Psychometric Instruments: The Hidden Perks From Recruiting to Retention
Did you know that the history of psychometrics dates as far back as 1886? And that the word psychometrics itself stems from the idea of measuring the human psyche (meaning a person’s soul, spirit or mind).
On a more concrete level, the prevailing purpose for psychometric instruments is often that of measuring personality differences or “assessing” an individual’s innate nature. The term “assessment” tends to be preferable over “test” simply because there is no way to “fail” this kind of questionnaire.
Initially developed as a way to assess various aspects of intelligence (like an I.Q. test), psychometric theory can be used to assess a range of personal traits:
- Personality
- Aptitudes
- Beliefs
- Academic Success
- Consumer Behavior
- and so on…
While predominantly used as a recruiting tool, psychometric instruments can be of considerable benefit in career orientation, staff retention, talent management and personal development too.
Top psychometric tools go beyond basic assessments to help with business practices: optimize the recruiting process, best leverage existing human capital, and enhance staff satisfaction levels.
Using Psychometrics to Get the Right Person in the Right Job
Over the years, psychometric assessments have been recognized as a valuable recruiting tool. At this early stage in an employer-employee relationship, the goal is to determine which candidates are most suitable by getting a sense of their potential, their needs and seeing if they’re a good “fit”. It’s also possible to look at a person’s natural behavioral inclinations to serve in sound hiring decisions.
Naturally, for this to work, two things are necessary. The instrument must be able to assess core aspects of a candidate’s personality in relation to the specific position and work setting. Then, the recruiter must be able to see how closely the candidate and the job actually match.
Reliable and properly validated psychometric assessment solutions provide users with scientifically based data to help recruiters make more enlightened decisions. Rather than base decisions solely on personal perceptions, with an instrument, the interfering cognitive bias is thus, thankfully, eliminated.
Using Psychometrics for Onboarding
Psychometric assessment tools supply vital information to support in onboarding new team members. But first, the relevant supervisors need to know about their own communication styles.
Psychometric data can aid in gaining an awareness of our own personal dynamic, insofar as communication and leadership style is concerned. Adapting one’s own style to better communicate with a new hire is entirely feasible.
Having a clearer grasp of each person’s innate talents and key competencies will simply aid in staff development efforts so that new recruits can acquire skills and eliminate competency gaps related to a new job. Then, a fresh situational analysis (ideally using an instrument) should be carried out a few weeks in.
Some instruments, such as MPO, can be used to periodically assess employee perception and employee wellbeing. This helps ensure new recruits are happy in their new roles. A quick fifteen-minute questionnaire supplies crucial data so you can make adjustments where necessary.
This is all a worthwhile investment when you consider that the cost of each new hire is around $4,000 (source: Glassdoor) and the cost of replacing someone is estimated at about 20% of the position’s salary (source: Peoplekeep).
A Little-Known Perk to Psychometrics: Staff Retention!
Many businesses focus on overhauling their company’s structure, processes, systems… Despite the fact that the best path to optimized business profitability and productivity is to enhance its core working capital: its human resources.
Business performance is closely linked to the performance of the humans running it. To enhance that performance, the right people need to be in the right jobs. It can happen that businesses might seek to recruit externally when they’ve neglected to analyze the internal talent pool already at their fingertips.
Other companies are constantly juggling high staff turnover due to departures that stem from dissatisfaction. The answers might be relatively simple: perhaps build a proper competency inventory and collect data on the existing talent pool.
With a fast and effective solution, talent and skills can be quickly and easily assessed. Team leaders can check in on their teams regularly. These solutions make it easier to pick up on who’s worth developing further – seeing where you can turn talent into new competencies with greater ease. And this is perhaps the best way to retain and grow human capital.
Conclusion
Reliable, scientifically validated psychometric tools give businesses a wealth of unexpected and lesser-known benefits. Starting with recruiting and moving through onboarding, organizational development, talent management, retention practices and more…these tools are essential for success.
Reliable data means informed decision-making and better business performance when it comes to productivity, profitability and personnel growth. Used wisely, psychometric instruments can propel a business to reach its highest potential.