assessment centres, to the increasingly popular use of psychometric
testing techniques. Testing techniques are increasingly being used as
a means of identifying the personality profile of people who are
likely to be successful in delivering service quality and developing
relationships with customers. Traditionally, testing was more likely
to be used for management and graduate jobs than for administra-
tive, secretarial or manual jobs.^7 Increasingly, however, companies
are using these techniques for a wide range of positions, which
emphasizes the importance that companies are placing on the emo-
tional content of front-line positions. The use of tests in employment
procedures is still controversial.^8 Those in favour of testing refer to
the unreliability of the interview as a predictor of employee per-
formance and the greater accuracy and objectivity of test data.
Those against testing often have difficulty in incorporating test evi-
dence into the rest of the information collected about the potential
recruit and some employers dislike the objectivity of testing, prefer-
ring to rely on their own perceptions of individuals.
When the selection process is complete and a new recruit and
company decide they can work together, the next stage is to prepare
the individual for the job they must do. The following section con-
siders the role of both informal and formal training in organizations.
Training and development
Research has shown that when there is a lack of clarity about the job
role that an employee must undertake, then it is likely to lead to
reduced levels of employee motivation and job satisfaction, which
in turn can manifest itself in poor customer satisfaction and reten-
tion.9, 10It is critical, therefore, that new employees are carefully pre-
pared for the work ahead of them. The initial period of employment
often lays the foundations of an employee’s attitudes and perceptions
towards the company. In this regard there are basically two kinds of
training. The first, informal training or informal socialization, refers to
what new employees are told and what they see happening around
them. This determines their view of what is important to the organi-
zation and what they must do to survive in that organization. For
example, ‘if customers are denigrated and/or if supervisors empha-
sise speed over quality ... newcomers can only draw the conclusion
that customers and good service are unimportant’.^11 Great care, there-
fore, should be taken to ensure that new recruits understand the
310 Relationship Marketing