Why Most Organisations Are Underusing Their Development Centres
For the past six weeks, I’ve been running a development centre for leaders applying for more senior roles.
And no matter the department - finance, operations, comms - two behavioural gaps kept showing up again and again.
Here’s what I noticed:
The people who got the role? They walked away with clarity. They got their result. They got feedback.
The people who didn’t? Well… they might get feedback. They might not.
And that is the problem.
Not an individual one - a systemic one.
When you zoom out, you realise development centres are full of untapped potential. We're often using them for one purpose - selection - when they could offer so much more.
What Is a Development Centre?
Also known as assessment centres, development centres combine multiple tasks and activities to evaluate a candidate’s suitability for a role. These are typically used in graduate schemes and senior leadership recruitment, where job success depends on more than just interview performance.
Development centres usually include:
Case studies
Group discussions
In-tray or inbox exercises
Presentations
Role plays
Psychometric testing
Structured interviews
Social interactions
These activities are assessed by Organisational Psychologists, HR professionals and line managers using behavioural frameworks that match the role's competencies.
They test a broad range of skills, including communication, analytical thinking, leadership, collaboration, and decision-making - all under realistic job conditions.
Why We’re Missing a Trick
Development centres are usually used to answer a simple question:
Should we hire or promote this person?
But that question is far too narrow.
Because when you look across the whole cohort - not just individual results - you start to see trends:
Repeated gaps in stakeholder management
Underdeveloped influencing skills
Strategic Thinking
These aren’t just candidate weaknesses. They’re capability signals. And when they show up repeatedly, they’re telling you something about your system, not just your people.
Reframe Development Centres as Diagnostics
What if we stopped using development centres just for selection - and started using them as organisational diagnostics?
You’ve already done the hard bit: running the centre, observing behaviour, collecting data.
Now go one step further:
Tally the common challenges across cohorts
Identify patterns across functions or roles
Design learning programmes based on actual needs, not assumptions
This means that even if someone doesn’t land the new role, the insight is still valuable to them and to the wider business.
What You Gain From This Shift
1. You Build Strategic Capability
By using patterns from your development centres to shape L&D activity, you stop reacting to performance gaps and start proactively building strength into the system.
2. You Maximise ROI on a High-Cost Tool
Development centres are expensive to run. If you're already investing in them, why not get double the value by feeding the insights into broader leadership development?
3. You Create a Performance Culture
Performance cultures don’t happen by accident. They’re built by spotting gaps, talking about them openly, and committing to growth at every level. Development centres offer a goldmine of insight - if you choose to look beyond the pass/fail line.
And It Doesn’t Have to Be Big or Complex
Even smaller or mid-sized organisations can get in on this.
Modern development centres can be delivered virtually, making them:
Easier to scale
More flexible for participants
More accessible across multiple sites
Less dependent on in-person resources
Easier to analyse and review
You don’t need a massive HR team or expensive consultants. You just need a mindset shift: from selection to strategic insight.
Final Thought
We say we want to build performance cultures.
But if we’re already doing the work - observing, evaluating, and collecting feedback—then let’s make that work harder for us.
Let’s use development centres to diagnose capability, inform learning, and drive change across the organisation.
Whether someone lands the role or not, the insight is there. The need is there. And the opportunity to grow? It’s sitting right in front of us.
If you want to chat about how I can help build a development centre that works for your business - get in touch.