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Achieving Productivity

and Engagement Through


Data-Driven Talent Decisions
How smart employee data from psychometrics and other measures can benefit your
business at each stage of the Talent Management Lifecycle

November 2017
Executive Summary

Securing the right people, developing a strong employer brand and value
proposition, and aligning your people with your corporate goals, are vital success
factors for every business. While ‘talent’ will always be the greatest asset – and often
the biggest expense – for any organization, ‘data’ is a strategic resource that can help
you to identify and resolve all of your talent-related challenges.

This paper examines how HR, talent and recruitment teams can make data-driven
employee decisions that will improve productivity and engagement by collecting and
using crucial insights from the seven stages of the Talent Management Lifecycle.

These stages cover talent planning, attraction, selection, onboarding, ongoing


development and succession planning, performance management and engagement
and retention (and the employee’s eventual exit from the organization). At each
of these stages, data can be gathered via psychometric assessments, performance
appraisals, engagement surveys, exit polls and other measures and these can
transform the success of your organization recruitment.

In addition to helping you continuously improve your talent management practices, this
data can enable you to build and fine-tune predictive talent analytics algorithms. These
can help you fairly and objectively identify the best candidates for the job and adjust
your talent strategy to suit the changing dynamics and opportunities in your market.

However, while many employers collect relevant data, few ‘join it up’ to
make data-driven talent decisions. This paper explains how to convert your ‘big data’
into ‘smart-talent data’.

Doing this will help you differentiate your employer brand, recruit the right people (and
avoid the disruption and ‘damage’ of hiring the wrong people), manage and develop
your staff more effectively, enhance employee engagement, make talent decisions that
are based on proven evidence (not hunches or guesswork) and boost retention.

Recruiting individuals who will stay longer, be more engaged and perform better will
lead to higher customer satisfaction and stronger business performance.

2 Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions


Introduction

Data are an essential corporate resource. Data can help your organization understand
the market, spot trends, respond better to customers, develop new products and
make considered business decisions. Importantly, it can also help you increase
productivity and raise engagement by making better talent decisions. However, while
every company has large datasets, relatively few are truly able to convert their big
data into smart talent data.

This paper highlights how HR, talent and recruitment teams can make best use of all
of their available employee data. It introduces the concept of a seven-stage Talent
Management Lifecycle and explains how employee data can be collected and utilized
at each stage using psychometric assessments, performance appraisals, engagement
surveys, exit polls and other measures in order to achieve greater value.

This paper provides best-practice insights, based on Aon’s experience and


observations, as well as case examples illustrating how leading employers are
benefiting from data-driven talent decision-making.

Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions 3


Breaking Down the Talent
Management Lifecycle
The process of talent management tends to follow seven stages in organizations. These are:

Talent Planning (a necessary preliminary step)

Attraction

Selection

Onboarding

Ongoing Development and Succession Planning

Performance Management and Engagement

Retention (and the individual’s eventual exit from the organization)

Let us examine each stage in order to uncover what data are available and how you
can use that data:

1. Talent Planning
Most organizations recruit tactically rather than strategically. They react to situations or
opportunities that arise, rather than planning their talent needs based on their business
goals and their competitive environment. Talent planning should be an ongoing
process, not a one-off event — it is the foundation of effective talent management.

The first step when hiring talented employees is to know what you are looking for. In
other words, you need to clearly define the roles within your organization and specify
not only the tasks of the job, but the exact competencies, abilities and job-related
behaviors that are critical for success.

Your organization may have its own competency model that you can draw on; however,
be careful you are not lured into looking for individuals who ‘tick all the boxes’. For
example, many employers have strategic thinking in their competency model, but does
a candidate really have to be strategic in order to be identified as having potential?
The quality of strategic thinking can be learned. The danger in always looking to
match all the competencies in your model is that you can reject candidates who don’t
currently have the ‘right’ set of behaviors. The challenge, therefore, is to ensure that the
framework that you are using for talent management is truly potential-focused.

4 Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions


Data will be available from your existing employees. Identifying the skills and
attributes that differentiate top performers from average performers in each role
can help you create a ‘Success Profile’ of an ideal employee. Importantly, you should
consider what ‘good’ looks like in the role and also what ‘bad’ looks
like, so that you know the difference. This will give you a better understanding
of the competencies, personality, knowledge, skills, experience, attitude, values
and behaviors that bring success. In your selection process, you can then check the
suitability of each candidate by matching them against this profile. For example, if
employees with an entrepreneurial attitude tend to succeed in your organization, that
would be a trait to measure in your selection process.

Conducting a thorough job analysis is the critical starting point for evidence-based
hiring and data-driven decision-making. In the United States, it is a key requirement
of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, which protect against
discrimination in employment practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or
national origin and promote fair testing in order to address adverse impact.

2. Attraction
Attracting candidates to join any organization is a significant challenge. You need to
understand what makes your company different and why people should want to work
for you. You then need to consistently communicate these messages on your careers’
site and in your advertisements, social media and promotions. The following three
aspects will help you:

• Having a differentiated employer brand. Your employer brand is your reputation


and the distinctive strengths your organization projects to the outside world. It
encompasses an ‘employee value proposition’, which is the value employees will gain
from being part of your organization. Building a compelling employee brand — one
that consistently aligns with the competencies and characteristics that are important
in your organization — will help you attract the right people. However, you must
ensure that your hiring process reflects your employer brand.

• Knowing what you want will help you look for candidates in the right
places. Using the data identified in your job analysis should help you define your
target audience, strategically place your job postings and use the right platforms
for sourcing candidates. Do not forget that your current employees can be an
important source of referrals for other great candidates.

Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions 5


• Conducting pre-application screening with a Realistic Job Preview.
You can help potential applicants make an informed choice about whether your
organization is right for them by introducing Realistic Job Previews, allowing
them to self-assess their suitability for a job before they apply. Delivered via a
smartphone, tablet or desktop, a Realistic Job Preview provides an interactive and
engaging experience with specific examples of typical on-the-job challenges.
Candidates are asked what they would do in each situation and are given
instant feedback on their suitability. If they feel unsuited to the role or to your
organization, they will not apply, saving both them and you time and effort.

Those who apply will do so with realistic expectations of what the role will involve.
Remember, the process of employee engagement starts with the very first contact
that job candidates have with you. A Realistic Job Preview provides an early
opportunity to give a good impression of your employer brand. It also helps to fill
your applicant pool with candidates who are well-matched to your requirements
and values.

Studies show that candidates who have a better understanding of the job before
they apply tend to stay longer. Feedback data from candidates, once they have been
appointed, will help you fine-tune your Realistic Job Previews in order to ensure that
they closely match the reality of the workplace.

3. Selection
Different assessment tools will predict different behaviors and skills. Therefore,
your choice of which assessments to use will depend on the specific abilities and
competencies you require.

For example, a personality questionnaire can measure the finer details of job-specific
competencies. Other traits, such as integrity and creativity, can be measured with
specific instruments. Aptitude tests, such as verbal, numerical and logical reasoning
tests, measure a candidate’s cognitive abilities. Situational judgment questionnaires
assess the decisions a candidate makes — in the context of your organization — and how
he or she will react when faced with a specific work scenario, giving you an insight into
the candidate’s likely behavior. Career-choice assessments can even help candidates
better understand their strengths and ultimately choose the right career path.

6 Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions


New-style assessments, such as video interviewing tools, game-based assessments,
virtual reality assessments and social media analysis tools, can be used alongside
traditional psychometric tests to differentiate your organization, motivate applicants
and attract and recruit the best talent.

With validated assessments in place, you can avoid the cost of making bad hiring
decisions. Hiring the wrong candidate not only involves re-recruitment and
redundant training costs, it compounds the crippling disruption attrition can cause
and over-stretched colleagues are forced to take on an increased workload. There
is increased pressure on managers and a negative impact on morale and this affects
service levels and customer experience. You can avoid this disruption by identifying
shortlist candidates who have the personality traits and the abilities required for
success in each role.

Importantly, your selection process should be:

• Fair. It should not disadvantage potential applicants or discriminate against any


group. Your process should be free of any bias or adverse impact against aspects
such as a candidate’s gender or national origin. Your assessments must not only
be valid and reliable, they should also feel relevant and appropriate to candidates.
Test providers call this “face validity” which simply means that the test should look
like it measures what it is supposed to measure.

• Candidate-centric. It’s no longer enough to simply assess your candidates; you


now need to actively engage them in the assessment process and leave them
with a positive impression of your organization. Aim to provide an extraordinary
candidate experience that communicates your values and fits your employer
brand. To achieve this, your assessments need to be short, visually appealing,
interactive, objective and indicative of the everyday situations that individuals will
experience in your workplace. Remember, candidates will form opinions about
your organization based on how they are treated during the selection process.

• Consistent and accessible. Today’s recruiters need to ‘meet candidates where


they are’ (and, increasingly, they’re on the go). There’s a distinction between
assessments that are mobile-enabled (can be played on a mobile device) and
mobile-first (tests that have been purpose-built for mobile devices). A test might
play on a mobile device but if it is not optimized for that format, it will penalize
candidates because they will not be given the same testing experience they would
get on a desktop computer.

Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions 7


• A mobile-first test will consistently predict job performance, regardless of whether
candidates complete them on a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone. This is
because exactly the same test experience is provided on every device. Mobile-first
tests support globally-consistent recruiting and they also help promote diversity, as
individuals who do not own a desktop computer can still apply.

• Competency-based. Hiring managers should be trained to conduct thorough,


competency-based interviews that cover all aspects of the role. Some personality
questionnaires generate an interview guide which provides hiring managers
with probing questions that they can ask to check and verify each candidate’s
competencies, behaviors and suitability.

The right assessments will help you find the optimum person/job match. Predictive
talent analytics can also be generated by comparing employees’ assessment results to
their performance data. The additional insights gained from this step can drive better
talent decisions and help recruiters identify high performers more consistently.

4. Onboarding
Onboarding is a strategic imperative and a critical step in the Talent Management
Lifecycle. It is an opportunity to make sure that new employees not only feel welcome
and part of the team, but also understand what is expected of them, how they fit into the
organization, how they can be successful in the role and what the future holds for them.

Data gathered from selection assessments can be used to create a personal


development plan for each individual and it can help match new employees to the
right mentor, based on their personality and abilities. Survey new recruits to identify
what they thought about your assessment process and correct any gaps between
their experiences and your intentions.

Make sure they understand their duties, their line of authority and their pastoral care
options. Involve them and make them feel valued from day one.

Helping people adjust to your workplace and answering their administrative, social,
cultural and career development queries will help them quickly become confident,
engaged and productive.

8 Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions


5. Ongoing Development and Succession Planning
Data from your assessments can help your employees better understand their strengths,
as well as their development needs and take responsibility for their careers. The insights
provided can spark better and more meaningful development conversations.

By leveraging your data, you can even create ‘organizational heatmaps’, which
can highlight the jobs, geographical areas, departments and teams where specific
development is required.

Assessment data can also help coaches better understand the individuals they
are coaching. As a result, they will be better able to explore the strengths and
development needs of these individuals, taking into account their career goals and
personal challenges.

The important point here is that you should take proactive action to manage and
develop your talent, whether that is through development programs, coaching, or
mentoring or by giving them the opportunity to work on specific projects. Whichever
development solutions you choose, 360 degree feedback can provide data on each
individual’s progress.

New online survey tools (such as Aon’s effect) can also measure the productivity
and effectiveness of teams at every level and provide concrete suggestions to help
the team improve performance and achieve their goals. This is different from a 360
degree feedback assessment, as the individuals will not necessarily rate each other.
Instead, they will assess what they observe in the team, how it functions and how the
team’s productivity can be improved.

Identifying and developing a pipeline of employees who can step up to become your
future leaders and senior managers makes sound business sense. Having appropriate
people who can perform in every role, especially the top ones, reduces the damage
that can be inflicted if a key executive leaves or retires. Equally important, it creates
confidence in the current leadership team, as it shows they have acted to safeguard
and ensure the future of the organization.

Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions 9


Investment analysts and other key stakeholders are increasingly talent-smart. They are
not only interested in who is leading your organization; they are also paying attention
to the understudies who can step into senior roles.

In every succession planning scenario, look holistically at the requirements of the


role and the needs of the business, based on your future strategy. Having data-based
profiles of your staff (with details of their personality, interests and abilities) can help
you match individuals who have the attributes and the potential for senior roles. Plug
any gaps with development programs or tailored work experiences.

6. Performance Management and Engagement


Two crucial questions for talent management are: how are people performing? And
how engaged are they in both their role and the organization?

Data from performance reviews will help you answer the first question. Ensure that
your performance management process is optimized. Does it help you understand
people’s capabilities, how they are performing, their potential and exactly what
will engage and motivate them? Are you setting clear goals and providing frequent
feedback? The right tools will provide the data that will enable line managers to have
more focused and more productive talent conversations.

Using 360 degree feedback instruments can provide data about employees’ current
effectiveness, the quality of their relationships, their aptitude for learning and their
potential to grow and develop. Combining 360 degree feedback data with your other
talent data can provide a well-rounded picture of your employees.

The second question can be answered with surveys that measure engagement
and employee satisfaction. Studies show that organizations with a more engaged
workforce consistently outperform competitors. However, different people want
different things from their work. Some want reward, recognition and career
progression. Others want independence, personal growth and work/life balance.

Survey data can help you make each employee feel more engaged and committed
at work. Using this to create action plans for improvement can not only improve
bottom-line results, but also lead to increased employee retention, reduced
absenteeism and enhancements in service quality and customer satisfaction.

10 Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions


7. Retention
The final, crucial aspect of talent management is to ensure that each employee’s job is
challenging, interesting and fun. Employees want a sense of accomplishment and they
want to feel the time they have spent at work has been worthwhile. If you are able to
achieve this and meet their expectations of work, you will retain your employees.

On the other hand, if you have over-hyped your employer brand and created a false
expectation of what it will be like to work in your organization, you may succeed in
attracting good people but you will fail to retain them.

If people resign, it is important to identify the reasons why they want to leave. Face-
to-face exit interviews are time-consuming, costly and often misleading
(as the person leaving may not feel he or she can be honest). Exit surveys provide an
alternative way of capturing exit data and usually elicit more candid feedback.

This data can help you to create interventions that will correct the drivers of attrition.
It may also prompt you to make changes in your candidate attraction strategy;
your Realistic Job Previews and your selection, development and performance
management processes.

Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions 11


Putting it All Together

At each stage of the Talent Management Lifecycle, data are gathered. However, many
employers fail to ‘join up’ that data. They do not use it to track or review their talent and
do not use it to make data-driven talent decisions. Using and refining your data at every
stage can help you continuously improve your talent management practices. You can
also build and fine-tune predictive talent analytics algorithms that will help you adjust
your talent strategy to suit the changing dynamics and opportunities in your market.
Integration is Key

Integration is key to this. If you can connect your different systems, such as your
applicant tracking system, your HR system and your performance management
system so that data can move seamlessly between them, it becomes much easier to
mine, compare and use data in ways that were not possible before. This can help you
make the transition from big data to smart talent data.

Creating talent analytics — by comparing the assessment data of successful candidates


with their post-hire performance data in the role, such as data and metrics about
their productivity, their engagement, their line manager and peer ratings and their
customer satisfaction ratings — can provide fresh insights on the attributes and
characteristics that will predict high performance in your organization. The resulting
insights will help you amend your Success Profiles accordingly for each role and these
will give you new perspectives on how you can enhance every other stage of your
Talent Management Lifecycle.

Bear in mind that specialist knowledge and tools are required to manage and analyze
data. If your organization does not employ data scientists and does not have the
necessary hardware and software or, if you do not partner with a specialist who can
help you make sense of your data, then you should make rectifying these omissions a
strategic priority.

With the right support, you will be able to ‘interrogate’ your data to gain relevant
insights that will drive appropriate talent actions.

12 Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions


At Aon, we work on data projects with clients in areas, such as predictive talent
analytics, where we help them identify and recruit high-performing staff while
reinforcing their employer brand. We enable HR and talent teams to use and make
sense of their data—and we guide them with insights from our own research to ensure
that they create an action plan for the future that is based on proven evidence and
not hunches or guesswork.

We also regularly review the talent market to examine what is changing and evolving.
This enables us to present clients with credible studies and insights that can be shared
with stakeholders in order to support key decisions and strengthen HR’s value within
the business.

Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions 13


Conclusion

Regardless of what your organization actually does, smart data can transform the
success of your business by giving you a better understanding of your talent.

The ability to make fair and objective data-driven talent decisions can help you
differentiate your employer brand, recruit the right people, manage and develop your
staff more effectively, enhance employee engagement and boost retention. Recruiting
individuals who will stay longer, be more engaged and perform better will lead to
higher customer satisfaction and stronger business performance.

14 Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions


Appendix: Data-driven Talent
Decision-making in Practice at Dell
Individuals who have Increasing Revenues and Profit at Dell
these personality Computer technology company, Dell, has seen the positive business impact of using
traits deliver 42% more data-driven decision-making to get the right salespeople on board.
profit for Dell than
those who do not.”
Sales staff were taking up to seven months to achieve full productivity and Dell
was experiencing early attrition. To address this situation, Aon (previously cut-e)
analyzed the personality data, sales revenues and profitability performance of 1,700
salespeople across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The results revealed
the characteristics that make the difference between top sales performers at Dell and
average performers. In other words, it showed which personality attributes make a
positive impact on sales and which actually have a negative impact on the company.

Armed with these insights, Aon created a validated Success Profile of an individual
who can adapt well and succeed at Dell. Individuals who have these personality traits
deliver 36% more revenue from sales and 42% more profit for Dell than those who do
not possess them.

Aon worked closely with Dell to refine their selection process and introduce more
consistent interviewing. This made it easier for Dell’s hiring managers to spot
candidates with the desired traits.

By systematically applying this model and recruiting against it, Dell is now
experiencing the direct impact of accurately identifying and consistently appointing
salespeople across EMEA who are more likely to be successful in the role and a good
fit for the company. Besides improving the quality of its hires and their retention, Dell
has also enhanced the candidate experience in its selection process.

Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions 15


Appendix: Data-driven Talent
Decision-making in Practice at Elkjøp
Recruiting more Driving Benefits Worth €12.3m at Elkjøp
suitable candidates Norwegian consumer electronics retailer, Elkjøp, which has 400 stores and 9,500
has helped Elkjøp employees—was experiencing 20% annual staff turnover because its expensive
increase sales by 18%.” and inefficient recruitment process was hiring people who turned out to be
unsuitable. The company was also relying on headhunters to recruit externally
for management roles.

Analysis by Aon (previously cut-e) showed that Elkjøp’s top performers were
contributing 50% more to store revenues than their ‘average’ employees and their
lowest sales performers were contributing 58% less than an average employee.

In a validation study, Aon identified the characteristics of the top performers. A new
selection process was designed which included ability tests, a personality test and
competency-based interviews to identify the best candidates. Aon also advised Elkjøp
on how to select new managers internally, instead of relying on external recruitment
specialists.

The results have been dramatic. Reducing early attrition has saved Elkjøp €3.68m per
year (enhancing the efficiency of their recruitment process has saved €241,800; and
recruiting managers internally, rather than using headhunters, has saved €864,150).

Most importantly, recruiting more suitable candidates has helped Elkjøp increase
sales by 18%, resulting in €7.5m in additional revenue. That’s a total impact of nearly
€12.3m of benefits.

16 Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions


Appendix: Data-driven Talent
Decision-making in Practice at easyJet
The revolutionized Revolutionizing Selection at easyJet
hiring process has easyJet, Britain’s biggest airline, has improved the quality and the ‘fit’ of new recruits
saved easyJet 6,000 for its cabin crew positions in 30 countries, while cutting logistical costs and reducing
interviewing hours.” recruitment time.

Aon (previously cut-e) created a Realistic Job Preview for the cabin crew role, which
provides interactive insight into the job and helps prospective applicants find out
if the role and easyJet’s values, are appropriate for them. As a result, the airline only
receives applications from who are suitable and enthusiastic.

The use of ability tests and a situational judgment questionnaire then helps them
identify and focus on high-quality candidates earlier in their selection process. The
situational judgment questionnaire takes into account how easyJet wants its cabin
crew to act and also react in their roles. To further improve the efficiency of easyJet’s
assessment centers, Aon developed a paperless solution in which candidates access
video clips and conduct quizzes and exercises on smartphones and tablets, enabling
instant feedback to be provided.

All of these steps have revolutionized easyJet’s hiring and enabled the airline to
select the right people, enhance its employer brand and saved 6,000 interviewing
hours because recruiters are better at focusing their efforts and resources on those
candidates most likely to succeed.

Achieving Productivity and Engagement Through Data-Driven Talent Decisions 17


Contact
To learn more about Aon’s
Assessment Solutions, visit us at:
assessment.aon.com

Or email us at:
APME.assess@aon.com
Europe.assess@aon.com
NA.assess@aon.com

About Aon
Aon plc (NYSE:AON) is a leading global
professional services firm providing a broad
range of risk, retirement and health solutions.
Our 50,000 colleagues in 120 countries
empower results for clients by using proprietary
data and analytics to deliver insights that
reduce volatility and improve performance.

About Assessment Solutions


Aon’s Assessment Solutions includes the cut-e
and CoCubes brands and operates as part of
Aon’s global offering in talent solutions, helping
clients achieve sustainable growth by driving
business performance through people
performance. Aon’s Assessment Solutions group
undertakes 30 million assessments each year in
90 countries and 40 languages.

For further information on our capabilities and


to learn how we empower results for clients,
please visit http://aon.mediaroom.com.

© Aon plc 2019. All rights reserved.


The information contained herein and the statements expressed
are of a general nature and are not intended to address the
circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Although
we endeavor to provide accurate and timely information and
use sources we consider reliable, there can be no guarantee
C1185US 12.18

that such information is accurate as of the date it is received or


that it will continue to be accurate in the future. No one should
act on such information without appropriate professional advice
after a thorough examination of the particular situation.

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