Employee Motivation Testing

Managers want employees who are productive and engaged. But self- motivation is one of the most difficult traits for a recruiter or hiring manager to accurately and scientifically assess. It makes sense then that employee motivation testing should top the wish list of pre-employment tests for so many organizations. Identifying which candidates exhibit the right attitudes and possess enough energy to keep with the organizational pace before they are placed on the payroll seems like a no-brainer.

Here are examples of employee motivation testing tools that can be used to help accomplish this goal before doing the final hiring:

Interview for employee motivation

The first step in employee motivation testing is to establish a baseline metric for yourself as to what you expect from a potential employee when you meet them for the first time. These items are not particularly difficult for the prospective employee to meet but they will help to weed out job candidates who lack discipline, motivation, and the right attitude. For instance:

• Did they show up for the interview on time?
• Did they come prepared?
• Did they research your company and understand the job?
• Did they reach out to any current or former employees?
• Did they engage you and seem engaged with your questions?

Naturally, an employer will want to delve much deeper into the prospect’s skills and experience but by focusing on these five questions, a manager can bring a quick end to an unproductive interview or spur a conversation that keeps the interview going.

Employee motivation testing

There are several types of employee motivation testing available for the human resources professional. Some are designed for use after a new employee has been hired but a few can be used in the screening and pre-hire stages of employee selection. For example, these three tests provide a sneak peak into the motivation and attitudes of an employee:

• Business Motivators – what does the employee value?
• Proception2 DISC – how energized is the employee when it comes to problems, people, pace, and procedures?
• Quality of Motivation – how efficiently and effectively will an employee use his or her motivation?

These tests and others like them are just the beginning of motivating your employees but they do offer a firm foundation of where to direct your future energies.

Team building exercises

Like so many other human qualities, there is no magic formula for employee motivation testing. What’s right for one organization might be less effective in another. But one practice that seems to work universally is the utilization of team building exercises. Observation of candidates during the exercise can detect which employees are motivated to lead, to follow, and just to tag along.

These exercises can range from “barter” type games that reward cooperation through games that measure initiative like “Use What You Have” to “Organizational Jenga” that illuminates how each employee is motivated to collaborate and take risk. The best employee motivation testing tool depends on what information you need to know to ensure a good hiring or career development decision.