There are a multitude of employee psychometric assessments on the market with the goal of improving performance through access to better information about people. The more we know about people from an objective standpoint, the better we are able to make decisions about hiring and improve training and coaching.

In this article I will refer to the tools that I am familiar with through my company Optimus Performance and my affiliation with my supplier, Profiles International. I have also included two video interviews I conducted with strategic business partners of Profiles International at the World Conference on January 10-13 2013 in Austin Texas.

The most common uses for assessments are hiring, training, coaching, performance management and team building. An important criteria when choosing an assessment tool is to make sure it has stayed current in terms of reliability and validity. This requires regular testing and updating by the assessment company and is essential to assure results are reliable.

Hiring for fit

The key when hiring people is to make sure they fit with the job. According to Susan Hanson of Vero Solutions Inc. (see video), the biggest indicator of job fit is thinking style. Hiring someone with the wrong fit could be extremely costly especially for managerial positions. According to Tim Brennan of Hiring Smart, (see video) it costs up to four times the annual salary to replace a bad hiring decision for a managerial position. This is because the manager affects the performance and productivity of his or her direct reports and also has a direct impact on the customers.

The Profile XT from Profiles International includes thinking style as well as behavioral traits and job interests as part of what is assessed. This is called a total person assessment and it also uses job matching to measure for fit against a pre-determined performance model. See my previous video and blog on this how to hire and select the right person for the job.

The Profile XT is a very versatile tool as it has multiple uses. Besides hiring it can be used for coaching and career or succession planning as it can generate various types of reports depending on the need. Download a sample hiring report.

The term employee engagement has garnered a lot of attention over the last several years as studies have shown the strong correlation between employee engagement and employee performance and productivity. According to the experts at Profiles and as indicated in many studies on engagement, two of the biggest indicators of employee engagement are fit with the job and the relationship between employee and boss. The Profile XT shows the fit not only with the job but also with the boss. The Profile Managerial Fit report shows where the employee is misaligned with their boss and might be the cause of possible conflict.

At the world conference in Austin Profiles International introduced a new tool, the Workplace Engagement Survey. This tool provides a snapshot of the current level of engagement of the workforce and includes a list of indicators that might be the cause of low employee engagement. When employees become disengaged they lack motivation to perform well and this causes low productivity. There are many things an organization can do to address these issues once they gain awareness through such a survey tool.

Another new assessment that was introduced at the conference was the Sales Checkpoint that pinpoints sales competencies that need development in order to achieve the expected sales results. Often both the salesperson and sales manager have not been able to target the cause of poor performance. With more precise knowledge both parties can discuss a plan of action to address these issues. The tool measures 19 skill sets in 7 competencies

Entrepreneurial Approach
Understand the Prospect
Develops Appropriate Solutions
Prospects Proactively
Manages the Selling Process
Closes the Sale
Manages Sales Relationship

The survey takes 15 minutes to complete and provides several reports.

As Tim Brennan said, assessments are now becoming mainstream in all size organizations as business executives and HR directors attempt to get a better handle on employee selection and managing performance.

Stephen Goldberg