Dear HR Leader:

There are only a limited number of ways by which human resources can make a meaningful positive difference to an organization’s bottom line. These include finding fair and valid tools for selecting and placing the right people into the right jobs, implementing performance measurement systems that direct and develop employee efforts in a useful manner, and aligning these tools with important business outcomes.? With this in mind, please consider the following:

A. Does your assessment provider align their assessments with your performance appraisal, or provide aligned performance appraisals for your use?

B.?Does your performance appraisal provider align their performance measures with your assessments, or provide aligned assessments for your use?

C.?Do either of your providers align their tools with your job analysis results or job competency framework?

D.?Do you know how much money your organization is losing by NOT using aligned HR tools??

First, understand that you are devoting as much time and money on tools that are not aligned as you would on tools that ARE aligned.? Using the best tools is not an additional human resources expense—it is a value enhancer that adds incrementally to the organization’s bottom line year after year.?

Now, consider the value of using valid assessments that are not aligned to specific jobs, competencies, or performance measures to screen job applicants: as much as $5,000 per year for employees working for minimum wage, but probably much less because although the assessment may be valid—using it in a generic fashion will reduce its usefulness to zero or below. That’s right—the assessment may actually give you employees who fit the job more poorly than not using the assessment at all—if the assessment is not aligned to the job competencies. What value would there be in selecting a very outgoing person for a job that required working alone for long periods of time? Or, selecting an excellent football player to be on your baseball team??

Next, consider the value impact of using a generic performance measure not aligned to specific jobs, competencies, or assessments to provide performance feedback to employees: None, unless the employee becomes cynical due to the hassle of a being rated with a measure that appears to have little to do with their job, which would result in a negative value (i.e., cost) for using the tool rather than a benefit.?Using a performance measure that is not aligned to job competencies is as valuable to you as providing feedback on how to properly pitch a baseball to a linebacker on a football team.

At the end of the day, if not aligned to the critical competencies of the job, you will find that you have devoted resources to assessments that will give you employees who may or may not fit their jobs, and to performance measures that will give them feedback that may or may not be job related. This leaves you with a little to no combined value—only costs--from using tools that should help your HR processes and the organization’s bottom line, but are not aligned in such a way to do so.?

On the other hand, consider the value of using tools aligned to job analysis results, job competencies, and one another:

There is a very high value associated with using assessments aligned to job competencies to screen and place the right person in the right job; most experts estimate the annual value at around 50% of annual salary!? That is a value of about $15,000 per year per entry level employee (and $75,000+ per leader) for using an assessment for employee screening and placement that is aligned with your job analysis and job competencies. This value comes from reduced turnover, absenteeism, accidents, and workplace issues (e.g., violence, drug use, sexual harassment), plus increased returns from higher performance on job related competencies.

In the same way, there is a very high value associated with using performance measures that provide accurate, useable feedback to employees on job related competencies. Experts estimate the value of this activity—when aligned to jobs--at over 50% of annual salary per employee! As was true of using appropriately aligned assessments, the value for using aligned performance appraisals is at least $15,000 per year per entry level employee and $75,000+ per leader per year. It is not difficult to understand why giving useful job related feedback provides high value due to motivating and directing employees to stop specific unproductive efforts, continue productive job related efforts, and to focus professional development on specific job related competency gaps.

Finally, getting back to our initial questions about your current provider giving you alignment between job competencies, assessments, and performance appraisals, you should now see that using assessments or performance appraisals aligned to jobs provide high value for each activity.? What is the value of having these tools aligned to jobs and to each other?? It is a case of the whole being more than a sum of the parts.? A sum of the parts is certainly impressive: a value of 100% of annual pay per year per employee.? That is, based on adding these values together, the value of using aligned assessments to screen employees and place them in jobs, plus the value of using aligned performance measures to give these employees feedback on their performance, is equal to their annual pay every year. That means that whatever annual value you are getting from employees who you pay $30,000 per year will be $30,000 more each year by using aligned assessments to select them into their jobs and aligned performance appraisals to give them job related performance feedback, at least--or more, because in the case of assessments and performance appraisal aligned to the job and one another—there is an interaction effect that provides higher value than the sum of the parts.? It is a difficult value to quantify, but an example will help to make it clear: Imagine you use assessments to select a musician with high potential, let’s call him Mr. Bach.? He does very well for you—writing many wonderful pieces of music with little to no feedback or coaching.? Now imagine that you give this very high potential musician good performance feedback aligned to his work and useful for his specific developmental needs—you would see the incredible value gained through the interaction between selecting an employee with excellent fit to the job and giving job related performance feedback that leads him to reach his full potential.? Organizational psychology research gives us this overall definition of employee performance:

(Person fit to job based on personality/ability) x (Motivation thru performance feedback) = Successful Employee Performance that drives Business Outcomes

By giving the right person for the job the right performance feedback for success, you will realize much higher return on investment than the simple sum of these values—you will realize the product of these effects multiplied together.?

Call or write to discuss how we can provide your organization with our aligned assessments and performance measures in a Talent Management System to help you realize the full benefits of your HR efforts.?