The Assessment Centres approach to talent management is a fair, transparent and objective approach to ensuring that an organisation taps into the potential of its people. Through this process, the organisation can commit itself to develop this potential to achieve its strategic business goals as well as foster a more fulfilled and satisfied workforce.

There are four phases to the Assessment Centre process.

• Phase one consists of identifying the various roles that are presently available as well as those that may be needed in the near future. Each role is then broken down into the various skills needed to fulfill it to the level of excellence required by the organisation.
• Phase two consists of developing the tools and activities necessary to adequately represent the skills in a testing group environment. At this stage various skills may be clustered into observable sets corresponding to specific activities.
• Phase three consists of the actual activities where groups of six to eight people work together over a period of two to three days under the observation and facilitation of two assessors. During this work candidates may also be asked to do some individual work.
• Phase four consists of the report which brings together all the weighted scores of the candidates for the various skills assessed as well as putting forward comments and recommendations for each person assessed. Feedback is then offered to each person.