Most employers would agree that their staff are a key component of their business success. Loyal, hardworking, talented staff help your business to do well, de-motivated, overstretched and uncommitted staff don’t.
Testing can help you to get to know your people better, so you can help them to perform better.
What Do Tests Measure?
In business, tests are used to measure three basic aspects of people:
- Attainment: what people already know, for instance maths, history, accountancy practice or how to use a computer programme.
- Ability: a persons potential to work well in different areas e.g. numbers, words, diagrams and systems. A copywriter needs to work well with words, an accountant with numbers and a production manager with systems.
- Personality: how people typical like to behave. Personality covers issues such as what motivates an individual, whether they follow the rule book and what role they take up in teams.
What Would I Use Tests For?
With the huge range of tools available, testing and assessment tools can be used in practically all aspects of people management. Four key areas where many businesses find testing useful are:
- Recruitment: Selecting people for jobs, whether they’re external or internal candidates. Tests can be used to create an initial short list (known as sifting), to decide on interview questions or to investigate essential characteristics for a job.
- Retention: Tests can help to manage team relationships, resolve conflict, tailor training programmes and ensure staff are doing the right job for them. A positive work environment where staff feel valued is one they are less likely to want to leave.
- Training: Tests can identify strengths and weakness, pinpoint training needs and be used to evaluate the success of training courses.
- Development: This covers a huge area from individual to organisational development. Tests could be used to coach employees struggling with aspects of their job, put together high performance project teams, assist with change management, or survey potential issues within a team, department or company.