The Top 10 Benefits of a Management Assessment Center
It is not easy to effectively lead, manage, and coach others at work. Research by our management development experts found that 60 percent of new managers underperform during their first two years in their new role. And, according to McKinsey, only 10 percent of organizations believe that their frontline new manager training is effective in preparing managers to succeed. That is a shame because:
- Bad Management Equates to Bad Business Results
Managers direct as much as two-thirds of the workforce responsible for the customer experience and account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units.
- Bad Managers Decrease Company Performance
Higher performing managers realize a 48% increase in profitability, a 22% increase in productivity, a 19% decrease in turnover.
- Bad Managers Exacerbate Company Risk
The number of claims by employees against employers continues to increase. Last year, the EEOC reported total claims paid out by employers were over $300 million.
What to Do to Close the Gap?
So, how can organizations ensure that their managers are well-equipped to navigate challenges and drive success through others? A powerful tool in this process is the people manager assessment center — an immersive, hands-on evaluation process that helps organizations identify, develop, and promote the right talent to lead, manage, and coach their teams. By simulating real-world scenarios and using multiple assessors to evaluate participants across research-backed competencies, management assessment centers offer a relevant and targeted day-in-the-life approach to identifying leadership potential and readiness.
Originally used during World War I to select officers and spies for espionage activities, assessment centers were first deployed in U.S. businesses in the 1950s.
The Top 10 Benefits of a Management Assessment Center
The highly predictive results (0.54 predictive validity) make behavioral simulation assessment centers an invaluable tool for managerial hiring, promoting, succession planning, and developing. Here are the top ten benefits of a management assessment center:
- Explicit Agreement on the Leadership Competencies that Matter Most
To accurately assess managers, companies must agree upon the critical few leadership competencies and associated micro-behaviors that matter most for success in the role for their unique strategy and workplace culture. This helps companies to better understand the current situation, pinpoint and prioritize skill gaps against proven standards, customize management development workshops, initiate the change process, predispose participants to their role, guide coaching and individual development plans, set baseline metrics, align performance management systems, target people investments, and obtain stakeholder buy-in.
Do you have enough agreement on what defines a high performing manager in your organization?
- Comprehensive Evaluation of Required Leadership Competencies
One of the key benefits of a management assessment center is its ability to provide a well-rounded and thorough evaluation of participants that focuses on the most critical scenarios faced by managers at your organization. Unlike traditional assessment methods that rely heavily on interviews or self-assessments, management assessment centers use a mix of simulation exercises, role-playing, case studies, and group discussions to mirror the complex environments that people leaders face. These scenarios typically evaluate a broad range of leadership competencies, including situational leadership, decision-making, strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, communication, and team collaboration.
This multi-dimensional approach ensures that organizations gain deep insights into each candidate’s true capabilities and motivations.
Do you have an accurate assessment of the skills and motivations that matter most to short- and long-term manager success?
- Objective and Fair Assessment Process
Bias is an inherent challenge in traditional talent evaluations. The use of a management assessment center mitigates this risk by relying on standardized assessment tools and multiple assessors to evaluate performance. Each participant is observed by trained evaluators across various exercises, ensuring that personal biases or preconceived notions do not skew the final results.
This makes the process more objective, transparent, and fair, allowing organizations to make data-driven decisions about who is best suited for leadership roles.
Is your evaluation process objective and fair enough?
- Identification of High Potentials
Some individuals may not always shine in traditional settings such as behavioral interviews, but thrive when placed in dynamic, problem-solving scenarios. Management assessment centers are particularly effective at identifying these “hidden gems” who may possess untapped leadership potential. Through real-time feedback and observations, organizations can spot high-potential individuals who demonstrate strong leadership skills when faced with complex challenges, even if they have yet to assume formal leadership roles.
This helps organizations build a more robust leadership pipeline and ensures that high-potential employees are not overlooked.
Do you have a proven way to identify and support high potential employees?
- Personalized Development Plans
An effective management assessment center does not just focus on identifying the current capabilities of participants; it also provides valuable insights into areas for growth and development. Following the assessment process, participants receive detailed feedback on their strengths and areas of improvement across dimensions related to benchmarked and validated competencies, micro behaviors, motivations, learning agility, and personality traits. Based on these findings, organizations can design personalized development plans tailored to each leader’s unique needs.
This targeted and data-driven approach accelerates leadership development by addressing specific gaps and reinforcing existing strengths, leading to more effective and well-rounded leaders.
Are you creating targeted individual development plans to close key gaps for people managers?
- Reduction in Leadership Turnover
Choosing the wrong candidate for a leadership position not only impacts team morale but also leads to lost productivity and wasted resources. By using a proven people manager assessment center, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of promoting or hiring ill-suited candidates. The comprehensive and objective assessment process provides a clear picture of how individuals will perform in their managerial role.
This clarity reduces the likelihood of bad hiring or promotion decisions and helps to ensure that selected managers are more likely to succeed and stay within the organization.
How confident are you that your managers are set up for long-term success?
- Improved Team Dynamics
An often-overlooked benefit of management assessment centers is the positive impact on team dynamics. By simulating scenarios where participants must collaborate, solve problems, and lead teams, assessors can evaluate not only individual leadership capabilities but also how these potential leaders will fit into the larger team culture. This helps ensure that selected leaders are not only competent but also able to foster collaboration, trust, and cohesion within their teams — critical elements for long-term success.
Can your managers communicate, collaborate, and make decisions to promote team success?
- Strengthening Organizational Culture
As organizations scale and evolve, maintaining a strong, aligned culture becomes increasingly important. Through their actions, managers play a vital role in shaping and sustaining organizational culture. Through the assessment center process, organizations can ensure that leaders who align with the company’s values, goals, and team norms are promoted. This alignment is crucial for long-term strategic success and employee engagement.
Do your managers help or hinder cultural health, accountability, and alignment?
- Prediction of Future Performance
Unlike perception-driven 360-degree feedback, assessment centers objectively assess leadership capabilities against measurable micro-behaviors that correlate to leadership success. The results are based on the evaluation of professional assessors backed by artificial intelligence. This ensures that a realistic day-in-the-life simulation provides a valid, fair, unbiased, and objective assessment of how a participant will perform in the target leadership position.
Knowing this allows you to make and communicate better informed hiring, promotion, and succession planning decisions. It also enables actionable feedback for targeted leadership development.
Can you accurately predict and support the future performance of your managers?
- Celebrate Career Milestones
Being promoted to manager is an important career milestone worthy of investment, support, and celebration. Done right, a leadership simulation assessment center can make or break a critical career transition for a leader. The process should greatly increase their company loyalty, significantly improve their leadership awareness, and fundamentally change how they lead, manage, and coach others.
Are you investing in the employee experience at the moments of truth as part of your talent management strategy?
The Bottom Line
On average, managers and directors who follow assessment-driven development plans improve skills by 11% in twelve months, are 6 times more likely to be seen as a high-performer, and report a 14% increase in engagement. A management assessment center offers significant advantages for organizations seeking to build strong, capable, and high performing teams. Are you taking advantage of comprehensive, objective, and personalized approaches to people manager evaluation and development?
To learn more how to create high performing managers, download 6 Management Best Practices that Make the Difference Between Effective and Extraordinary
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