4 Strategies to Improve Talent Development with Assessments

In a world defined by complexity and change organizations need to build resilient workforces capable of facing new challenges.

To meet these challenges, organizations will have to make smarter investments in their people.

Data and insights must inform promotion and leadership decisions. Internal talent mobility needs to be encouraged. Future capabilities in the workforce need to be built, and employees given information and insight into how they can realize their potential.

Talent assessments play an important role in hiring key talent. But beyond that, they are also fundamental for an effective talent development strategy. They can support workforce retention and commitment to your employees' career development.

1. Using Data To Select And Develop Managers And Leaders

Employees with high potential are generally promoted faster than other employees. This is true even though many organizations lack a clear understanding of what ‘high potential’ means or how it can be objectively identified. As a result, companies often rely on a combination of performance data and gut instinct to identify managers and future leaders. However, leveraging talent assessments creates a more holistic, objective and future-facing process for spotting those with management and leadership potential.

Talent assessments provide data and insights that can transform the shape of a workforce, support internal mobility and optimize employee capability to stay ahead in a rapidly-shifting environment.

All employees benefit from understanding their strengths, capabilities and the next steps in their career to reach their potential and fit with future roles.

What It Means To Be A Great Leader Is Changing

Leadership skills and styles change and will continue to change. Companies need leaders who thrive in constant and rapid shifts in opportunity and who are capable of embracing the uncertainty and challenges of a workplace characterized by constant change.

To protect and grow their business, organizations must embrace a model of leadership that identifies potential in up-and-comers that includes those leadership characteristics most needed in the future: agile mindset; leading change; and driving business.

To assess probable success in leadership roles, organizations must consider a future leader’s ability, agility and aspiration beyond the limited focus on track record. We know success in a current role does not always translate into success in a leadership role. For example, not all high-achieving front-line salespeople go on to be stellar sales managers. This is because the skills that make for a great salesperson are not the same as those that make for a great manager.

Leaders In The Digital World

A leader in our more digital, agile and rapidly-changing era draws on the same leadership skills as the past, but now they need more. An ever-changing environment is not new; however, the speed at which job automation and market disruptors are shaping jobs and the workforce is accelerating.

Those with the most potential to succeed in future leadership roles display an agility of thought and action. They welcome learning opportunities, adapt to changes in their environment and seek new skills and experiences to advance their professional development. Like all future-ready talent, future leaders require flexibility, adaptability and resilience. They know how and when to empower, support, seek learning experiences and when to switch behavior accordingly. Good leaders innovate and collaborate in new ways and are humble enough to move into the role of facilitator to empower their teams. Leadership effectiveness is a product of workstyle and behaviors.

Individuals with strong leadership potential score highly across all dimensions of leadership traits. Leadership tactics and tools can be learned, but workstyles and behaviors (especially the ability to adopt new behaviors) are what set strong leaders apart.

Data from behavior assessments can pinpoint the specific key qualities.

2. Empower Career Mobility And Development

Employees want to own their progress and career development plans. Careers rarely follow a traditional linear path. More often, careers involve taking sideways steps to acquire experience and exposure in new areas and business units. A better analogy may be a climbing wall with no set route mapped out to the top, rather than a ladder.

The challenge for the individual and the organization is how to imagine and realize the breadth of career possibilities. Roles need to be open to those with potential for learning rather than solely those with traditional prerequisites and experience.

The Power Of Job Neighborhoods

Building job neighborhoods showcases the competencies that are relevant in your organization. It means that all employees can understand how the skills and competencies they have right now intersect with those required in roles in other parts of the organization.

Link this to career pathways and the individual begins to imagine how they can map their future career path with reskilling or upskilling. Armed with insights into their skills and abilities and clear reskilling paths outlined, employees are empowered to own their professional growth and training and development plans.

3. Inform Upskilling And Reskilling To Build Your Future Workforce From Within

Retaining And Developing Talent Enables Your Organization To Build A More Resilient Workforce

To protect and grow your business, your future workforce will need to be more agile, adaptable and curious, and have the enthusiasm to acquire new and necessary skills. Organizations must also build more diverse and inclusive workforces that recognize the value of difference and realize individual potential.
To develop new skills, starts with an understanding of the current skillset and a clear articulation of what is needed for the future. Skills gaps can then be bridged through upskilling and reskilling initiatives.

To secure mission-critical skills to remain agile and adaptable, organizations are increasingly focused on identifying and nurturing existing talent.

You also need to understand the skillsets the organization will need in the future. This insight comes from analyzing the business strategy as well as the people strategy and modeling the talent and business data you have.

The result is a clear picture of your organization’s skills gap. This information provides the foundation for your talent management strategy and reskilling your workforce. Understand the skills of your current roles and get to know what is needed in the future. Bridge the skill gap by empowering your people to see their strengths, where they can learn and develop and how they can progress.

4. Audit Future Skills To Build An Agile And Resilient Workforce

Retaining Key Talent Is Critical

Retaining key talent is critical as business leaders look to evolve the organization for future success. Organizations cannot afford institutional knowledge to be lost in periods of disruption and transition.

The specific employees skills and technical expertise that will be needed in the future are largely undefined. While some skills are on the decline, others will become increasingly important and many still need to be created. Organizations can build resilient workforces by encouraging employees to continuously develop, learn new skills, take on different roles and move into positions that are created as the organization shifts.

Aon | Assessment Solutions

Aon's assessment solutions provides clients with powerful tools and insights to help them make better talent decisions at every stage of the employee lifecycle. This includes pre-hire assessments, identifying future leaders, screening for digital skills and agility, and AI-enabled solutions.