Three strategies to ensure your company is effectively leveraging employee assessments

It is widely-known that the “best practice” in employee selection is to rely heavily on leadership assessment data. This data can help organizations maximize performance by making good hires, while reducing the cost and risk associated with bad hires.

While most organizations employ objective assessments in some capacity, not all do. Findings from a recent report from the Aberdeen Group highlights key differences in assessment use by best-in-class organizations vs. all others. In particular, organizations that get the most out of their assessments:

• Consider assessments to be a tool to enable better talent decisions throughout the employment life cycle.
• Create competencies to assess against, based on a collaborative effort between HR and the business.
• Use a variety of assessment types, appropriate to the decision point, to help them minimize risk when making crucial talent decisions. [/note]

In other words, an organization must first learn the value of assessments and its ROI, and subsequently, commit to their use within their talent management system. Second, the organization must engage in thorough competency modeling for key positions—using the input of multiple stakeholders—in order to ensure the correct knowledge, skills, and abilities that are being evaluated. Third, because no one particular assessment is comprehensive, the organization should utilize multiple assessments to gather a complete picture of a candidate. This may include data on a candidate’s personality, motivation, leadership and management style, and critical thinking ability.

The full report can be found within Talent Management Magazine.