SAN DIEGO, Oct. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — The best assessments optimize human capital investments by revealing core behavioral, motivational, emotional, and thinking styles, and seek to create effectiveness and synergy by using them.
This is among the words of wisdom conveyed by human behavior experts Brandon Parker, Jennifer Larsen and Tony Alessandra, Ph.D., co-authors of What Makes Humans Tick?: Exploring The Best Validated Assessments (2021, Indie Books International).
“With the labor costs of doing business so high,” noted Parker, “it makes financial sense that an organization should invest in obtaining and optimizing its people. While the increased reliability of assessments has spurred growth, the problem with the assessment industry is it is unregulated.”
“There is no governing or accrediting body that certifies assessments for scientific validity and protects organizations from using assessments with adverse impact,” added Alessandra, “which is what prompted our quest to find the best validated and reliable instruments that would boost professional performance beyond anything previously available within the people analysis field.”
Parker and Alessandra are CEO and Chairman of Assessments 24×7, which they co-founded, and Larsen is VP of Instructional Design and Certification. The company partners with large and small companies, coaches, consultants and trainers to give them tools to succeed from their 25+ assessment offerings, certification programs, training materials and more.
“When used in business, quality assessments are flexible and capable of embracing optimization for a complete professional spectrum: customer service, vocational, technical, sales, management or executive needs,” Larsen said. “When used in personal and professional relationships, great assessments reveal perceptions and perspectives that can either hinder or enhance our ability to connect, communicate, and interact in a way that supports mutual growth and understanding.”
Backing up that statement are the following nine proven reasons assessments are valuable:
- Improve hiring and selection. Making sure the right person is in the right job.
- Increase sales. Teaching powerful behavioral observation skills to apply in an effective sales cycle.
- Create world-class leaders. Building a leadership team of forward-thinking, engaging, supportive and effective leaders.
- Increase productivity. Measuring performance and identifying crucial companywide issues.
- Reduce employee turnover. Increasing employee satisfaction, happiness and engagement.
- Create connected teams. Building effective teams in an environment of coachability and transparency.
- Model teambuilding. Building diverse teams based on compatible skills, traits and styles.
- Make the right, bright decisions. Building a strong organization capable of innovation and responding effectively to change.
- Customize employee training. Discovering how people communicate and tailoring training toward their learning.
The authors note it’s clear one view is not enough to accomplish all that, but by using assessments in combination, the ability to achieve the benefits listed above is improved.
“The best assessments evaluate and reveal a person’s cognitive makeup expressed in numerical values,” Parker said. “It’s been shown time and time again that having a knowledge of assessments can be used to reduce risks and create more effective relationships and outcomes.”