Blogs

– Looking for a Lighthouse in a Storm

Assessment of candidates for jobs and internal postings today is a far cry from the days of written tests with multiple choice questions. A combination of increasing focus on ‘fitment’, organisational requirements, technology advancements, and candidate expectations is driving a sea change in how we measure a person’s or team’s capabilities.

 Technology + Demographics = Change

Millennials’ attitudinal shift has already forced some key changes in HR thinking. Focus has shifted from merely assessing capability to fitment, and alignment of individual career aspirations with organisational roadmaps. Resultant process restructuring shave also accommodated high comfort levels with technology and awareness of personal data privacy–for example, assessment on mobile devices, creating positive candidate experiences, and using unstructured feedback data … to name a few.

Locate the Buoys in the Ocean

Looking toward 2021, it’s imperative to chart a course towards assessment systems which have positive, significant business impact in terms of key objectives like growth, innovation, safety, customer service, etc. Fortunately, there are some clear buoys out there to guide us:

• User experience 
  The scope of user experience will expand to become a two-way exchange of information and experiences. It will unobtrusively collecting data on candidates while simultaneously delivering company & job related information. Data collected herein will be used by recruiters and leaders for team cohesion, leadership continuity and performance management.


• Non-traditional data sources and uses
  A plethora of sources of unstructured but very precise personal data are available today. Machine learning & AI technology can help leverage them very effectively for ongoing analysis to ensure best fit and employee engagement.


• Business impact
  Recruitment managers need to align themselves to business metrics and use assessment analytics to prove linkages between identifying top talent and business impact as a form of ROI.


• Globalization and localization
  One of the challenges to growth through globalization is managing varying technology and data availability across regions. The key to overcoming it will be a core solution which blends in local requirements to maintain continuity of talent sourcing.


• Adaptability 
  Business strategy is changing continuously to adapt to fast evolving business environments. Talent assessment strategies also need to update accordingly, and stay updated on resultant adjustments in organisational requirements and business impact measurement.

Navigating the Dark Waters

Organisations need to chart a course to eliminate ‘hunch’ and subjectivity by taking advantage of the opportunities being created by the rapid advances in assessment technology.
 
The first requirement is to include good partners as part of the crew. As talent selection practitioners, we apply the time tested methods of Industrial-Organisational (I-O) discipline to accurately identify value resources and their potential business impact. Taking it to the next step, I-O psychologists have to collaborate with data scientists to leverage the data within organisations. Insights uncovered through these collaborations, when looped back into refining talent acquisition processes, can bring about significant competitive advantage.
 
New assessment tools like social media analysis, mobile interfaces and virtual/ augmented reality solutions will become mainstream. These will help match job specific requirements with insights on candidates. We will also see AI based ‘robo-assistants’ to carry out mundane and repetitive processes.
 
We can help in the development of customised tools like these, which will go a step further and predict how individuals are likely to react and adapt to anticipated environments.
 
Accurate assessment is the first, important step towards organizational success. Being able to do execute it well will make the subsequent processes of aligning the employee with organisational culture and team dynamics that much easier and ensure maximum ROI.

To know more on this topic, click here or contact any of the IDs below.

Tarandeep Singh
Partner & APME Head of Assessments
Aon Hewitt India Consulting
tarandeep.singh@aonhewitt.com

Vishal Singh
Director
Aon Hewitt India Consulting