Getting the right people on the bus, and ensuring they are in the right seats, has never been as critical to business as it is today. With the baby boomer generation leaving the workforce in increasing numbers, many businesses are making the shift in HR focus from recruiting to retention, making sure that once we attract talent, that they stay with us for the long -term. This is a bit of a daunting task, as the mobility and number of companies that people tend to work at during their career lifespan has been trending upward for decades.
When we make key people decisions, we often use subjective judgement, or “gut feel”. After all, people are people, not machines, which we tend to use to justify the subjective nature of our HR decision making processes.
Although there is no doubt that some degree of subjectivity and gut feel can be extremely beneficial, adding some form objective data to confirm or deny our views can also be highly valuable. Utilizing psychometric assessment tools to uncover underlying beliefs and motivations, as well as to test the validity of the responses we are receiving, is one way to add objectivity to the HR decision making process.
We need to keep in mind, however, that psychometric data is only one piece of information, and should be balanced with the other information being considered, and not be the sole information used when making key human resource decisions.