First Establish Each Individual's Baseline
Baseline assessments should be completed under suitable, standardised conditions, with temporary factors that could materially affect performance recorded where appropriate.
The cognitive assessment should measure:
- Sustained attention
- Working memory
- Task switching
- Processing speed
- Accuracy under time pressure
Employees should be regularly re-assessed* and their results compared to their own baseline, not simply with other employees.
A reduction from an employee’s usual performance may be more meaningful than a low absolute score. For example, a consistently accurate employee whose error rate suddenly increases may require support even though they remain above the organisation’s minimum standard.
* 3 and 6 months for new entrants then 6/12 monthly and when there are specific concerns about an individual or group.
Cognitive testing should form only one part of an early-warning system. It is more useful when combined with:
- Employee stress and wellbeing questionnaires
- Overtime and consecutive-shift levels
- Missed or delayed breaks
- Sickness absence
- Quality-assurance trends
- Call volume and call severity
- Exposure to traumatic incidents
- Self-reported sleep and fatigue
- Supervisor observations
- Requests for shift changes
- Intention-to-leave surveys
Organisations need to:
- Define a legitimate and transparent purpose for the assessments
- Inform employees how results will be used
- Obtain appropriate HR, legal and occupational-health input
- Avoid using short-term score variation as a diagnosis
- Consider fatigue, environment, equipment and test conditions
- Restrict access to results
- Establish an appropriate review and escalation process
- Avoid adverse employment decisions based solely on assessment results
