Human resources (HR) professionals know today’s talent market is in a constant state of flux. To be more agile and responsive in unprecedented times, company stakeholders need to drive their organizations towards digital transformation. According to PwC’s 2020 HR Technology Survey, 74% of companies expect to increase spending on HR technology solutions in 2020, with 49% planning new investments in talent acquisition. These priorities come amid uncertainty on a range of economic, business, workforce, and employee issues. You must maintain a balance of emerging, existing, and legacy hiring processes to optimize talent strategy while responding to disruption.
Amid the volatility and unpredictability that most organizations currently face, HR needs a more effective way to develop talent acquisition strategies that are responsive to the rapidly evolving needs of businesses. Despite the current economic climate, while talent is the single biggest overhead expense for most organizations, it is also their biggest competitive advantage.
Make Informed Talent Decisions with Meaningful Insights
As HR managers try to realize the promise of digitalization, they are inhibited by antiquated hiring processes. To measure and improve hiring operations, HR departments need to leverage data analytics. While some companies have profited from analytics for years, most organizations are still struggling with the basics. But that’s about to change. LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2020 reports that 73% of companies surveyed say talent analytics will be a top priority for the next five years.
Talent analytics can sound overwhelming, but it becomes more manageable when you break it down into specific use cases. Companies are using analytics to assess talent supply, reduce bias in hiring and promotions, and predict candidate success. eSkill’s employment testing platform makes talent analytics and data accessible to all.
With skills tests, HR can provide company stakeholders with insight to support data-driven decision making—the key purpose of talent analytics. By bringing data to the conversation, HR professionals can confidently make recommendations.
Leverage Internal Recruiting
Chances are you’re overlooking a promising talent pool–your own employees. Since the coronavirus outbreak has forced many employers to freeze hiring, now is the time for HR leaders to create a formal internal hiring process to fill open positions. As organizations are forced to make tough decisions to reduce costs, a good retention strategy is key to maintaining employee productivity and engagement. That may be why LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends 2020 found that 73% of HR professionals indicated internal recruiting is increasingly a top priority for their company.
Internal hiring is about more than just finding talent. It is also about retaining quality employees. When you promote employees or move them to roles that are a better fit for their talents and experience, you boost morale, create a more positive experience, and reduce employee turnover. According to research published by Gartner, in organizations with a structured and well-implemented internal talent market, employee willingness to exceed expectations is 27% higher and the employee retention rate is 33% higher than organizations without a clearly-defined internal recruiting process.
The Harvard Business Review recently published a study that found internal talent hired through informal relationship-based referrals consistently underperformed compared to those hired via more formal processes. To avoid those pitfalls, companies need to implement structured, objective internal hiring programs that include skills testing to map current employees’ skills, knowledge, and cognitive abilities and strategically link them to positions that match these competencies.
Reduce Bias and Hire the Best Candidate
It’s no surprise that most organizations are not meritocratic. Legacy tools, such as resumes and interviews, are riddled with unconscious bias and subjectivity. And unfortunately, employers often weight ambiguous factors like “culture fit” and perceived personality traits as equally important as critical job skills. Using subjective criteria allows for bias to creep into hiring decisions and results in less diverse workforces.
What businesses often overlook is the cost of hiring candidates who are not the best fit for a position. Research conducted by the Center for Talent Innovation revealed that diverse companies are 70% more likely to capture new markets as they grow. Simply put, diversity drives success. As a case in point, Boston Consulting Group recently found that organizations that have more diverse leadership generate 19% more revenue due to innovation.
To drive revenue growth and create fair employment practices that select the most deserving candidate for the job, it is imperative that businesses leverage objective measures of job fit, like skills tests. With hundreds of job-specific and single-skill tests, eSkill makes it easy for organizations to create an objective process for evaluating the skills, knowledge, and cognitive abilities that are required for a variety of positions across industries. And with a nearly 20-year record of Equal Employment Opportunity Compliance, eSkill’s testing platform is legally defensible.
Develop a Comprehensive and Integrated Approach to Talent Selection
One issue that complicates HR automation is many technologies and tools do not integrate seamlessly. Therefore, recruiters are forced to toggle between different technologies. eSkill’s intuitive platform integrates seamlessly with popular applicant tracking systems to allow hiring teams to monitor candidates from application to final decision. On eSkill’s user-friendly dashboard, they can easily access candidates’ information, send bulk invitations for skills tests and video interviews to candidates, automate responses to job seekers, track and rank candidates’ scores, and assign in-house experts to score pre-recorded video interviews.
eSkill’s innovative platform offers new and more effective ways to identify top talent across industries and occupations. Those strategies offer a recruiting and hiring solution that is agile and scalable for the digital age.
Learn more about the benefits of using eSkill’s skills tests, behavioral assessments, and video interviewing platform to find qualified candidates quickly.
Request a demo today.