Background

Novartis needed an assessment system for international use, to reflect the Novartis leadership standards.

Their requirements meant they needed an assessment system that would meet both their assessment and developmental needs, by ensuring that the same leadership standards were maintained by all staff employed into Novartis leadership roles. 

Such standards ensure that all employees share the same understanding of behaviours which lead to high job success with Novartis, and therefore it is crucial for these standards to be reflected in their assessment process.

Aims

To provide a tailor made leadership assessment process that accurately reflects the Novartis leadership standards.

The system had to be suitable for use on a large international scale by employees across all levels of leadership roles within Novartis in over 140 different countries worldwide. 

Our Approach

We provided a custom online solution to Novartis’ assessment needs, designing a bespoke web-based psychometric testing tool specifically created to reflect the values and expectations of the Novartis leadership standards. 

The Novartis Online Assessment included three elements tailored precisely to their unique needs; two cognitive ability tests including Verbal Reasoning and Numerical Reasoning, along with a tailored Personality Questionnaire, customised to fit both the Novartis organisational culture and their leadership requirements. 

The Verbal and Numerical Reasoning Tests were designed to predict candidates’ capabilities for specific competence areas believed to be crucial to their role in Novartis, whereas the Personality Questionnaire was designed using 24 personality scales to reflect the Novartis leadership standards. These three elements of the online system were built to be used separately, or for a more well-rounded evaluation the elements could be integrated into a single online assessment. 

Additionally, the system was designed to create a comprehensive report on each candidate’s performance. These psychometric reports included a description of the candidates’ performance using an Overall Suitability Index, an indication of development opportunities, and some recommendations for tailored interview questions as a follow up to responses to the Personality Questionnaire.

The Results

The Novartis Online Assessment was implemented to successfully raise the standards of First Line Sales Managers. The selection process provided by the new system is of a high standard and high consistency and also provides quality feedback to employees for continuous development to deliver the best results. 

The success of the Novartis Online System led to translating the assessment content into several additional languages, to be used by Novartis across a number of key regions internationally.