You may think that your key differentiator is the bells and whistles of your product, service, or solution. Does it do more than your competitors? Is it easier to use? More flexible? The real answer to what makes you stand out from your competition is your people who are your ‘face’ to the customer. They buy them first, then the company, then your product or service.
That’s why when people change jobs their customers follow them…and so does their business.
Your people are the reason that buyers buy!
So, doesn’t it make sense to invest in bringing on-board the people who have the skills, behaviors, and interests that align with your business and culture? This is a fundamental element that many companies are starting to understand.
Over 95% of Fortune 100 companies use personality assessments to augment the interview process. It prevents hiring “mis-fits” and ensures a long term relationship that will enable the person and your business to grow. A study of 20,000 newly hired employees showed that 46% of all new hires fail within 18 months. The time, energy, and money invested into bringing a new person on-board is one of the most important decisions you can make. The challenge is how can you increase the probability of success by identifying the best person for the job who will make a long term impact on your top and bottom line?
One word. Assessments.
You may think of assessments as a tool, but actually, they are part of the process. Strategic Workforce Planning is a process that ensures that your business has the right people in the right jobs at the right time to achieve your expected results. This discipline helps organizations understand their current state, forecast talent gaps, and take the necessary steps to close those gaps. It is a core business process that is typically handled by the HR department, but it is so important to the success of a business that the business leaders from cross-functional organizations need to approach it proactively and take ownership of it.
The steps in the Strategic Workforce Planning process are:
- Establish where your business is going
- Business strategy drives the organizational structure and jobs
- Understand where the labor market is going
- Scanning the market helps you identify talent supply and limitations
- Identify your future talent demands
- Business strategy drives organizational design and job design
- Assess your current talent inventory
- How well the worker ‘fits’ in their current role, do they have the skills, demographics of the population
- Identify your talent gaps and your strategy to close them
- Four options: Build, Bounce, Buy, Borrow
- Implementing the process
- Standardization, top level sponsorship, focus on critical roles, pilot, establish and track metrics
Whether you’re growing, contracting, or re-organizing, it is important to use tools that will ensure your business strategy is aligned with the plan, people, processes, and platforms that will support them. Navigating successfully in today’s world requires that the right people are in the right seats on the bus. Or they need to be on a different bus.
One way to accomplish this is through using an effective and comprehensive assessment tool at the very beginning of the trip and at certain checkpoints along the way. The danger is that the bus will keep rolling along, absorbing the speed bumps and pot holes, until it hits a dead end or stops working!
People, your most precious asset, are the critical ingredient to your success. Assessments are the tools that can help you hire the right people, ensure their retention, and enable you to create the roadmap to growth, productivity, and profitability! Let’s put the pedal to the metal and keep your business rolling along!
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