The value and importance of employees' self-assessments

Purpose of Assessment 

Modern organizations require a constant evaluation to ensure their employees are at their best level to enhance the efficiency of the company's operations. Assessment has also been linked to organizational behavior since the workers get to know of their strongholds and weaknesses. Their motivational efforts towards change revolutionize the organizational behavior. Due to the advancements in the human resources of various companies across the globe, self-assessment has come up. Employees can evaluate their performance on their own without having to liaise with the human resource managers to let them know of their ratings. Thanks to the advancement in the level of technology, self-assessment has even become more comfortable and takes less time. Many modern organizations are feeding the bases of self-assessment in the company's systems such as the websites for the employees' constant checkup of their performance while at the workplace. For instance, I have had the opportunity to self-assess my progress at work. Therefore, self-assessment is integral in the acquisition of beneficial practices to an organizational setup (Magarrey, 2017). 

The following is the purpose of assessment. One of the primary functions of assessment in a human resource management perspective is that leads to the development of the best strategies to be used to make the human resources of a company more effective. For example, my self-assessment has enabled me to facelift my decision-making by listening to different ideas before choosing the best among them. Assessment achieves HR development by providing a foundation for the need of change in the organization. Change to the better develops new strategies in human resources such as the reduction of the time used to complete various tasks. Self-assessment is a basis for the promotion of particular employees to occupy the managerial positions within a venture. Assessment is a basis for the focus of discussions in a meeting. A collection of the self-assessment results would be averaged to find out the areas that a business needs to reflect on more to improve on them. Therefore, assessment can be discussed as an agenda in a staff meeting in a specific company (Magarrey, 2017). 

Assessment in the case of human resources exemplifies the need for brainstorming in an organization. Self-assessment enlightens the employees on the advantages of thinking together as a team and coming up with the various ideas that could benefit the operations of a business venture. Self-assessment also highlights the need for active listening to others ideas. Therefore, I have developed active listening, according to my self-assessment report. Due to the revolution of technology, the challenges facing organizational success have also become complicated than they were before the introduction of technology. Brainstorming is essential to thinking quickly to solve a specific problem in the long term. Human resource departments use assessment as a vital tool in the recruitment and selection of the new employees. Every company wishes to have outstanding employees to be the flag carriers and the ambassadors of the organization in their excellent performances. Due to that, new employees have to be assessed before they are employed to reveal their skills and strengths, as well as their weaknesses (Magarrey, 2017). 

Assessment plays a chief role in the planning and assignment of duties in any given organization. My self-assessment activities have helped me to give a chance to the other employees while supporting them. As aforementioned, assessment involves the knowledge of the employees' abilities and challenges. The human resource department, in the division of the tasks that are to be completed, will most likely consider the self-assessment results of the individual to give them tasks they can comfortably and competently handle. Apparently, the division of the work among the employees is significantly dependent on the assessment of the employees. Assessment of the employees improves their chances to land a better job. In most cases, employees may want to shift from one company to another. The assessment report from their original company is fundamental to their acceptance in the other company. Finally, assessment is an indicator of a company's direction regarding performance. As a fundamental tool for organizational performance, assessment has played a significant role in the corporate evaluation (Magarrey, 2017). 

Actual Score 

The self-assessment in human resource management is practically helpful to me since I serve as a customer service representative at a local bank. Since assessment improves accuracy and productivity at the workplace, I have to assess my performance at work constantly. More so, my job position at the bank requires me to have accuracy as I have to explain the services that the bank is offering to the customers. That again magnifies the importance of my assessment to my efficiency at the job. Some of the tasks at work that require accuracy from me are answering bank questions on the phone to the customers, processing transactions for them, and updating them on the various updates in the services offered by the bank. To efficiently carry out the above-listed tasks, our organization has provided us with a self-assessment program so that we can quickly identify how we are faring and work on our flaws, as well as improving more on our strengths. 

In the individual assessment test, I had a score of 68. In each of the 10 categories, my score was categorized as high. That is to say that the level of my self-monitor personality is considerably high. Such a level of character is exactly what I need to ensure that I efficiently handle my tasks and that every customer I serve remains happy. Moreover, some of the aspects such as my extroversion are vital to my communication skills as I try to explain to the customers what products will suit their personal needs, as well as describing the new products that the bank can offer. Also, the extroverted nature helps me with the interactions between my coworkers and me. The individual assessment scores indicate that I am a high self-monitor individual at the workplace. I can balance my schedules and advantage my coworkers as well as the customers. I am also able to influence coworkers into following and advocating for some of the best leadership practices such as chain of command to enhance corporate efficiency. 

Interpretation of the Score 

My self-monitor score of 68 suggested that I am sensitive to the emotional behavior of others. At a local banks scenario where employees depend on one another for some tasks, there is a lot of active discussion on the handling of the functions. Also, as a customer service representative, I interact a lot with the customers who express their compliments and complaints regarding the bank's service. My sensitivity to the expressive behavior of the other people helps me to appreciate the good things done to me. For example, when the branch manager helps me in a certain task, I find myself thanking him so much. My sensitivity also makes me empathetic to the feelings of the other people at work. I am always ready to help my colleagues with their various tasks that prove difficult to them since my growth strategy has no tolerance for failure. I also empathize with the customers who have trouble accessing any services of the bank which gets me more willing to help them (Wachter, 2015). 

Sensitivity to people's expressions at the workplace leads to the flexibility in the embracing of new ideas. Since I am always mindful of the other people's welfare at work, my colleagues and the customers, I tend to be very flexible at accepting the changes made in the workplace and stick to them. I quickly let go of the hurtful comments I may receive from my coworkers or the clients at the bank since I can easily cope up with stressful situations, thanks to my service in the military, and my teachings in martial arts. Sensitivity to the other people's expressive behavior cultivates creativity. Sometimes, the expressive behavior of people I interact with at work may be negative criticism to a problem I may have in my way of handling various tasks. That makes me want to develop creative solutions to solving the difficulties in the workplace. My awareness of the current situations surrounding me in my work inspires creativity from within me as I try to normalize the balance between my colleagues and the customers at work, since I believe that leaders mostly require employees help in making a difference at the workplace, such as the reduction of corporate challenges (Wachter, 2015). 

On the other hand, being overly sensitive to expressive behaviors among the people I interact with may be a detriment to my success. One of the primary reasons for that is that I am inclined to be an introvert than I am of an extrovert. If an undesirable situation goes out of hand among the vulnerable people, they are prone to anxiety and depression. In the face of a conflict at work, I try to remain calm and composed and reason out from all perspectives of the problem. In as much as a sensitive person in the workplace is creative enough to deal with a particular problem, sometimes it becomes hard for them to solve an issue. In such a case, they may develop stress and anxiety. Sensitive people may suffer from emotional deprivation at some points in their lives. Such kinds of people have learned to sacrifice themselves and their comfort at the workplace for the good of the others. At some point, they may lose themselves in their quest to make their colleagues, for example, happy and contented. In that case, I have to ensure I strike a balance between my sensitivity to others behaviors and my self-contentment at the workplace (MARISOL, 2018). 

My self-assessment scores also indicated that I could modify my behavior to fit the current scenario in the workplace. Flexibility gives an opportunity for me to expand my opportunities. In the present world of business, employees who are quickly adapted to the dynamics that take place in business are considered a valuable asset for the businesses performance and are readily retained. With my ability to accept and work in line with adjustments in the bank, it becomes easier for me to broaden my opportunities such as those of the promotion and even landing on a better job in case I was to switch positions at any instance. In the bank perspective, there is a high rate of changes that take place affecting the employees' performance and the service rendered o the customers. As the customer service representative at work, I have to endeavor to be the most significant ambassador for flexibility. 

Flexibility helps me achieve a balance between work life and private life. Most of the times, employees are faced with difficulties in striking a balance between the two different kinds of life., as a result, the troubles of their private life such as the family issues may cause them to be stressed up to a point where they cannot efficiently work at the job place. It needs a flexible person to juggle their personal and job life to maintain their productivity levels in the company. Flexibility further helps employees gain responsiveness to change. The current business levels across the globe demand increased flexibility among the staff since changes have been developed every single day. Therefore, my ability to suit my behavior to the current practices has enabled me to respond positively to change (AJE Recruiting Specialist, 2018). 

Flexibility among the workers is an indicator of their value for diversity. As mentioned earlier, the world of business is a race towards better technological advancements and leadership styles. The workers have to be appreciative of the variety that has come up owing to the improvements in the various organizational aspects. Moreover, the cultural diversity is an increasingly new development in the human resource management of the organizations in the different parts of the world. Diverse employees can interact and become more productive in the projects they handle. Being able to switch my behavior to suit the needs of my coworkers and the customers has enabled me to embrace diversity in aspects of culture and religion which has improved my overall productivity. Also, the ability of the employees in embracing diversity has led to the coming up of a unified workforce that has worked together to bring about development (AJE Recruiting Specialist, 2018). One of the companies that have done so is MasterCard located in Purchase, New York, the United States of America (McSweeney, 2017). 

How the Self-monitoring Results can be used to Increase Efficiency at Work 

My self-monitoring results can be used as a basis for the increment of productivity at the workplace. One of the ways the results can improve efficiency is by helping me to change my personality according to the situation at hand or the person that I am dealing with at the moment. Being a customer service representative at a local bank, my job position requires me to adjust my personality to suit the different circumstances regularly. At some points, I have to multitask. For instance, I may be explaining to a particular customer on the latest foreign banks development that is supposed to help their banking experience be smooth, while at the same time emailing a coworker with the meeting agenda as sent by the branch manager. As we are still with the customer, the branch manager calls me on the phone and requests me to submit him last meetings minutes. The flexibility in the alteration of my personality improves my workplace efficiency. 

Also, the alteration of my working speed to either faster or slower is intrinsic to meeting deadlines as well as fulfilling the individual customer requirements. Take a case where a customer wants to have a particular task done for them, but at that moment I am not in a position to complete it. I am supposed to reschedule with the customer probably to later in the day or another different day altogether. If I can adjust my time schedules and keep the promise, I am likely to attract more customers to the bank. My flexibility, therefore, improves performance, and according to my self-monitoring scores, I am a flexible employee of the bank. Since my score was 68, I have been striving to improve it, and therefore I have been working on my flexibility in dealing with my colleagues as well as the customers who are always passing by my desk to learn a few things regarding banking at my workplace (Zissu, 2017). 

In addition to being able to modify my behavior to serve the customers and ensure they are satisfied, I also make friends with the customers so that we can establish a smooth relationship with those that I am helping. The method has been effective in the reduction of the customer complaints directed to the bank’s customer service, which I man. I also make sure I am friends with the other customer representatives of other banks to learn their strategies to attract customers and retain them. I also make friends with the employees I work with to make my working experience easier. Notably, good relations with my seniors such as the branch manager enables me to approach them in a case where I have any issue bothering me (Zissu, 2017). 

I also modify my personality to make myself more of a listener. To solve the exact issues of a customer in a banking context, a staff member has to listen to the customer keenly. Besides, being a good listener is among the first steps to enhancing the relationship between an employee and a customer. Customers' personalities are distinct. There is the customer who has to be assured that you are listening by showing signs of it such a nodding and inserting exclamations. If the employee is not that kind of a listener, they have to change their behavior to suit the scenario and serve the customer to his or her satisfaction. Magnifically, good listening enables a customer service representative such as I put specific concepts across for the customer in case their explanations indicate their lack of understanding of specific products and services in the bank. Active listening improves customer service albeit enhancing organizational efficiency in handling operations (Zissu, 2017). 

I have to continually educate myself on all the bank's products and services so that I can try and solve all the customer's concerns to the bank. Despite being in my job description to gain the necessary knowledge required to guide the customer, it is also mentally fulfilling to enable me to assume different personalities depending on the customer who walks into the bank, and their first stop is the customer service desk. Some customers are brief and want a simple answer to their questions while the others need a comprehensive explanation on what the bank offers them in the form of their services. Despite marketing not being part of my job description, I sometimes find myself marketing particular products and services that our company offers its clients. The aspects of marketing that I integrate into my work time and again brings the customer closer to the bank, and they feel valued. Therefore, my ability to make myself a marketer increase the effectiveness of the overall bank's performance (Zissu, 2017). 

Gaskell (2016) explains that flexible workers in an organization have proved to be more productive than their less productive counterparts according to the research conducted. One of the ways they tend to be more productive is in their ability to focus on the final results. A focus on the last results enables the flexible employees to plan on how to act throughout the processes regarding the operations. Proper planning in the handling of the various tasks in the companies is highly dependent on the flexibility of the workers in adjusting to the dynamics of the workplace. Gaskell (2016) states that workers in a particular study were divided into two groups. One group was taught how to control their working schedules and the ability to even work from home. The other group was maintained as the control group. The first group was observed to have more productive capabilities than the group that lacked empowerment. 

In most cases in the organizations all over the world, employees have a specific stigma that deters them from asking for empowerment to ensure they are more flexible in their work. Flexibility at work has in the past been optional as the different employees had different views on the issue. However, in the modern world, flexibility has been magnified due to the increased level of competition arising from technological advancements characterizing the modern business world. Ostensibly, the flexibility of the workers in dealing with the customers and other workers has been influenced by the reduction of the stigma surrounding a flexible mindset at work and the requisition of empowerment by their seniors at the job place. I believe that stigma can be reduced to enhance performance at our bank branch (Gaskell, 2016). 

Flexibility in the workplace enables the employees to make a choice depending on what makes them comfortable. Their ability to make autonomous decisions is attributed to improving their performance. I am usually able to make my choices in the workplace quickly due to the flexibility that I have in serving the customers, taking orders from above, and interacting with my colleagues at the workplace. I believe that if the employees in the various organizations in the United States of America and beyond need to be given a choice to ensure they are flexible enough in their handling of the multiple tasks. The flexibility improves the performance of the ventures concerning financial capabilities, and the social interactions of a company (Gaskell, 2016). 

References 

AJE Recruiting Specialist. (2018). Advantages of Being Flexible in the Workplace | Americas Job Exchange. Retrieved from http://www.americasjobexchange.com/career-advice/flexibility-at-work 

Gaskell, A. (2016, January 15). Why A Flexible Worker Is A Happy And Productive Worker | Forbes . Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2016/01/15/why-a-flexible-worker-is-a-happy-and-productive-worker/#2d4b31b714c4 

Magarrey, P. (2017, November 15). 7 reasons why performance reviews are still important for your small business - Workopolis . Retrieved from https://hiring.workopolis.com/article/7-reasons-performance-reviews-still-important-small-business/ 

MARISOL. (2018, February 26). The Pros and Cons of Being a Highly Sensitive Person| The Daily Mind . Retrieved from https://www.thedailymind.com/deeper-thinking/the-pros-and-cons-of-being-a-highly-sensitive-person/ 

McSweeney, M. (2017, September 26). 10 Companies Around the World Embracing Diversity in a BIG Way . Retrieved from https://www.socialtalent.com/blog/recruitment/10-companies-around-the-world-that-are-embracing-diversity 

Wachter, A. (2015, January 11). Advantages of Being Highly Sensitive | HuffPost . Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-wachter/advantages-of-being-highl_b_6141146.html 

Zissu, A. (2017, May 17). 6 Innovative Ways to Attract New Customers | Entrepreneur . Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/292748