Finding and retaining quality employees—the right people for the right jobs—is the defining challenge of HR. Even the most rigorous hiring process that involves multiple interviews, background checks, reference checks, and a trial period can end in the hiring of a candidate who quickly turns out to be totally wrong for the job. Despite your best efforts, miscommunication can occur, and your company and a new hire may enter into the relationship with misconceptions about each other.
How can HR managers ensure they really are hiring the right person for the right job? Assessments may be the solution, both for finding the right person and for helping that employee grow and improve throughout his or her tenure with your company.
“A friend once told me she filled out a questionnaire and got a job,” says Carla Vilar, Vice President of Human Resources, Worldwide at Orion Holdings, a division of the Interpublic Group. “No interview. Just got the job. That’s the power of assessments.”
A unique business model meant Orion had difficulty filling positions and turnover was high. “We had a hard time having the stakeholders, the hiring managers, identify the right criteria for the roles that we were filling,” Vilar says. “We needed to get everyone on the same page to identify the right criteria for the role and identify the right candidates.”
Vilar went back to her lucky friend, who told her about an assessment tool called Predictive Index, also known as P.I. The tool presents candidates with sets of adjectives and asks them to pick one word. The system uses the candidate’s answers to make predictions of a person’s primary behaviors, motivators, demotivators, judgment, maturity, beliefs, and decision-making abilities.
“It was quick and easy, and you received the results immediately,” Vilar recalls. To test the test, she took it herself. The results, she says, were nothing short of amazing. “I compare it to going to a psychic except I didn’t spend the 50 bucks! It was as if whoever devised the test knew me so well, although they’d never met me. They knew how I would react to a conflict, what motivated me, what demotivated me, and it was eerily accurate.”
To convince management of the tool’s usefulness, she gave the test to the CEO, the media director, and the company receptionist. She stripped the names from the reports and placed them in front of the CEO. Within two minutes he was sold.
Hiring is a three-level process, Vilar notes: first impressions, credentials (resume, experience, knowledge, skill set, etc.), and judgment/decision-making ability. “Most hiring managers make decisions on the first two levels and don’t dig deeper into the third. Yet when we’re firing an employee it’s usually because of level three.” Assessment tools help hiring managers acquire a better understanding of those level-three factors—the ones that ensure you’ve not only hired the right person but that he or she will stick around and grow with your company.
Since adopting the Predictive Index, Orion has seen its turnover rate drop 10 percent in the first two years of implementation. “I went looking for a tool to help with recruiting and finding the right employees, and ended up with a tool that can really live through the life cycle of an employee.” Orion also uses other assessments to improve efficiency and productivity, and to coach for employees’ strengths and weaknesses.
Vilar offers some advice for HR managers considering using an assessment tool: “Think about the impact it can have on your business. Think about what you’re trying to achieve in terms of your business goals. What is your why? What are you trying to accomplish? Why do you need a tool? Why would the organization benefit from a tool? Then find the tool that works for you.”
