5S: A model on worker assessment

The 5S model as a measurement of working ability is a model that I thought up as a result of my two years working experience in a retail company. The 5S refers to Strength, Skill, Spirit, Speed and Social. The breakdowns for them are as follows:

• Strength: Physical strength, endurance and health.
• Skill: Ability to complete tasks as required.
• Spirit: Discipline, integrity & dedication
• Speed: Ability to complete tasks in shortest time possible.
• Social: Networking & interpersonal skills.

My current 5S stats are Skill>Spirit>Speed>Social>Strength. What's yours?

As for the real discussion, I have a few questions:

1. Is this model a good model as a form of employee assessment? As a preliminary evaluation, I think it's a holistic approach, but a full disclosure would require more rigorous assessment models.

2. Most jobs would require high skill backed up by solid social and spirit stats, but physically or socially demanding jobs would break this pattern while does not make the model unusable. Is there any particular jobs that this model would fail?

Since that this model has its own effects on worker management in real companies, I place this in the OTC as I think it's more appropriate.

There are plenty of variables that are to be taken into account when determining some parameter you want to measure. When trying to make a tool that is to be used as assessment for a particular job, generalized stuff tends to suffer a lot because they might not be specific enough, or because they are too specific.

For example. DISC assessment based analysis on its more primigenial form from Moulton Marshton, tends to be niched into measuring only the role of "leadership" for a company. Sort of makes sense given the fact that is author was heavily into BDSM, I guess, but my point is that for more operative positions in a company such a thing would have little value. What value is leadership if you are measuring for a position that deal with no group? (Programmers, Accountants, Drivers)

Also tools need to have a purpose. When crafting a theoy it needs to be responding to a queston. Plant a hypothesis, follow the theory. In this case it is uncertain if the whole assessment is merely to be used as a recruitment tool, as an evaluation tool, as both, or as others. So it is a bit weird to notice what is the whole purpose of such a thing.

Compare and contrast with specifically made Assesment tools such as 360 or Competence Theory by David McClelland, currently worked by a few companies and consulting groups like Hay Group.

You need to realize that a set of skills or attributes a la RPG, or a Sims game, is simply not going to fit when you are trying to describe a job position in general, for several reasons.

First, jobs, even with the same terminology, the same name and position, can vary wildly from company to company. For example.

• www.jobster.com
• www.indeed.com
• www.JobBankUSA.com
• www.SourceTool.com
• www.simplyhired.com

• By the way, people who are hunting for jobs? I reccomend using those to search for one.

Follow ANY of the above links, and select some common technical job (e.g: Accountant. Programmer. Designer. Administrator) and then read what different companies write for different positions for their different needs. An accountant in a finances company might be expected to be able to handle specific bank accounts and international trade whereas an accountant for a pizzeria will simply be needed to fill out the General Journal according to International Financial Reporting Standards.

And this varies by industry itself. Strength might not be valuable for retail employees working at, say, sample based operations like some makeup stands do. Also I am pretty sure that regularizing positions by health is illegal in some countries.

edited 27th May '15 3:04:33 PM by Aszur

That's quite some insight. In the 5S model, leadership falls under skill rather than social. In operative jobs, their skills would be assessed as ability complete operations.

The model is more of an assessment model since that using it as a recruiting tool would get issues of insufficient data for recruitment evaluation. Collecting data for purpose of assessment using this model, however, is another story.

As for the issues of fitting in jobs, I do admit that this is where the model starts to fail. That said, stamina is part of the strength stat and someone who gets tired very easily would have lower strength stat than others. By the way, the stats in the 5S model is subjective, which allows adjustments based on actual work needs.

But when I say health, it's not in the sense of pregnancy, physical disabilities and the like. I meant to say how frequent they take sick leaves, how frequent they suffer from occupation related health problems and the like. If I am managing a company and find out that some people have low health, I will work on improving working environment rather than penalizing their low strength stat.

See that is the thing. When it is mentioned that, for example, "Leadership" (an already weird variable to measure) fits into the "social" descriptor such a thing is not made obvious in the mere description of it.

So there needs to be a lot more detail put into the description of a variable to make certain what does and what does not fit there, and reassess if your study has statistical validity. Statistical validity refers to measuring if what you are trying to measure is indeed being measured by the tool you created.

A great source for statistical knowledge is Andy Field's books, if you want references.He makes it short and silly. Sometimes too silly but I question a world without silliness.

For an example on how on psychological terminology a scale is defined, allow me to link the following example: The Minnesota Multiphasic personality Inventory. It is used in clinical psychology and despite its multiple controversies it is widely used but whatever. My point with is is that the specific part I want to point out is that look at the way it does it:

The test tries to measure something (personality in clinical environments: AKA It is designed to look for potential disorders). It then divides personality in different parts that compose it (Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate, Masculinity/Feminity, Paranoia, Psychasthenia, Schizophrenia, Hypomania, and Social Introversion). It defines, delineates and clearly mentions what is and what is not part of each scale. This is a lot more complicated than saying "Strength: Endurance in general", but it involves study. Research. Quotes. Statistical validity. Etc.

Then it crafts a tool to measure each scale, in this case in the form of questions (there are other forms to measure a scale, specially in work environments, but I am using the MMPI example), which undergoes a rigorous interpretation by a panel of xperts that bring about its validity. Basically a bunch of old dudes scratch their beards, frown, get grumpy at what you think an say "Ok, can you tell me if the question "On a scale from 1 to 5, how totes depressed, like, am I, dude?" actually measures depression?".

After that then your scale still needs a lot of revision.

And yes, this translates to the psychology of workplace as well since the tools are psychological/statistical ones and they are very interesting and cool and fuck you I am not a nerd for knowing this.

The short version: whatever set of metrics you settle on using will only ever be a hazy description of any given individual. And, subject to a whopping error rate, thanks to complexity theory throwing more interconnecting factors at you than you can, in reality, crunch.

But, some methods can be less awful than others. Depending on how, when and where you use them.

With the model you highlighted, "health" could well impact various aspects of "speed", as well as "strength". After all, many conditions have cognitive impacts, not just physical ones. And, somebody who does bust a leg, slip a disc or does their shoulder in isn't going to zip around a warehouse quite at their usual speed completing tasks for a while.

edited 28th May '15 4:30:38 PM by Euodiachloris

On the other hand, given how on the job performance is typically measured in workplaces today, your scheme could only be an improvement.

BTW- I didn't see intelligence mentioned anywhere.

I get what you mean, but if I am capable of what you are saying, I would be an academician instead of what I am now. The precise metrics of this model is something that I could not think for the time being. I do use this model to check if I can safely ask someone to do a task, though.

At its current state, it's a theoretical model with no practical value unless the precise metrics are properly developed, something that I personally cannot do myself.

However, as with issues of how low health would affect speed and strength, this is the main reason the metrics should be subjective, especially when hiring handicapped people. Having objective metrics would drag down their stats on top of making the assessment less accurate.

Intelligence doesn't exactly matter in this model. Less intelligent people can complete tasks just as well as more intelligent workers if backed up with experience.

But they cant learn them as quickly, which matters to employers.

It's also increasingly the case, particularly in office environments, that employers need their staff to be able to handle lots of different kinds of tasks.

As departments close down or are amalgamated, staff may need to pick up tasks from different teams or even different departments. This might be on a regular basis, or just for cover in the event of staff shortages or high volumes.

I remember a couple of years ago, I was literally working for two teams at the same time - I was logged into two computers, each of which had half the systems that one team used and half that the other team used. I was constantly switching between them to complete whole tasks. Today, I do the tasks of three or four teams in any given day - half a dozen key activities for my own team, and more for other teams.

This requires intelligence of a sort to be able to do, as it's a lot of different processes, different systems which work in different ways, different rules, priorities, etc. People with a single-digit IQ might well struggle with such work, and while you don't need to be a genius to handle it, intelligence is a factor.

Having experienced similar scenarios across numerous employers and both the private and public sectors, I can confidently say that it's becoming the norm, at least in office work.

&I do get your points. Intelligence is indeed part of the skill portion of the model, but it is not directly assessed. After all, if someone is intelligent, the employee can indeed complete required tasks better, but it is the tasks' completion that being evaluated, not how their intelligence helps in their tasks.

edited 31st May '15 7:39:38 AM by murazrai

There's already a workplace tool called 5S, though it has to do with efficiency and space layout, not worker abilities.

Gotta start from somewhere, mate. In some work assessment tools, this is known as "initiative", another variable that I do not see contemplated in this model. This is why I linked sources you can read and take ideas from, including a whole book on statistics for begginers.

As mentioned above, yeah there is a crapton of variables in the workplace which is why most of them try to be as specific as possible, so they can define what they are measuring instead of saying "This is the tool".