In assessment and training terms In-Basket refers to a collection of scenarios which represent a wide range of important activities that can occur in a particular job or job category. 

The In-Basket is used professionally by Industrial Psychologists to assess administrative, decision-making and self-management skills such as: planning, organizing, delegating, control, attention to detail, human relations skills, problem solving originality, personal time management, prioritization, concern to find solutions, work orientation and general administrative efficiency. 

Each practitioner should posess a “battery” of possible In-Baskets from which the most appropriate can be selected for employee selection and training purposes. 

For access to these services one should apply to a registered Industrial Psychologist, but I am suggesting here (sorry, colleagues) that each business should ideally have its own battery of In-Baskets – for selection, training, and even for inclusion in training manuals.

 In-Basket Development

The following is an outline of the In-Basket development procedure:

Select items “scenarios” from job content.

1. from formally developed job analyses, if available.
2. by using a panel of persons currently doing the job in question.
3. by engaging ‘expert’ comment from suitably trained HR professionals, if available. You are searching for items which represent as much as possible of the job content. As a broad generalization, 80% of most jobs can be covered each by a special collection of up to 30 items or scenarios.
4. from the “pool” of possible items, select those which are most appropriate.
5. evaluate and generate, by discussion, model responses. Refine them for inclusion in the scoring system.

The direct outcome will be a “basket” of items that can be used for selection and training. Validation of the instrument is a technical matter beyond the scope of this article.

Outcomes

The indirect, but extremely important, outcomes of the In-Basket development process are:

1. All participants will have had an intensive training experience. For example, trainers and other HR professionals will have learned that, for any specific task, there are often numerous “habitual” responses, some appropriate, many not! For example, what is the optimal way for a salesperson to respond to a customer returning a purportedly faulty purchase? Videos of such behavior reveal a wide variety of behaviours, some appropriate, some highly damaging to the employer, even though all staff may well have undergone identical training! Developing the ‘model response’ for the problem can be a learning experience for those involved and, in particular, for job incumbents and trainers! 
2. In addition to learning about job content In-Basket developers are ‘incidentally’ trained in such important areas/concepts as planning, delegation, human relations skills, independence of judgement, time management and the importance of “professionalism” versus yielding to personal emotional reactions. At the managerial level, the problems can have big impacts, such as the negotiation of a temporary corporate overdraft, or exchange rate, or with a union official threatening a strike. 
   
   In each case there are beneficial types of behavior. The damaging ones, which some persons habitually use, can be identified and modified by In-Basket application. If you are not yet convinced, look at your job, or the jobs of others around you, and ask yourself “what insights might arise from detailed analysis of responses to frequently arising problems?”