Staff retention does not
have to be testing
Its not uncommon to find churn rates in retailing, hospitality and call centres to be in excess of 50 per cent, a figure common with many other volume employers, according to the CIPD. And its no secret that high attrition rates cost companies a great deal of money. They have to take into account the often substantial costs of recruitment and selection, such as advertisements and agency fees, and also the management and administrative time that goes into transitioning people in and out of the company. All this on top of the loss in productivity that is suffered when notice periods are being worked and new employees are being trained up.
With this in mind, hiring managers should be embracing anything that can help them to lower employee turnover levels by ensuring that they hire the right person, with the right skills into the right job. This is where an investment in an effective candidate testing programme can help.
Testing at the recruitment stage can prevent some very expensive hiring mistakes, reduce staff turnover and improve employee motivation by providing an analysis of ongoing training needs.
Every company will have differing demands from candidate testing. But successful programmes will combine a mix of both psychometric and hard skills assessment.
For every position on offer employers should have a strong idea of the type of individual they are looking to hire and the skills they should possess.
For example, a call centre hiring manager will know what makes a good contact centre worker. It maybe that the ideal candidate for the job should possess important personal qualities such as commitment, patience, empathy, resilience, dedication, tenacity and reliability.
Psychometric testing can assess candidates for these kinds of qualities and provide hiring managers with informed and accurate perceptions about individuals.
Similarly, the call centre hiring manager will require candidates to have certain skills, such as the ability to accurately handle raw data, or specific industry knowledge. This is where hard skills testing comes in. Advances in technology mean that potential candidates can quickly and easily take an online test that simulates both normal and stressful conditions, and has been precisely tailored by the employer to fit the job requirements.
And if these tests can be accessed from any computer over the internet and used as the first round in the selection process, then employers will see substantial cost savings by ensuring that only the right candidates are called in for an interview and then that only the best candidates are recruited.
Employers looking to drive down attrition rates, increase the level of talent in the workforce and cut the cost of the recruitment process could do worse than test out testing.
With this in mind, hiring managers should be embracing anything that can help them to lower employee turnover levels by ensuring that they hire the right person, with the right skills into the right job. This is where an investment in an effective candidate testing programme can help.
Testing at the recruitment stage can prevent some very expensive hiring mistakes, reduce staff turnover and improve employee motivation by providing an analysis of ongoing training needs.
Every company will have differing demands from candidate testing. But successful programmes will combine a mix of both psychometric and hard skills assessment.
For every position on offer employers should have a strong idea of the type of individual they are looking to hire and the skills they should possess.
For example, a call centre hiring manager will know what makes a good contact centre worker. It maybe that the ideal candidate for the job should possess important personal qualities such as commitment, patience, empathy, resilience, dedication, tenacity and reliability.
Psychometric testing can assess candidates for these kinds of qualities and provide hiring managers with informed and accurate perceptions about individuals.
Similarly, the call centre hiring manager will require candidates to have certain skills, such as the ability to accurately handle raw data, or specific industry knowledge. This is where hard skills testing comes in. Advances in technology mean that potential candidates can quickly and easily take an online test that simulates both normal and stressful conditions, and has been precisely tailored by the employer to fit the job requirements.
And if these tests can be accessed from any computer over the internet and used as the first round in the selection process, then employers will see substantial cost savings by ensuring that only the right candidates are called in for an interview and then that only the best candidates are recruited.
Employers looking to drive down attrition rates, increase the level of talent in the workforce and cut the cost of the recruitment process could do worse than test out testing.
