If your company is like most businesses, your operations, marketing, and sales efforts could be improved. That is where personality and other pre-employment testing come in.
Improvement and high performance requires employees who can increase revenues, reduce costs, improve efficiency, and lead effectively. The process for achieving these goals begins with hiring and promoting the right people. This is accomplished only when your employees have the skills your company needs, the ability to use them, and traits to perform consistentlyat a high level.
A recent white paper highlights this direct linkage between hiring the right people and four critical outcomes: revenues, costs, efficiency, and leadership. According to the report released by SHL Previsor, “it is mission-critical to ensure that new hires and current staff members have the right mix of skills and abilities to be successful.”
That is where personality and other pre-employment testing comes in. Employee assessments helps managers understand whether a potential hire will deliver value to the organization, exposing if an employee would benefit from skills training or personal development opportunities prior to a promotion into a new role. As strategies and market conditions change, expectations and therefore employee capabilities must be adjusted accordingly. It is essential to know whether employees have the skills and competencies necessary to help the organization achieve these new objectives today and in the future.
The SHL Previsor 2011 Business Outcomes Study provided dozens of verified examples of how employee assessment tools provide the clues to make intelligent hiring decisions that deliver bottom line business results. (Admittedly SHL assessments are not part of our assessment portfolio. But their research and case studes write a compelling story for businesses to use empoyee assessments in their hiring and promotion process.)
For example, they cite one study where managers, who earned high scores on a front-line manager assessment, at a retail organization provided 15% more sales and added $1.9 million to the bottom line in only 6 months. Another study showed that high-scoring contact center agents at a cable and communications provider handled more than 500,000 additional calls than low-scoring agents over the course of a year. On average, these high-scoring agents also sold $269 in additional revenue per month. Across the entire workforce, this translates into an additional $1.3 million sales annually.
More sales isn’t the only bottom line benefit derived from using pre employment tests. A telecommunications company reduced turnover by 18%, saving the company $1.1 million. Agents who earned higher scores on a custom-designed job fit scale were 18% less likely to turn over in the first six months.
Employee assessments also predict better managers. At a food retailer, stores directed by high-scoring managers were nearly three times as likely to be top performers on a set of key performance indicators that included sales, growth, operating profit, and shrinkage.
And with the rapid increase in teleworkers and virtual work, assessing candidates and employees who can work remotely is critical. Off-site employees at a health insurance company who earned high scores were twice as likely to receive “superior” performance ratings. Additionally, they were twice as likely to be viewed as independent and responsible, and 89% more likely to be a good fit for the role.
The report also provides a business outcomes table with many more samples of key business results that have been achieved in four key areas: increasing revenue, reducing costs, improving efficiency, and leadership effectiveness. You can download the report here.