The AI-Driven HR Transformation: Harnessing Workplace Assessments

According to salary.com, the cost of turnover equals 100-200% of an employee’s annual salary. Workplace assessments are one set of tools that we’ve found to be effective in hiring and determining whether a team member is in the “right seat.”

These assessments are structured systems used to measure and understand various aspects of an individual’s personality, behavior, and abilities, specifically in the context of the workplace.

They assist employers in selecting the right candidates (and repelling the wrong ones!), forming effective teams, and fostering a cohesive work environment where people can better understand each other around topics like:

• • The “why” behind a specific behavior

• • How team members are most comfortable being recognized for their contributions

• • How to best communicate with one another

• • Conflict expression and constructive conversations

When building the AI Change Coalition, these assessments will help make sure you have the right mix of personality types and skillsets representing the AI initiatives to the rest of the organization.

 

The Psychology of Workplace Assessments

Humans inherently have varied personalities, talents, and behavioral patterns. These aspects directly influence how we handle tasks, interact with colleagues, get motivated, and adapt to workplace challenges.

Placing someone in a role that misaligns with their inherent traits can lead to stress, burnout, and decreased productivity. Conversely, a well-aligned role can boost engagement, job satisfaction, and overall organizational output.

This is where the psychology of workplace assessments comes into play. By understanding an individual’s innate tendencies, these tools can predict their potential success in a particular role or team setting. Essentially, whether they are a fit for the culture as well as the role you are considering them for.

There are numerous workplace assessments available to you. Below are some of those that are most commonly used.

And remember, you don’t have to be an expert at administering the tests or understanding the output of the tests. There are experts for hire who specialize in doing that for each assessment.

 

Kolbe Index

The Kolbe Index is one of our most used when hiring and delves deep into conative abilities. Unlike cognitive (thinking) or affective (feeling) parts of the mind, conation is all about doing.

This tool measures an individual’s instinctive ways of tackling tasks and solving problems. It helps teams and organizations identify how best to utilize their members’ inherent abilities.

 

 

DiSC Profile: Unlocking Effective Communication and Team Collaboration

The DiSC Profile is a behavioral assessment tool that evaluates individuals based on four primary behavior traits: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. These four dimensions, collectively forming the acronym DiSC, provide a comprehensive understanding of how individuals communicate, collaborate, and respond to challenges.

Dominance (D): This trait reflects an individual’s assertiveness, confidence, and drive. People high in Dominance are typically goal-oriented, seeking results and taking charge of situations.

Influence (i): Individuals with a strong Influence trait are social, outgoing, and persuasive. They thrive on building relationships, often being the driving force behind team cohesion and inspiration.

Steadiness (S): The Steadiness dimension represents stability, patience, and a preference for cooperation. Those high in Steadiness are adept at fostering harmonious work environments and cultivating strong interpersonal bonds.

Conscientiousness (C): Conscientious individuals are detail-oriented, analytical, and systematic. They value accuracy and precision, ensuring tasks are completed to the highest standards.

Here are the three areas in particular where an employee’s DiSC Profile can be a game-changer in structuring the teams:

1. Enhanced Communication: DiSC helps individuals get clear on their communication style and also helps them understand the communication styles of their colleagues. This awareness helps create an environment of more straightforward communication, reduces misunderstandings, and promotes active listening.

2. Conflict Resolution: By comprehending the DiSC profiles of team members, you can identify potential sources of conflict in advance and develop strategies to navigate them. For example, understanding that a high “D” individual may prefer direct communication can prevent misunderstandings with a high “S” individual who values harmonious interactions.

3. Team Building: DiSC aids in building balanced teams by ensuring a diverse representation of behavior traits. This diversity provides a mix of perspectives, skills, and approaches, leading to less decision-making bias and a broader spectrum of problem-solving strategies.

 

 

 

CliftonStrengths: Focusing on Individual Strengths

CliftonStrengths, formerly known as StrengthsFinder, is one you may already be familiar with. In contrast to traditional methods that focus on addressing weaknesses, CliftonStrengths believes that amplifying a team member’s strengths elevates job satisfaction, engagement, and overall performance.

With an extensive list of 34 strength themes, from ‘Achiever’ to ‘Woo,’ StrengthsFinder provides insights into an individual’s top talents, from strategic thinking to relationship building and execution to influencing skills. With this level of understanding, a team member and their managers can more readily map the path where they can consistently shine in a role.

 

 

Predictive Index

The Predictive Index has a suite of tools that include comparing a job candidate against the ideal profile for the role, aiding teams in determining how best to work together, empowering members of your leadership team to motivate and inspire in a way that direct reports best respond to, and finally a platform for staff feedback on company culture.

The top application of the Predictive Index is its role in candidate assessment. Once a company has defined the ideal role profile in the PI dashboard, the system will score the individual’s scores compared to the ideal profile. This type of mapping of an individual to a role profile helps the hiring manager quickly understand whether the candidate fits the role.

Here’s an example profile from the Predictive Index assessment:

 

 

While each tool offers a unique lens through which to view potential and current employees, they all share a common goal: to ensure that individuals are placed in roles where they can truly thrive.

These tools provide employees with self-awareness and introduce a culture of understanding, skill development, and effective communication and collaboration outcomes.

Recruitment

The recruitment process balances finding someone who can do the job (GWCs the role) and ensuring they are a culture fit. Assessment tools offer a structured and insightful approach to achieving both.

Before you even meet your first candidate, you’ve got to have clarity on the expectations and deliverables for the role you’re hiring for. What behavioral traits and cognitive abilities are required? Assessment tools provide a framework for answering this question. By aligning the role’s demands with specific profiles or scores, hiring managers can create a benchmark against which all candidates can be evaluated.

 

Candidate Screening

Without these assessment tools, the initial stages of recruitment often involve sifting through countless applications. By having candidates complete relevant assessments, recruiters quickly identify those who align with the role’s requirements and don’t waste time on those who are not a fit. This saves time and ensures that interviews are conducted with the best fit for the company.

 

Interviewing Prospective Hires

While traditional interviews provide a snapshot of a candidate’s experience and skills, they miss the nuances of behavior and thought processes. With these assessments, interviewers get insight into the targeted questions specific to the candidate, not the role. For instance, if a DiSC assessment indicates a candidate has a high dominance trait, the interviewer could explore how this manifests in teamwork settings.

One key benefit of integrating assessments is the reduction of unconscious bias. By focusing on structured and objective data, recruiters can make decisions based on a candidate’s genuine fit for the role rather than being swayed by subjective impressions or opinions.

 

Employee Retention

Replacing an employee is expensive compared to retaining them. The recruitment process has to start over, and the role may sit empty, impacting the company’s ability to produce deliverables.

Using these assessments helps managers tailor experiences, roles, and growth opportunities and impacts retention in a very favorable way.

Today’s workforce, especially the millennial and Gen-Z cohorts, value growth and learning opportunities more than wages. Assessment tools provide a roadmap. By understanding an employee’s strengths and areas for development, organizations can offer targeted training, mentorship, and progression pathways. This not only boosts skillsets that the company can leverage but also creates loyalty and commitment.

Retention is more than just competitive salaries and benefits. It’s about understanding, valuing, and nurturing talent. Assessment tools provide a structured, data-driven approach to achieving this.

 

Team Dynamics

Disagreements are a natural part of any team, and managing conflict effectively can be the difference between a motivated team and a dysfunctional one.

These Assessments are helpful in this area because they provide leadership with insight into individual communication styles and triggers. When teams understand each other’s behavioral tendencies, they’re better equipped to mitigate conflicts, communicate in ways the counterparty will be open to, and make collaboration easy.

 

Below are some best practices for using workplace assessment tools:

Continuous Training: Ensure the HR team and hiring managers are trained in the use of these assessments or are provided access to outside vendors who specialize in understanding the assessments. Using AI models, like ChatGPT, to do a first-pass evaluation of the results is becoming a popular protocol.

 

Transparent Communication: Having a prospect take a personality assessment may seem like an abnormal addition to the recruiting and hiring process, so it’s important to explain how the tool is being used in the process.

 

Feedback Mechanism: Allow employees to provide feedback on the assessment process. Their perspectives will give the HR department optics on improving the assessment’s introduction into their hiring process.

 

Key Metrics in the Evaluation of Your Workplace Assessment Tools

Not every assessment tool is suitable for every workplace. Track your tool’s success using some key metrics. Below are some to consider.

Predictive Validity

Does the tool accurately predict job performance? You can determine the tool’s predictive accuracy by comparing assessment results with actual performance metrics (like job efficiency, sales numbers, or project success).

 

Retention Rates

As discussed, employee turnover is costly. If retention rates improve after implementing a particular assessment tool, that’s a good sign that you’re using the right tool and, ultimately, hiring well.

 

Time-to-Hire

Every day a role sits empty has an economic impact on the business. If the tool accelerates finding and onboarding the right candidate, you’re using the assessments as intended.

 

Employee Satisfaction

Employee feedback post-assessment is a huge indicator of whether the tool correctly identifies their strengths and aligns with their self-perception and career goals.

After this lesson, it should be apparent that assessment tools help you hire right, understand the personality of the team members, and help the company realize revenue benefits from this level of team building calibration.