The trouble with Talent Assessment Software...

In all the years I have been in the Talent sector I have yet to entirely buy into the Cultural / Personality Assessment tools in the marketplace, I have seen candidates game the system to meet given criteria, or the problem of line managers and internal hiring teams having little understanding of the context to the assessments and what it means for their organisation or products that offer shiny UX experiences backed with little in the way of actual science!

For years I have had a growing urge to develop a better solution that recognises that Hiring, Skilling up, and retaining skilled individuals are not separate aspects of the work experience, they are a chain that combines to form the backbone of your business each reliant on the other. Who you hire, how you train them, the career journey you put in place for them, and who oversees that experience are all part of the same conundrum.

For the past 18 months we have been working with the team behind the Gold winning Olympic team, the same individuals who took the GB Cycling team from nowhere to global leaders to assist in the development of a ground-breaking assessment tool that has led us to form a three-party alliance with MyPeople, 100 and First and Hurren and Hope. Drawing on each of our expertise in Performance management, Recruitment, and Coaching. I genuinely believe we are bringing something different to the market, something that will not only set organizations apart from their peers during the candidate attraction phase but also cultivate excellent work experiences that benefit both individuals and Company leaders.

It is, without doubt, a fact how you hire and who you hire will shape the culture and success of your business. It’s something Hurren and Hope have been doing for years and we have become very good at it, but what happens when we find the perfect candidate and they join your organisation? What happens if you are hiring 10’s or 100’s of individuals into your rapidly scaling company how do you ensure those individuals stay with you, ‘grow with you’ how do you measure their experiences and take that knowledge to develop your people strategy? How do you identify and deal with the root causes behind the symptoms you see that are creating lower productivity or attrition? And this is the rub with the software currently in this space.

"Paying for assessment software for hiring or for your ongoing culture is the equivalent to taking your car to the garage with a fault, the mechanic plugging in a diagnostic tool, turning to you with an F44478Z fault code, closing the bonnet and walking away."        

It means nothing without the skills and wisdom to resolve the issue. Lets put this in to a slightly more people orientated context. Can your software identify burnout/PTSD in your workforce? many claim they can, I beg the question if that is the case having reviewed many of the main tools in the market but for this example lets assume it can. A department is identified as having a high risk for burnout, how do you address that? All too often employers are either not equipped to manage the minefield of mental health, either you are too close to the situation or you lack the experience that comes from years of focusing on this area of the world of work. So… one of the team commit suicide, you knew there were problems and you failed to tackle them effectively, is that corporate manslaughter? I will leave that to the lawyers but it’s a very stark reminder of not only our corporate responsibilities but also our moral duties towards our colleagues.

"This is the game-changer in this scenario, we are not providing just fault codes we are providing solutions."

The partnership forged between MyPeople, 100 and First and Hurren and Hope, provides you with your own dedicated mechanics. Hurren and Hope are committed to not only providing great people but also supporting those individuals and you the employer to ensure you are creating a winning environment for both parties. Starting right at the point we approach an individual to discuss your company with them through to their onboarding and future experience with you. In the coming weeks our team of recruitment experts will be undertaking training with MyPeople for the recruitment assessment part of the software so we can offer this to our client partners.

We will also be working hand in hand with 100 and First to provide additional services, exclusively through them. The concept behind this partnership is as organisations we are experts in our chosen fields, none of us are attempting to be all things to all people we recognise the strengths each of our organisations bring to the table and believe a holistic approach that provides actual solutions with real-world interventions to address identified problems is a far more constructive way to engage with our clients.