UK HR departments attracted to SHLs online expert

SHL has sold over 100 Expert Online systems to new UK customers in 2004. The product, which delivers online objective assessment of personality and preferred working styles, plus a variety of comprehensive reports, has proven hugely successful. Customers are attracted to the product by its simple set-up, ease-of-use, flexibility and cost effectiveness.

HR time is at more and more of a premium and many HR departments are operating with a smaller headcount than ever before. The need to operate as higher-level business consultants has reduced administrator time further. This has led to demand for flexible, easy-to-use solutions that can be turned on and off as necessary.

Expert Online provides exactly this. It provides the same instruments and produces the same reports as SHLís existing Expert PC systems, but does so via the Internet. This not only allows HR professionals to order assessments as and when they need them, but it also reduces the administration overhead often associated with testing. Online delivery also makes assessment much more flexible and convenient for the candidate. With the employer brand increasingly important in attracting top talent, online assessments are considerate of candidateís time pressures and convey a positive image of the potential employer.

Research has shown that it is safe to use SHLís OPQ32 in its ipsative form (in which candidates must select the description most and least like them from a bank of four statements for each question) unsupervised over the Internet. This íforced choiceí format is highly cheat resistant and minimises the risk of faking. Further research has shown that the OPQ32 ipsative delivered in this way is actually a better predictor of the Great Eight competencies (which describe the key areas of job-related behaviour) than traditional normative personality assessments conducted via paper and pencil.

Paul Levett, commercial director of SHLís UK product business, commented The success of Expert Online since its launch in the middle of last year has shown the huge demand for easy to use, effective online management of assessment. Whilst we are also seeing continued growth in our paper and pencil assessments, there is an undoubted appreciation of the power of the Internet to deliver valuable early-stage assessment in the recruitment process.