The Situation

Most organizations have identified Talent Management as a strategic priority. However, the methods they use to evaluate employees are typically flawed.

Making effective decisions about talent management is nearly impossible when relying on methods that are subjective, inconsistent, not tailored to specific job skills, or because the results are not meaningful enough to support objective and accurate decision making.

However, an assessment that creates truly predictive data is a priceless decision-making tool. That difference is exactly what makes HR Chally's assessment and Talent Audit a key differentiator for every organization. This unique, web-based assessment system for talent selection, alignment, and development is truly the "next generation" of applying total quality management (TQM) to talent management.

The Solution

Just as DNA is specific to a given individual, a Talent Audit can pinpoint the "job skill DNA" of a given employee. It provides access to skill comparisons and overall success potentials with a predictive accuracy similar to the way a DNA strand identifies genetic makeup of each individual person.

In this manner, organizations are able to inventory a complete list of strengths and weaknesses for all key employees across every important position.

It is instructive to differentiate between this approach and the typical employee assessment that may generate impressive numbers but not meaningful data. The Talent Audit is very different from "old school" employee assessments because it is:

• Designed to reveal predictive results used for effective decision making -- rather than to create merely comprehensive or descriptive data (which often has limited value)
• Standardized, with the same exact measures across all positions -- rather than using different measures for some jobs, which create skewed results
• Completely objective -- rather than colored by personal or political agenda
• Flexible, enabling key data to be compared and cross-referenced in endless varieties -- rather than limiting access to a single individual, job function, or group at a time
• Easy to interpret -- free of complex mechanisms that waste valuable time without adding clarity or analytical value

Even implementation aspects are very different from typical employee assessments. The online Talent Audit assessment is easy to administer, requiring about an hour of an employee's time. It is also currently available in 12 languages to meet the needs of global organizations.

Talent Alignment & Development Applications

The Talent Audit results are typically used for a broad range of job functions and levels to guide decision making. Some common applications include:

Sales Leader Decision Making

• Identify incumbent salespeople most adept at developing new business ("hunters") versus those best suited to managing existing customer relationships ("farmers") or handling Strategic Accounts, or developing into a sales subject matter expert, or any of 10 other key sales roles that World Class Sales Benchmarking Research has identified
• Determine which salespeople have the predictive skill strengths required to succeed in a sales management role
• Identify salesperson skill gaps that can be remedied with training, coaching, or other strategies
• Discover which salespeople have the skills to transition to new roles (solutions sales versus transaction sales)
• Identify where sales talent might most effectively be deployed to support key account goals
• Determine which salespeople can play a new role to meet the demands of an evolving customer
• Ascertain the most critical training and development needs by employee, team, and position

While the Talent Audit is frequently used in management development and succession planning it is especially suited for sales organizations, because the ability to predict -- and therefore apply and augment sales­person job performance -- is essential to improving sales force effectiveness.

The underlying empirical database derives from Chally's World Class Sales Excellence Research which includes best practices of the sales forces identified as being world class. The research is based on ratings from 80,000 customer interviews, rating 210,000 salespeople across 7,300 sales organizations.

Human Resource Decision Making

• Access and evaluate all incumbents in any group, to understand what areas are most appropriate for training across the entire group or the entire organization
• Create a corporate-wide profile of strengths and weaknesses to prioritize effective development initiatives, succession planning and high-potential identification

Executive Decision Making

• Apply accurate, predictive, "job skill DNA" insights to the consideration of strategic initiatives that have top and bottom-line impact, such as increasing market share, penetrating new markets, increasing productivity, launching new products, reorganizations, and mergers
• Strategically align human capital strengths to achieve organizational needs and objectives
• Increase the ability to make more objective decisions, with the confidence of knowing those decisions are based on predictive criteria

An Ongoing Decision-Making Tool

The Talent Audit assessment system and tools are most effective for strategic decision making when used on a continuing basis. Because data is predictive, its value for both employee development and career selection is unparalleled.

After completing a Talent Audit, each organization has on-demand access to its own employee assessment database. Once the database contents -- the "job skill DNA" -- is on file for all individuals, no further assessments of employees or candidates are necessary. From a single assessment, a career's worth of information! And by continuing to asses new employees the database remains current and can be regularly updated by Chally.

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