Data tells us that organisations are having difficulties identifying and managing talent effectively. Gartner research found that 83% of HR leaders struggle to find people with the skills they need, while a further 57% said the ongoing skills shortage has undermined corporate performance. On top of this, CEB Global found that 60% of new managers fail in the first two years, with a lack of soft skills cited as the most common reason for mis-hires.
And so it’ll come as no surprise that 54% of businesses are planning to pivot towards skills-based hiring – they need skilled people, and they need them now.
But what happens when businesses get their recruitment process wrong?
The Recruitment and Employment confederation found that when organisations get a hire wrong, it can cost them up to 3x the employee’s salary, impacting the business in a variety of ways, including:
- Decreased productivity
- An increase in staff turnover
- And wasted training budgets
When businesses make poor talent management decisions, the repercussions can be severe – which is why assessment can be a game-changer.
How can talent assessment help businesses manage their talent more effectively?
A comprehensive talent management strategy will incorporate four key areas, otherwise known as the four ‘B’s:
- Build – Investing in learning & development to support the ongoing development of talent
- Buy – Hiring new talent into the organisation when skills aren’t available or cannot be built in-house
- Borrow – Cultivating and utilising talent communities from outside the business via networking and contingent workforces
- Bridge – Enabling a culture of career mobility so that people can move on or up to new roles when needed/they want to
But in this changed world of work, there’s now a fifth ‘B’ – Bot – which represents the need to create an optimal balance between human and artificial intelligence. Organisations have to understand which parts of delivery and services they can leverage through automation, and what they need to hold onto from their people. After all, certain qualities aren’t easily replaced or replicated by AI – creativity, empathy, and adaptability – just to name a few.
So what can organisations do to ensure their assessment process works optimally?
Utilise predictive power – Business leaders must first ask themselves – ‘what do we need our people to be able to do?’
Once they have clarity on the critical success criteria, they can use this to identify the right assessment tools and methods – ones that will reliably measure what they need to measure, do not introduce bias and provide full coverage of the success criteria.
Build a robust assessment engine – one that goes beyond just the technological aspect and includes well-coordinated human and operational elements, such as:
- Qualified assessors who have the necessary training in the assessment tools and techniques to minimise bias
- Effective project management to ensure an efficient and timely process for the business and the candidate
- Seamless communications so that all parties remain informed throughout
- Quality assurance to maintain consistency of assessment results, ensure a fair process and adherence to ethical and legal standards
Offer a compelling candidate experience – assessments are an opportunity to provide a positive and realistic impression of the business culture and expectations to candidates. They must be inclusive, accessible and supportive of those who require special adjustments - building positive engagement. If they fail in being welcoming and accommodating, and lack any semblance of human connection, businesses are unlikely to generate the required buy-in and commitment to attract the talent they want.
In fact, CareerPlug’s Candidate Experience report found that 45% of job seekers have ghosted a potential employer after attending an interview, which would suggest many businesses aren’t quite getting it right in their attempts to provide a good experience for candidates.
Incorporate data-driven insights – in order to truly understand individual and organisational development needs, data is king. If organisations are looking to identify pockets of talent, then comprehensive reporting via analytics, dashboards and real-time data enables the creation of a talent heatmap – supporting better decision-making and strategic talent management.
But businesses must first have clarity on what data is essential to have, who in the organisation will need access to it, and ensure that all data collected throughout an assessment process is done so in compliance with regulations – all of which will help prevent any challenges or issues further down the line.
To find out more about how businesses can create a successful framework for managing their talent, along with examples of how our assessment support has facilitated success for organisations like yours, watch our webinar.
