Human insights: Using assessment data to support careers

As a key ingredient of an overarching talent management process, assessment is a powerful enabler of successful careers – 67% of surveyed employees say assessments directly contributed to their personal growth.

From helping employees build the self-awareness needed to set development actions that will help them fulfil their potential, to providing insight into mindset and behaviours that will allow businesses to understand which individuals possess desired leadership qualities; assessment enables well informed hiring and development decisions that are based on science.

But the return on investment for assessments is very much dependent on the way in which organisations use them and the data they generate.

Many businesses are getting wrong

When used incorrectly – as a remedial measure instead of proactively to support development – employees can begin to fear the assessment process. Our research found that 1 in 4 (26%) people would feel concerned if asked to take an assessment at work, viewing it as a signal they’d been identified as an underperformer.

Worse yet, 32% of leaders said assessment data is ‘nice to have’ but not essential to making informed talent decisions – suggesting many organisations are failing to recognise the importance of data in workforce planning.

Its perhaps unsurprising then, that less than 47% of businesses say they actively deploy assessment as a tool to enable greater agility within their workforce; a lack of understanding around the value of assessment will inevitably lead to underusage.

The subsequent impact on organisations and their people

When businesses are resistant to using assessments, or lack the skill needed to transform data into workforce insights, this will have knock-on effects for both organisational and individual performance.

1. Assessments provide unrivalled insight into the development areas of employees, which can then inform targeted growth plans where coaching and educational masterclasses are tailored to their unique needs. Failing to utilise assessment at the beginning of a development process means this tailoring cannot take place, often resulting in generic and unimpactful career support.
   
   
2. Businesses will inevitably look to understand the ROI on any investment they make in their workforce, which is why taking assessments at the beginning and end of a programme is so powerful – providing measurable data that tracks growth over time. Without this insight, organisations will never know whether their investment worked and will be unable to make necessary refinements for future cohorts.
   
   
3. When making senior level appointments, its integral to establish cultural fit. Assessments on mindset and behaviour provide a clear picture of how a prospective leader would respond to any given situation, as well as how they’re likely to interact with those around them. By neglecting to use assessment in the selection process however, businesses run the risk of choosing the wrong candidate, which can then negatively impact team dynamics, stymy organisational performance and result in additional costs of having to replace the wrong hire.

When businesses embrace data and begin proactively using it to support careers, success and growth become far more tangible.

To hear more about the benefits of data utilisation and the real-life impact it has had on organisations, catch-up on our webinar today.