Abstract
While developing the hiring process, it is necessary to select persons whose values, skills, knowledge, and abilities can be discussed as congruent not only with the certain position but also with the organization’s objectives. Dr. Eric Weston and Dr. Emily Weston-Green, the founders of the Weston Family Practice Clinic, need to hire the new Office Manager who is expected to be responsible for performing a variety of administrative tasks. To select the perfect candidate, it is important to focus on the job analysis and competency modeling and to design the assessment strategy which includes the use of the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory and the Occupational Personality Questionnaire as well as the interview.
Competency Modeling and Assessment Strategy for the Weston Family Practice Clinic
The necessity of hiring a new employee can be associated with many challenges faced by employers because the focus is often on hiring qualified specialists who can respond to the organization’s needs. To select and hire a person whose qualities, skills, knowledge, and abilities can be discussed as congruent with a certain position, it is important to conduct an effective job analysis and focus on developing a competency model (Scott & Reynolds, 2010, p. 280).
Dr. Eric Weston and Dr. Emily Weston-Green, the founders of the Weston Family Practice Clinic, are oriented to expanding the clinic and hiring new staff. At this stage, the Weston Family Practice Clinic needs to hire the new Office Manager who is expected to perform a variety of administrative tasks. In spite of the fact that the focus on the job analysis and competency modeling is the important step in the hiring process, the development of the assessment strategy is necessary to evaluate the candidates’ qualifications and select the person who can perform the Office Manager’s tasks effectively, while contributing to the clinic’s growth and organization’s objectives.
Job Analysis and Competency Modeling
In order to conduct an effective job analysis for the position of Office Manager in the Weston Family Practice Clinic, it is important to concentrate on defining and discussing the concepts of job analysis and competency modeling while focusing on their similarities and differences. According to Campion and the group of researchers, “competency models refer to collections of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) that are needed for effective performance in the jobs in question” (Campion et al., 2011, p. 226). The development of the competency model as the identification of the set of necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities is an important part of activities associated with the job analysis (Noon, 2012, p. 76).
Thus, the job analysis can be discussed as the identification of tasks to perform and necessary qualities, and the competency model is the presentation of knowledge, skills, and abilities required to occupy the position (Campion et al., 2011, p. 226). From this point, to conduct the complete job analysis for the position of the Office Manager in the Weston Family Practice Clinic, it is also necessary to refer to the competency model in order to determine the tasks to perform and required qualifications, skills, and personal characteristics.
Key Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Pertinent to the Position of the Office Manager
In the Weston Family Practice Clinic, the Office Manager is expected to oversee the work of office clerks, report on the progress, and interact with the personnel of the Weston Family Practice Clinic and with the staff of other clinics and offices. As a result, the candidate should have the developed knowledge and skills related to the areas of administration and medicine in order to perform the tasks effectively.
To plan and coordinate the work of the personnel is the Weston Family Practice Clinic, the candidate for the position of Office Manager should have the developed knowledge in such spheres as
- administration and management, in order to coordinate the completion of tasks;
- human resources management, in order to interact with the personnel effectively;
- economics and accounting, in order to oversee the work of clerks and report on the progress;
- law, in order to address the legal regulations associated with the office work; and
- medicine, in order to orient in specific activities of the Weston Family Practice Clinic (O-Net Online, 2014).
The candidate can perform the tasks associated with the position of the Office Manager effectively, if he or she has such developed skills as
- management and coordination skills, in order to organize and assess the work of clerks effectively;
- speaking and active listening skills, in order to interact with the personnel at all the levels effectively;
- reading and writing skills, in order to work with documents, reports, and communicate with the administration effectively;
- critical thinking and decision making skills, in order to resolve problems and propose effective solutions;
- skills in working with technologies; and
- time management skills, to organize the work of the office efficiently (O-Net Online, 2014).
The Office Manager’s performance also depends on the range of abilities necessary to complete certain tasks. The candidate applying for the position of the Office Manager in the Weston Family Practice Clinic should demonstrate such abilities as
- oral comprehension and expression, in order to communicate information according to the set goals;
- written comprehension and expression, in order to have the opportunity to communicate in the written form; and
- deductive and inductive reasoning, in order to solve problems and answer questions (O-Net Online, 2014).
The summarized skills, knowledge, and abilities can be discussed as required in order to take the position of Office Manager and perform the determined tasks efficiently. Thus, the proposed variant of the competency model for the position of Office Manager is completed according to the conducted job analysis.
Assessment Strategy
The selection of the approach to assessing potential candidates for the position of Office Manager in the Weston Family Practice Clinic depends on the results of the conducted job analysis. The job analysis resulted in creating the specific competency model based on the identified knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to occupy the position of the Office Manager in the medical organization. While developing the assessment strategy, it is necessary to pay much attention to selecting the formal assessment instruments and approaches which can demonstrate efficiently that the assessed candidate possesses the required qualities (Noon, 2012, p. 77).
To determine the performance qualities of the candidates for the position of Office Manager, it is significant to focus on assessing the candidates’ values because these values should be congruent with the values promoted in the organization (Creelman & Kaiser, 2009, p. 23; Silzer & Church, 2009, p. 378). Working as a manager, the person should interact with the clinic’s personnel effectively, and the focus on values and motives can demonstrate the extent to which the candidate is appropriate for the position. Furthermore, the general assessment of the personality is necessary to conclude about the candidate’s knowledge and skills.
The assessment strategy to select the person for the position of the Office Manager in the clinic should be based on conducting the job analysis and using assessment tests before interviewing the candidates in order to work with the most appropriate candidates at the final stage of the selection and hiring process (Odom, 2013, p. 61). The assessment strategy should include the following steps:
- the job analysis to determine the required skills and abilities with the focus on the responsibilities;
- the use of such a formal assessment instrument as the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory in order to conclude about the person’s values, abilities to perform as a leader, and interact with the other persons; the assessment can be conducted with the group of candidates;
- the interviews with the candidates selected with the help of the assessment;
- the use of the Occupational Personality Questionnaire in order to assess the personality according to thirty-two scales and conclude about the person’s ability to perform the administration, coordination, and management (Silzer & Church, 2009, p. 377).
The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory
Following the competency model, the required knowledge includes the knowledge in administration, management, and work with human resources, and necessary skills are associated with coordination, communication, and decision-making. The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory can be successfully used to assess the group of candidates for the position of the Office Manager because of assessing such persons’ values as power, affiliation, tradition, and security among others during 20 minutes (Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory, 2009). Thus, the assessor will be able to conclude about the candidate’s skills to coordinate with the focus on the aspect of power; to organize and manage with the focus on the aspects of tradition and security, and to communicate with the aspect on affiliation.
The Occupational Personality Questionnaire
The Occupational Personality Questionnaire is effective to decide whether the candidate can fit into the clinic’s work environment while focusing on the aspects of his or her relationships with people, thinking styles, and emotions. The Occupational Personality Questionnaire is the valid assessment tool, and if the candidate demonstrates high results in relation to social confidence, control and evaluation activities, optimism, and decisiveness, this person can be discussed as matching the position of the Office Manager according to the created competency model (Occupational Personality Questionnaire, 2014; “Quick quiz in 31 languages”, 2009, p. 4). This assessment instrument is effective to add the facts to the information received during the interview.
The Strategic Link between Competency Modeling, Assessment, and Organizational Objectives of the Clinic
Such approaches and techniques as the competency modeling and assessment processes can be discussed as the strategic tools in order to achieve the organizational objectives because conducting the appropriate job analysis, developing the competency model and assessment strategies effectively, the clinic’s administrators create the conditions for selecting the most competent candidate whose values, skills, abilities, and knowledge are congruent with the organization’s expectations (Scott & Reynolds, 2010, p. 289; Silzer & Church, 2009, p. 377).
The organizational objectives associated with the Weston Family Practice Clinic are the focus on the clinic’s expansion and growth, effective support of the developing practice by the personnel, further increase in the quality of provided services, and the improvement of administration and organization to create the supportive environment.
In order to address these objectives, it is necessary to pay much attention to selecting the staff, and the process of hiring the Office Manager is only one step in the implementation of the organizational strategy. As a result, while proposing the effective competency model which illustrates all the required knowledge, skills, and abilities, the clinic can guarantee the organization of the strategic selection process (Creelman & Kaiser, 2009, p. 23; Odom, 2013, p. 61). Furthermore, while developing the assessment strategy based on the competency model, the administrators can guarantee the selection of the most appropriate candidate who possesses the necessary qualities.
Conclusion
The selection and hiring process can be discussed as the important stage informing the effective team in order to address the objectives set by the organization for further development. In order to hire the person whose values and visions are consistent with the organization’s ones, it is necessary to develop the job analysis, create the competency model which reflects all the required knowledge, skills, and abilities, and propose the effective assessment strategy which is designed according to the knowledge, skills, and abilities presented in the model.
Thus, in order to hire the new Office Manager for the Weston Family Practice Clinic, it is important to focus on the job analysis and competency modeling, and on the development of the assessment strategy which should include the use of such formal assessment instruments as the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory and the Occupational Personality Questionnaire. These assessment instruments used along with the interview are important to influence the clinic’s decision.
References
Campion, M., Fink, A., Ruggeberg, B., Carr, L., Phillips, G., & Odman, R. (2011). Doing competencies well: Best practices in competency modeling. Personnel Psychology, 64(1), 225-262.
Creelman, D., & Kaiser, R. (2009). In Focus/Acquiring Talent – The value of hiring for team fit. Leadership in Action, 29(4), 23-24.
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Scott, J. C., & Reynolds, D. H. (2010). Handbook of workplace assessment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Silzer, R. F., & Church, A. H. (2009). The pearls and perils of identifying potential. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 2(4), 377-412.