Effective Utilization of Post-Assessment Center Data of Organizations in India

This paper examines how Indian organizations utilize data generated during Assessment Centers (ACs) for writing summary reports on participants, giving feedback on performance at the center, suggesting development actions and evaluating and validating the center. Twenty senior HR professionals, consultants and practitioners from 20 Indian and Multinational Corporations were interviewed. Results highlight that Post-AC data are utilized to varying degrees of effectiveness depending on long/short-term orientation of organizations. In the absence of detailed validation procedures, organizations need to build incremental validity at every stage of conducting an AC. Selection of consultants for conducting ACs have to be done with care and caution because most of the Western models need to be culturally tested and then adapted to suit local requirements.