Blog: assessment as businesscase!
Posted by Patrick van Loon
Patrick van Loon: ‘What is important for the business? And for HR managers? Not that assessment is a good predictor, we all know that by now. But what an assessment delivers, in blatant coin! A business case, in other words! After all, that is what it is all about. You invest to get a higher return!’
Management Team
For a supplement on leadership in Management Team magazine, I was interviewed about assessments. In the same magazine, there is an interview with Dr Wouter Schoonman, who explains the point of assessment from a scientific perspective and the fallibility of people in assessing others. He can do that like no other!
What is quality?
What can I add as managing director of Kenhardt? That we meet Wouter Schoonman’s quality requirements. That we have assessed more than 30,000 people in recent years. That we use the best assessment tools available in the world. That all our 50 consultants have at least 10 years’ experience in the field. That research shows that we are among the 100 best service providers in the Netherlands and number 2 in the field of assessment. Very nice data, of course, but not controversial. But what is?
Performance data
At a client, we were given insight into the performance of more than 800 employees. The group was divided into top performers and under/average performers. It turned out that less than half of these employees had been tested by us. What did we do next? Compared the two groups, tested and untested by Kenhardt. The results? Startling! In the group of employees not tested by Kenhardt, we found that for every under/average performer, 1.55 top performers were hired. The same ratio in the group that was tested by Kenhardt was 1 under/average performer to 10.35 top performer! In short, an improvement ratio of talent selection of 6.68!
So what exactly do these numbers give the business? For that, we would need to know what the difference in performance is between under/average performers and top performers. Mc Kinsey’s War for Talent 2000 survey answers this. And we know that when McKinsey does research, they do it well.
It turns out that the difference between an average performer and a high performer is 40% in operational roles, 49% in general management roles and as much as 67% in sales!
Applying this data to the data we were allowed to see from our client, a compelling business case emerges.