The Future of Talent Assessments

According to a MeritTrac and BEAST study, 86% of organisations have moved hiring and assessment online during the pandemic. We see growing popularity in online assessments since hybrid and remote work has become the new norm. A virtual or digital assessment centre can assess candidates in an asynchronous manner giving them the convenience without compromising on the validity and credibility of the tool.

Further, assessments when integrated with technology can expedite the process saving time, money, and resources. Real-life business scenarios and challenges can be embedded in the virtual assessment to get the holistic view of the candidate as well as employees. Whether organisations wait for the need to arise to be future-ready or take advantage of virtual assessment to meet the ever-growing demands of this digital adoption, virtual assessments centres are set to redefine the workforce management in today’s digital enabled world.

Workforces today expect their assessment experiences to be the same as those on social media i.e., interactive. On the other hand, organisations too across industries constantly strive to engage candidates & enhance candidate experience. Gamification is dramatically altering that experience and lets you create a space different from your competitors. Companies are utilising gamification to revamp the entire screening process. For instance, they are turning to quizzes, puzzles, or games with qualifying questions instead of applications and cover letters to assess candidates’ functional competencies and filter them out based on their skills.

Gamification can also help employees in getting trained by offering a more immersive environment to retain learning in a more current and focused manner. One such example is of a manufacturing company who rolled out a program to teach their employees manufacturing processes through a mixed reality game. Organisations across industries will have to consider the possibilities of adding such technologies to enhance candidate as well as employee experience.

Are you using your talent data to develop talent intelligence? If not, then you are expanding your employee pool with clones. Companies can utilise existing talent data to improve their talent lifecycle and take it to a whole new level. By identifying the competencies of top performers in every role, companies can use them as a benchmark to define what an “ideal” candidate looks like.

They can then further use this data to improve the predictive capabilities of their assessment tools to select the right fit. Likewise, taking the competency ratings from individuals’ annual appraisals or recruitment interviews, and averaging the scores of members of a particular group or department can enable them to see which competencies employees are strongest or weakest in as a unit and create development journeys fit for them. As new competencies get added over time, employers can expect this data to become accurate to pinpoint future workforces’ needs and automate the same.

Workforces are growing diverse in culture and preferences at work. These factors affect their behaviour, which ultimately affect their productivity. A trend we are witnessing in the talent assessments space and is expected to grow in the future is diversification in assessments based on cultural sensitivity. Companies are looking to tailor their assessments to the culture of the potential hire. By understanding the cultural background, organisations can assess their values, beliefs, and attitudes they bring to the job.

Through this, organisations will be able to predict candidate & employee behaviours, preferences at workplace & productivity keeping in account geographical and cultural nuances. Further, they would be able to give them the environment they are looking for leading to better employee nurturing and development. To make assessments culturally neutral, companies must go beyond making assessments multi-lingual. The assessment tool must be designed to instil universal cultural markers keeping in mind the global audience. This will help to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace, fostering a sense of belonging. With AI coming into the present picture, we can easily tailor assessments to a specific culture by identifying and analysing cultural nuances.

Assessing employees against pre-defined measures for a said position is an age-old practice. Today, the context is changing, and the future lies in creating assessment-ready job descriptions wherein candidates are assessed based on their natural talents, interests, and motivators rather than their competencies. Based on the results, companies can determine the “fit” of candidates for the particular role.

Alternatively, this can help in creating new roles/ paths to harness such talent for their organisations. A great example of such assessments is in the academic context, where students undergo various personality assessments to determine their future career path based on their natural talents. We might witness a growth in such assessments in the near future where company roles are not bound by competencies but are bound by a candidate’s natural ability.

While assessment has evolved tremendously in the past few years, we now see an emerging need for new technologies that support new approaches to handling this important step in recruiting and HR processes. A new modern approach is required to cater to the growing demands of this shifting demographics at the workplace. Talent assessments will become more individualised, effective, and precise as technology advances to improve assessment objectivity. Innovative assessment tools will continue to not only revolutionise the way companies evaluate talent but also to catalyse the learning and development needs of today’s workforce worldwide.

While the use of the latest technologies is critical, it must be combined with ensuring the reliability and validity of the assessments is maintained at acceptable industry standards while providing excellent candidate experience. At Naman, we have assessed nearly 7000 individuals so far. Our team of assessors deploys a variety of assessment tools to ensure that your talent acquisition gets the right results. Get details about how your organisation can use our technology backed assessment tools in your processes effectively: https://bit.ly/3YqrCzU.