is likely to be a benefit to both sides in terms of staff morale and business performance if an employee feels he/she is valued and his/her needs are being considered by you. However, you should note that any agreement to vary an employee’s contract will, by default, be permanent. If you wish to place a time limit on the changes to an employee’s working hours you should agree this with the employee beforehand and record that agreement in writing.

Following the meeting you must notify the employee of your decision in writing within 14 days, either by agreeing or refusing the request or suggesting a compromise solution. However, a refusal may only be given on one of eight specific grounds (these can be found at http://www.acas.org.uk/faqs/flexible_working_employers.html) which must be set out in the letter to the employee and explaining how it impacts on his/her request.

The employee may lodge an appeal with you against any decision, within 14 days. Following an appeal hearing you must deliver your decision in writing to the employee within 14 days.

Whilst the appeal hearing is the end of the flexible working process it may not be the end of the matter. If an employee feels the process has been handled badly he/she may raise a grievance or worse still, issue Tribunal proceedings, resulting in an unwelcome diversion to running your business. Equally, if a request is reasonably refused an employee may not make another application for another 12 months. 

Michael Williamson is the head of Employment Law at Penn Legal. Michael specialises in advising employers from SME’s to PLC’s and employees to board level. For further information email michael.williamson@pennlegal.co.uk

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Ever Dreamed of being a TV Presenter?
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UK Recruiter Discussion Forum - Are you using it? 
Don't forget to visit http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum. Current topics on the site include "Just a run of bad luck?", "Job Board Pool" and "Candidates who will relocate - "anywhere"". It is free to use the discussion board and you don't have to register to view messages. Visit the site; ask questions and share your knowledge

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Statistics

Hitwise top 10 Recruitment Sites, week ending 19th February 2005
The most visited UK recruitment sites last week, starting with the most popular, were Jobcentreplus.gov.uk, Jobsite.co.uk, Totaljobs.co.uk, Reed.co.uk, Fish4.co.uk/jobs, Monster.co.uk, TESjobs.co.uk, National Health Service - Careers,  jobs.guardian.co.uk,  and  Jobserve.co.uk. For more information about Hitwise, visit http://www.hitwise.co.uk

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Regards
Louise Triance
UK Recruiter http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk - 01635 254881 (UK)

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