Hiring The Right Staff

      And

      Taping Into Their Potential

Using assessments for hiring employees has long been stated as an important tool in maintaining a successful organization. Even armed with this knowledge, many companies often neglect this bit of advice. Additionally, often understated is the usage of assessments after the hiring process to help improve working conditions, increase productivity and create an overall positive work environment.

The first rule is:

“Usage of assessments should not be considered a one time activity”.

Management must buy into the idea that assessments are an ongoing program, from hiring through employment. It has to be implemented in a dynamic manner to accommodate shifts in philosophy, industry and/or work environments.

Consider that most employers believe that they have an effective hiring policy that seeks to match the best candidate with the job. While this may be true for some organizations, the research shows that 66% of new employee’s will under perform and not meet your expectations. This trend alarmingly continues as 66% of your existing employees would prefer to work somewhere else. Think you can see through a potential employee interview? Stats show 95% of interviewees will exaggerate in some form during an interview.

The reality of hiring a new employee is that you are likely to get someone that does not meet the job requirements.

The only effective method to combat this problem is to effectively use assessments throughout the hiring process. Examples of this include:

• Objectively assessing the job position that you seek an employee for. Through this process you will create a profile for a candidate that will best meet the requirements of the job. For example, knowing that a job requires knowledge of a particular computer software program is a start, however, knowing that the job will likely require someone that can quickly learn additional computer software programs creates a requirement for a candidate that is computer proficient and has shows the ability to learn additional software programs.

• Use behavioural trait assessments throughout an interview. Get the applicant to demonstrate his/her knowledge, skills and abilities through specific experiences. By using this assessment you will be able to determine whether a candidate has the general competencies to perform a particular job.

• Create a process that seeks to assess the thinking abilities of the candidate. You can even decide to formalize a test to meet this requirement. A recent poll conducted found that a majority of job seekers agreed that testing for a job is expected.

·      Assess what your potential employee’s occupational interests are. Find out where they see themselves in the future and what interests they express passion for.

Once you get past the hiring process, don’t forget the value of assessments. Assessment tools can help you continue to improve your organizations performance and productivity by assisting in management decisions on employees. The goals of this type of assessment include:

-       Determining employee satisfaction within the work environment

-       Determine employee promotion expectations

-       Re-evaluation of competencies

These tools will allow you to place “the right person in the right job” and remove the risk of placing a candidate in an unsuitable position. This type of assessment will help retain good employees by helping to assure that the most qualified and motivated candidates are promoted. In addition, you will be able to identify key areas where coaching and additional training would be beneficial to an employee.

Assessments are an ongoing process that is designed not simply to provide a ranking of employee’s but rather a platform for understanding and improving employee performance and work environment. Assessments are used to create our expectations, set appropriate job criteria and establish higher standards of performance. This is accomplished through systematically gathering, analyzing and interpreting information. This information is used to evaluate how performance, matches existing expectations and to use the results to create improvements.