Behavioural assessment – what is it?
Based on the Big Five personality factors, behavioural assessment is about understanding who a person really is. It provides valuable insight into an individual’s personality and how this can influence their performance and effectiveness in the workplace, helping to understand what drives the behaviour they exhibit externally. It also analyses personality traits, typically looking at motives, talents, competency, potential and preferences; and how these characteristics affect behaviour. It provides the ‘why’ behind workplace behaviour and often gives in-depth information about individuals’ strengths and limitations and can offer insight into how they behave under pressure. It can also give some insight into what management style will get the best out of them. A well validated tool can help managers develop a greater understanding of the hidden drivers behind workplace behaviour and performance.
Behavioural assessment is not just used in selection but is a tool that can be used in leadership and development.
So, why use behavioural assessment/screening in recruitment and selection?
It can be used to screen a large number of candidates and help to identify a smaller pool of suitable applicants who have the potential to perform in the later stages of the recruitment process. It is objective and provides an independent report to measure all candidates equally. You can also validate the requirements with current employees and use the results as a benchmark.
Where we have used behavioural screening – the World Duty Free Group (WDFG)
We have been working with our client, the World Duty Free Group, for a number of years, managing all their retail recruitment through our RPO division. As part of our drive to continuously improve the quality and efficiency of the recruitment process we worked together with WDFG to introduce a behavioural screening tool for their customer service and retail management recruitment activity. Working with Eras Ltd we developed an online behavioural screening test and introduced it into the application process for WDFG at the beginning of 2013.
Our Results
1. Reduced recruitment time – behavioural screening can help reduce applications down to more manageable numbers. At WDFG we manage on average 35,000 applications per year. Introducing behavioural screening has enabled us to reduce our CV screening time by 50%. We have also reduced the number of interviews that we conduct.
2. Increased quality of candidates presented to WDFG. The behavioural screening, coupled with the interview conducted by our team, led to ResourceBank presenting candidates with a better job and company fit. Before the implementation of the behavioural screening test WDFG offered one in every three candidates after being assessed by ResourceBank. Now you may already be thinking this is a good ratio but bear in mind we had been recruiting for WDFG for a number of years and already had a very slick recruitment operation! Today, with the recent figures hot off the press WDFG are offering 53% of the candidates presented by ResourceBank!
3. Saving time and money for our customer by reducing employee turnover of new recruits. As well as reducing new recruit turnover there is also the time and money saved through not having to repeat the recruitment process or for training and induction of replacements.
We are lucky enough to be short-listed for the Best Embedded Team at The Recruiter Awards this year for the work we have done with WDFG. We are really looking forward to the Awards evening this week and remain hopeful of the result!
If you would like to learn more about ResourceBank Recruitment and, in particular, the work we do for the World Duty Free Group, please contact our Account Manager, Mahj Hussain on 01491 635316.
