Mastering Talent: Six Key Assessments for Effective Employee Upskilling
A recent McKinsey article titled “Using skill gap assessments to help future-proof your organization”, says, “Organizations that realign HR processes to match skill needs can boost employee engagement by 50 percent, lower training and development program costs by 50 percent, and raise productivity by 40 percent.” This insight highlights the profound impact of skill assessments on crucial aspects of business operations.
Upskilling and internal mobility are the need of the hour to mitigate talent gaps. According to the LinkedIn Future of Work 2024 report, recruiting will be at the forefront of upskilling and internal mobility programs, with 40% of recruiters believing this will influence the future of recruiting in the coming five years. That’s how essential upskilling and internal mobility have become. But how can organisations implement employee upskilling effectively?
The first step is to assess employees across the organisation to understand skill gaps. This helps formulate training and career development plans, creating a more invested and engaged workforce. Getting this right is crucial to meet the skilling objectives. It’s not merely the technical and functional skills that matter anymore; a thorough skill matrix should be prepared for employee assessment plans.
What skills should be assessed?
Assess skills ranging from technical and functional to soft skills. Essential soft skills include customer orientation, problem-solving, adaptability, strategic thinking, and leadership. A holistic skill assessment approach aids strategic initiatives, including refining hiring processes to a skill-based approach. Further, this enables planning effective learning and career development programs with the necessary sponsorship and mentorship.
Let’s see what kind of employee assessments help plan upskilling programs.
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Regular performance appraisals
Most organisations conduct half-yearly or annual performance appraisals to measure employee performance against set objectives. These help understand an employee’s progress during their tenure. If the KPAs and metrics are well designed, communicated, and tracked, the periodic appraisals can provide valuable insights for planning career progression and L&D. However, recency and appraiser bias, inadequate data, and lack of training can be bottlenecks in such appraisals.
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360-degree feedback
In these assessments, HR collects holistic feedback from all stakeholders interacting with an employee to avoid biases. This method provides more comprehensive insights than regular performance appraisals. Challenges to consider include time, confidentiality, and the need to train employees to give and process feedback constructively and unemotionally.
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Cognitive tests
Assessing cognitive skills helps gauge a person’s aptitude, quantitative and logical reasoning. Cognitive tests conducted during hiring might have been satisfactory for a specific role. However, if an employee needs to take on more responsibilities or shift to different roles, it is crucial to reassess their suitability. Cognitive tests help accurately assess this aspect.
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Personality or behavioural tests
To avoid discovering shortcomings post-hiring, many organisations gauge behavioural aspects through personality or behavioural tests during the recruitment process. Traits such as attitude and emotional intelligence (EI) are key enablers for workplace performance. Considering that hiring leaders is a significant challenge, most companies prefer to groom leaders in-house. The starting point would be assessing an individual’s leadership potential through AI-based performance indicator predictions. Additionally, since traits like EI and leadership skills can evolve, periodic reassessment is beneficial to understand an employee’s changing potential.
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Knowledge tests
Technical roles require specific technical capabilities like coding, scripting, and testing. While hiring, a candidate might have cleared the requisite technical tests for a position. However, as companies diversify into various fields and technology advances rapidly, it is essential to reassess the depth of their technical knowledge. This helps plan their career advancement and facilitates upskilling and internal mobility for new projects, instead of hiring.
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Functional tests
Measuring an employee’s knowledge and progression is essential, even for non-technical roles. Every employee undergoes formal and informal training during their tenure. Understanding the effectiveness of this training helps gauge the person’s performance and attitude towards learning. Furthermore, every function from HR to purchase is evolving. A traditional resume-screening recruiter may not be able to deliver the desired results now. The definitions and KPAs of roles such as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Purchase Officer have seen changes with a cascading impact on their team members. Thus, periodic functional tests are required for every role in order to ensure employee growth and engagement.
Ultimately, the type of employee assessments that work best will depend on the organisation’s size, sector, and nature of business. However in the long run, these assessments are crucial for driving the success of any organisation.