The Science Behind Talent Measurement  

Effective talent measurement uses science to improve decisions by providing objective data on people’s competencies and skills throughout the employee life cycle. Talent managers have to know what data is critical to gather and use the most efficient methods to do so.

Even if leaders have great processes, the quality and success of talent decisions is impacted by the quality of information used to make those decisions. Garbage in, garbage out. If managers rely on good data to decide who to hire, promote or where to invest in development, they are more likely to make decisions that lead to better performance, longer retention and ROI for the organization.

Talent Measurement uses science to gauge employee and candidate competencies by providing genuine insight into employee's capabilities and producing objective, consistent and meaningful data for decision makers. PreVisor Inc.’s “2008 Business Outcomes Study” shows effective talent measurement programs can drive key business outcomes across jobs and industries, such as:

  • A 31 percent reduction in 90-day churn among inbound call-center agents.
  • A 43 percent higher likelihood of recently hired insurance agents passing the Series 6 certification exam.
  • A 107 percent improvement in sales call-conversion rate.

The Performance and Potential Puzzle

Imagine six department heads are in a conference room. It’s getting late. There is a large white board covered with numbers, names and notations as they plot the progress and fates of numerous employees. The leaders’ shared goal is to identify the best path for their employees: Who should move roles, who should stay and who would benefit the most from developmental activities?

They make these decisions based on their overall impressions and available information about employees’ past and future success in the organization. On one axis they plot Performance - on the other, potential. Comments made during the process include:

  • "Performance. That’s easy. We measure everyone’s performance here, so we can use that data."
  • "Oh, wait a minute. We only have objective metrics for our people in sales."
  • "And our call-center folks. Nothing for our professional roles, leaders, support staff.."
  • "Hmm. I guess we’ll have to use performance review scores for these other roles. It’s probably the best metric we have."
  • "It’s the only metric we have for most of these folks."
  • "Uh oh, it looks like everyone scored 4 out of 5 on their performance review.."
  • "Let’s come back to that later. What about Potential?"
  • "Hmm. We definitely don’t capture any metrics on that."
  • "I’ve got it…let’s vote!"

Does this process seem effective and fair? What would employees think if knew critical decisions about their careers were made so loosely? These leaders are no doubt well-intentioned. They want to align people with roles that are challenging and rewarding and in which they can be successful. But they simply don’t have the information they need to make good decisions.

Talent Measurement

Effective talent measurement encompasses a number of tools and processes, including:

  • Tests: Valid tests can be used to assess knowledge, skills, abilities, personality traits, vocational interests, values, experience and judgment. Objective tests are characterized by standardized administration and scoring, often automated and delivered over the Internet. Tests are useful in both pre-employment and post-hire applications.
  • Interviews: Science-based interviews are structured and focused on past performance behaviors. Questions typically are organized around key competencies, and all candidates are measured on the same competencies. Good interviews produce scores using a behaviorally anchored rating scale or some other method to synchronize the meaning of a particular score for each competency across interviewers and candidates. Using multiple interviewers per candidate can also improve the predictability of interview scores.
  • Behavior-based performance ratings: To make performance ratings as objective as possible, focus on work behaviors: ”What have I seen this person do on the job.” To combat tendencies to compare employees to each other instead of to the job and other common biases, raters should be trained how to make effective behavior-based performance ratings. Performance ratings may come from a single source, the manager or from multiple sources such as self-ratings, leaders, coworkers and customers.
  • Simulations: Also known as work samples, simulations are highly predictive of on-the-job performance. Simulations can range from short, focused experiences designed around a key competency or skill, to multiday events designed to represent the complexity of the target role. Recent innovations use computer-based simulations to measure targeted skills and performance in complex roles such as customer service or front line manager.

A foundation in science ensures talent measurement techniques gauge skills that are important for success in a particular role. That role may be someone’s current position or a future role. By conducting a careful analysis of the tasks people are expected to perform in their jobs - along with the behaviors that differentiate successful and unsuccessful performance - talent managers can determine the skills portfolio that drives success.

Effectively measuring the right skills means the competency scores or ratings used in decision making actually correspond to the person’s performance in that area. The processes used to collect information about people should be consistent and unbiased. There should be evidence - often statistical - that a given tool produces data specifically related to job performance.

The science part of talent measurement primarily refers to the field of industrial-organizational psychology the science of people at work. Scientist-practitioners in this field apply psychometric techniques to measure human attributes important in work settings.

Researchers have developed and refined various taxonomies of these attributes – for example, describing the nature, number and relative importance of work-related personality traits. Industrial-organizational psychology also has produced job-analysis methods that allow accurate and objective descriptions of role requirements. These processes help ensure data relevance and align the measurement processes and decision systems with business goals and job requirements. The science is highly developed, and it is relatively straightforward to obtain high-quality measures of job-related competencies and skills using valid tools and processes.

Better Talent Management Through Talent Measurement

In talent management, we are interested in getting the right people in the right roles and helping them achieve their fullest potential. But ”talent,” defined as a capacity for success, is not a guarantee of success- though it sure helps. Talent also is domain-specific. That is, one may be especially talented in some activities or job roles and less talented elsewhere. Talent can be a bit elusive, which makes it difficult to quantify.

Measurement is the process of assigning numbers to attributes or competencies and skills. Talent managers have to prove the numbers using tools and evidence to substantiate the numbers they produce and the claims they make about employee’s potential and performance. This competency information fuels improved decisions across several areas.

  • Hiring & Promotion: Making the right hiring and placement decisions can have tremendous impact on individual and organizational performance. Use of valid pre-employment tests, combined with structured behavioral interviews focused on important competencies and success factors, improves quality of hire and predicts key business metrics. It is also increasingly common to incorporate simulations into the candidate evaluation process for many roles, including leadership positions.
  • Training & Development: Understanding what people already do well and where they need help allows for targeted, impactful training and development programs. Assessing employee’s skills using objective tools such as tests, technical interviews and performance ratings can provide the insight talent managers need to decide who has certain skills versus who needs additional training. Talent measurement also can be used diagnostically to plan training and development investments or as an outcome measure to verify whether learning has occurred.
  • Workforce planning: Reliable, objective information about competencies and skills of the individuals that comprise teams, departments or other business units can be useful in workforce planning decisions. For example, bench strength analyses can be conducted to examine the performance and potential of internal talent pools used for succession planning. Further, when normative or benchmarking data is available, competency and skill levels also can be compared to performance in other companies to better inform talent strategy.

Innovation Through Technology

Today’s talent measurement processes combine the best of a century of behavioral science with modern information and communication technology to provide data and insight more quickly and easily. The use of computers and the Internet for administration results in instantaneous, automated scoring and report generation, make it easier than ever to administer multiple types of talent measures, such as skills testing and multisource performance appraisals such as 360s.

The ready availability of computer- and Internet-based tools is driving the proliferation of talent measurement programs, as well as further innovation. For example, unproctored Internet testing (UIT) allows candidates or employees to take assessments from the comfort of their homes or anywhere they can get online. UIT increases the convenience for candidates to participate in the recruiting process and enables organizations to use testing earlier in the hiring process, when it can deliver more powerful prediction and larger efficiency gains.

Computer-adaptive testing (CAT) also takes advantage of the power and speed of modern computers to deliver unique assessments tailored to each individual’s ability level, making for a more accurate, more efficient and more secure testing process. This potent combination of science and technology is being used by leading organizations to supercharge talent management processes.

Talent managers make important decisions about employees and candidates every day that affect their lives, as well as their organizations’ success: who to hire, who to promote and what resources they need to develop and be successful. If managers rely only on assumptions, impressions, incomplete or inaccurate data, decision quality suffers. But if talent managers consistently measure people’s competencies and skills using objective information about employee’s performance and potential, they have the power to radically improve talent management.

 

West Corp.: Measurement Increases Customer and Employee Satisfaction
Dr. Ken Lahti

West Corp. (West) is a leading provider of outsourced communication solutions to many of the world’s largest companies, organization and government agencies. Founded in 1986 and headquarted in Omaha, Neb., the organization has a team of 41,000 employees based in North America, Europe and Asia.

The company helps its clients communicate effectively, maximize the value of their customer relationships and drive greater profitability from every interaction. West has leveraged measurement capability to help build a global presence, lower attrition rates, increase customer satisfaction and put in place measurement tools to promote ongoing employee development.

West Business Services, a subsidiary of West Corp., was experiencing issues impacting productivity and customer relations in two of its business-to-business sales centers. The human resources team wanted to gather more data to determine the root cause and begin to combat the problems.

With most HR problems, there usually is more than one underlying cause from grumbling in the ranks. According to the book Best Practices in Organization Development and Change, the Big 6 employee grumbles include:

  • Infrequent, one-way communications.
  • Unchallenging work.
  • No opportunities to grow and learn.
  • No recognition for performance.
  • No control over the job situation.
  • Lack of feeling that work done makes a difference.

The same issues that cause employees to leave a job also may contribute to overall employee dissatisfaction and lower productivity. It fell to a team led by Vanessa Carey, West Corp.’s director of corporate organizational development, to find a solution.

After careful review of the existing roadblocks and some mapping to the business’ desired future state, Carey’s team recommended a best-practices approach: First, use a 360-degree feedback tool and a validated personality questionnaire as a starting point for future research. Then, collect baseline data on attrition rate, productivity, absentee rate, production quality and employee relations management issues. Follow-up baseline data would need to be collected at six, 12 and 18 months. Activities would focus on development of a strong core management level that could be replicated at all locations.

Once management signed off on the recommended solution, Carey’s team collected the data. Surveys and assessments were given to 42 managers from two West business services locations. The competencies measured included coaching and mentoring, communication, customer focus, judgment and decision making, problem solving and teamwork skills. Once the data was analyzed, participants created action plans with their supervisors.

The data was collected from the two locations and analyzed, and while results were mixed, the initial findings were promising. At location one, for sales associate positions measure over a six-month period, productivity increased measurably, while employee relations issues decreased. At location two, for sales associate positions measured over a three-month period, productivity increased and employee relations issues decreased.

The personality survey also indentified strengths to be utilized in the future. The participants felt they were given an opportunity to voice their opinions freely, take action and have control over their own development plans. This created a heightened level of awareness and focus on customer and employee satisfaction and allowed the Big 6 to be addressed. Further, there were specific actions that showed positive results in the first six months, and these will continue to be measured during the next 12 months.

To get the best results from an initiative of this importance:

  • Build a communication strategy on many levels and frequency.
  • Have organizational buy-in and make participation mandatory.
  • Communicate the purpose of the tools to avoid skepticism.
  • Review data frequently.
  • Implement rewards for sticking to an action plan.
  • Be aware that change takes time.

"By involving different levels in the organization, this exercise helped fuel employee engagement," Carey said. “We also feel we can potentially use the personality test results to establish baseline data on current employees, which can be used for future hiring. And possibly the most important benefit, we’ve opened communication lines for change. This will allow our employees to work together to achieve West’s business goals more efficiently and rapidly."