Finding skilled employees is a problem across all industries, not just in logistics. According to McKinsey, nearly 40% of employers in the United States report having trouble finding candidates who have the necessary skills, even for entry-level jobs. As the economy continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, competition will only increase as companies ramp up their staffing.
The challenge facing human resources (HR) departments that are looking to fill logistics positions is to make sure that their employees have the necessary skills to succeed in their roles. However, hiring is only the first step in the process. In companies with strong onboarding and training programs, employees are 69% more likely to stay with a company for at least three years.
Skills tests are a valuable resource for not only improving your hiring process, but also for making your onboarding and training programs much more successful. With eSkill, you can employ more than 800 standard tests that are organized into job and subject categories, which makes it easy to find tests to meet your needs. If you prefer, you can even create custom tests by adding your own material.
In today’s hyper-competitive labor marketplace, you need to do everything you can to give your company an edge. With job skills assessment testing, you can ensure that you get the right person for the job, help them to succeed in their new position, and encourage them to continue their development throughout their entire time with your company.
Make the Right Hire with Skills Testing
Hiring for logistics positions is not easy, even in the best of times. With a fast pace and high expectations, logistics positions require highly skilled employees, since mistakes can have impacts all along the supply chain.
When you are looking for candidates for a logistics position with your company, you are likely looking for these skills, among others:
At eSkill, you can find pre-employment Job Skills Assessment Tests to evaluate these and other skills, making sure that you find the right candidates. Each Skills Test generates a report that is both attractive and easy to read, allowing you to easily compare candidates with concrete data points.
Because of the fierce competition for skilled employees, it is especially important to avoid hiring the wrong candidate. Not only can this result in lost productivity, but replacing that employee almost always results in even higher costs to your company. Skills tests can help you to identify candidates who do not have the necessary skills to succeed with your company long term.
Skills Tests Can Increase Diversity
One of the most pressing concerns for companies today is increasing diversity within the workplace. According to Deloitte, in 2019, only 39% of logistics employees were women, with only 11% serving as supply chain executives. While companies have deployed various initiatives designed to address the problem, it is important to realize how skills testing can help to contribute toward office diversity.
In the traditional hiring method, it was not uncommon for unconscious bias to creep into the process. Without realizing it, there was a high likelihood that HR professionals were making decisions based on factors other than job performance and qualifications. However, with skills testing, all of those extraneous factors are diminished. Instead, employers are given an objective report listing an employee’s skills, allowing them to compare employees against each other solely on their abilities.
Using Job Skills Assessment Tests to Guide Onboarding and Training
Hiring is the first step in what is hopefully a long relationship between an employee and the company. Right after being hired, it is important to ensure that an employee is onboarded in a way that makes them feel as though they are a part of the company. With skills testing, the first crucial part of this process is to use the generated report on your new hire to establish a plan for their training and professional development.
Using this report, you can focus on the most significant skills shortfalls, helping to shore up any critical skills quickly and ensuring that your new employee is able to be as effective as possible in their position.
You can administer tests at any point during or after training. This allows you to get a sense of how effective your training programs are while also measuring your employee’s progress throughout their time with your company.
More than anything, the value of skills testing is the ability to give your employees individualized training, making your development programs as useful and efficient as possible. Instead of wasting time on generic training programs, you can custom-tailor development opportunities to meet the exact needs of your workforce while continuing to build the skill base for your organization in a steady and methodical way.
Interested in Making Skills Testing a Part of Your Logistics Hiring and Development?
Learn how job skills assessment tests can help you to hire and retain the best people for your organization. Request a demo today.