Introduction
Outback Steakhouse is one of the largest and most successful American casual dining restaurant chains. To achieve and maintain a competitive market advantage, Outback Steakhouse selects a team of employees through a rigorous process that focuses on:
- The cognitive ability of employees
- Employee personality
- Employee Judgment ability
The cognitive ability of employees
Cognitive aptitude assessment is one of the sure ways of predicting employee performance. This test provides a measure of the applicants’ learning speed, arithmetic or numeric strength and an individual’s reasoning. Outback Steakhouse values cognitive skills such as language (or basic communication skills), logic and reasoning in the hiring process. Thus, the organization is able to recruit a team of employees who have such strong abilities as perception, reasoning and logic, which are necessary to decipher information very fast and to easily acquire more knowledge. Outback Steakhouse is also able to achieve a competitive advantage since cognitive skills such as logic and reasoning are very important in resolving issues in the workplace.
Employee personality
In the organizations’ hiring process, Outback Steakhouse recognizes the importance of an applicant’s personality. Chatman (1991) shows that personal values such as dependability, responsibility, positive attitude, adaptability, strong work ethic, honesty and integrity are some of the values which determine employee performance and which also influence the performance of the organization. Outback Steakhouse’s focus on the applicant’s personality, therefore, helps the organization to pick a team of professionals who help the company to remain successful and competitive.
Employee Judgment ability
Employee judgment ability is also important in the workplace especially in assessing the credibility of information and in resolving workplace conflicts.
Outback Steakhouse also subjects applicants to a series of questions that probe their experience, their open-mindedness, teamwork and orientation toward the company’s culture. The company understands that for it to remain competitive, employees must be dedicated to their duties. Orientation test toward the company’s culture is therefore meant to avoid workplace deviation.
The ability of the candidate to adapt to Outback Steakhouse’s culture and commitment to stay with the company is important. Hunter & Hunter (1984) explain that normally more experienced employees tend to adapt and fit new environments faster and more easily. And this is the reason Outback Steakhouse’s final selection process involves a set of questions aimed to determine the applicant’s work experience. Another importance of organization fit for Outback Steakhouse is that it prevents workplace deviance which may threaten the well-being and competitiveness of the company.
Applicants wishing to join Outback Steakhouse are given a job preview, explaining the benefits and the responsibilities of working for the international chain of restaurants. This is the first step in the company’s selection process. It is very important for it allows the potential employees to have a vivid picture of what it means to work with this large company. Again, the job preview underlines the importance of hospitality (caring for others) as one of the key values of the company’s staff. Thus, applicants are able to assess themselves to decide whether or not they are really determined to join Outback Steakhouse and whether they are ready to be held responsible and accountable as employees.
The second step in Outback’s selection process involves the introduction of the applicants to expected behaviors as contained in a document called Dimension of Performance. It is at this stage that applicants are also introduced to the company’s vision. This is a very important and necessary step as it exposes the applicants to preview the expected conduct and behavior, as well as gives the applicants a chance to choose to accept to work for the realization of the vision of the company.
In the next step of the selection process, candidates are required to complete the application by providing information that is scrutinized to determine if the candidate will be able to perform as required. This step enables the company to close-examine the abilities of the candidate, the candidate’s adaptability to Outback culture and his/her dependability to stay with the company.
Cognitive test as a method of employee selection
In the fourth stage, candidates are screened on their cognitive ability, personality and judgment. Erdogan & Bauer (2009) shows that personality and judgment tests are also very crucial methods that enable a company to settle for candidates with outstanding abilities in perception, reasoning and logic.
The final step in the selection process involves a set of questions that are aimed to determine the candidate’s related experience, ability to work as a team, as well as the candidate’s commitment to work for Outback Steakhouse.
The use of cognitive tests as a method of employee selection is a subject of hot debate. Murphy (2002) shows that though cognitive ability tests are arguably the most accurate methods of predicting job performance, the tests have been criticized for discriminating against ethnic and racial minority groups. In the US the Civil Rights Act of 1964(2) prohibits all practices that look good on paper, but are discriminatory in practice.
Conclusion
However, Outback Steakhouse’s cognitive tests and all other tests are valid to the extent that they all comply with Title VII of the same act. Title VII of Civil Rights Act provides that it is not an “unlawful employment practice for an employer to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.”
References
Chatman, J., (1991). Matching people and organizations: Selection and socialization in public accounting firms. Administrative Science Quarterly,36(1), 479.
Erdogan, B., & Bauer, T.,(2009). Perceived overqualification and its outcomes: The moderating role of empowerment, Journal of Applied Psychology, 94 (2), 557.
Hunter, J., & Hunter, R.F., (1984). Validity and utility of alternate predictors of job performance, Psychological Bulletin, 96(1):92.
Murphy, K., (2002). Can Conflicting Perspectives on the Role of g in Personnel Selection Be Resolved? Human Performance, 15(1&2): 183.