The goal of this project is to strengthen the European cooperation in providing scientific validated tools, methods and techniques for personnel selection and evaluation. The objectives of partnership are:
- to develop a set of innovative techniques and methods for personnel selection and evaluation for law enforcement;
- to increase competences of psychologists and recruiters working in personnel selection and evaluation for law enforcement.
Personnel-selection systems employ evidence-based practices to determine the most qualified candidates: interviews, personality inventories, psychomotor and physical ability tests, and work samples. Psychologists must evaluate the validity of measures in order to determine the extent to which selection tools predict job performance. In order to do this, we look at content validity, construct validity, and/or criterion validity.
This project meets the needs of psychologists and recruiters working in evaluation and selection of personnel working in conditions of intense psychological stress, such as employees in ensuring public order.
The partnership created in this project brings along public institutions, private training providers and associations which otherwise could not have the possibility to meet and work together. They are linked by the need to put together resources and expertise and to develop new techniques and instruments to improve the process personnel selection and evaluation.
The target group is composed by: Psychologists involved in personnel selection and HR managers, professionals and recruiters for law enforcement organizations/institutions, researchers, trainers and clinical psychologists.
The internal analysis and studies, performed last year by the Center of Psychosociology – Ministry of Internal Affairs Romania, revealed that instruments used in selection and evaluation of personnel are outdated or disclosed by unauthorized dissemination. Some instruments become subject of copyright rules and we can no longer use them and we can’t afford to buy the license due to the actual budgetary constraints.
Personality questionnaires become outdated and we need questionnaires to operationalize modern models of human personality. Psychological evaluation of individuals has become more of an inference than a measurement, because tests designed for a certain dimension, actually measures another. Reducing the number of available tools brings us to the situation to use the same test for several personality dimensions and characteristics. Also, we lack valid instruments to evaluate the integrity and the risk for corruption, since these are vulnerable aspects in a public institution.
Effective techniques and methods for personnel selection can lead to an increased level of efficiency for the organization that are able to implement them consistently. Poor selection systems, on the other side, can lead in many cases to economic costs for the organizations such as turnover, absenteeism, presenteeism, legal disputes; human costs such as organizational disease, work stress, physiological/psychological/social/behavioral strain, dissatisfaction, lowered self-esteem; decreased efficiency and performance for events such as conflict, lowered motivation, lowered self-efficacy.
In Italy selection processes seem to be divided in three types depending on the type of organization: selections for the public sector are based on public calls and standardized tests (also according to the current Italian Law), selection for the bigger companies are carried on through the most advanced systems, ranging from head hunting to deep assessment procedures, the majority of selection, though, is carried on by small and medium companies (which comprise the vast majority of Italian organizations) often through non-standardized methods, unstructured and arbitrary actions.
The psychological aspect of selection is guided by revealing of necessary characteristics, features, qualities and abilities of the person for successful performance. Professional work by means of psychological methods and techniques of selection is a search and revealing of people by means of requirements of the professional work. It is necessary to select the people for the purpose of the most adequate and productive use of the available human resources providing achievement of the planned purposes.