In an increasingly competitive labor market, companies are constantly looking for ways to optimize their human capital. This is where internal talent assessment comes into play, a fundamental tool for identifying and developing the people who are part of our organization, but especially those with high potential. But how do you detect who has potential? Can we trust only our perceptions? What aspects should we consider in the evaluation? We want to help you in talent management and, therefore, today we share with you our reflections on evaluation and internal talent.
What is internal talent assessment?
Internal talent assessment is a systematic process to measure the competencies, skills, knowledge, attitudes, and growth potential of an organization’s employees. It can take many forms, since depending on the objective we are seeking, there will be some methodology more suitable than another.
Some of the forms of evaluation that we use most from the Assessment and Evaluation Area of Psicotec are:
- Competency-based or critical incident interviews: in most cases this should be the basis of any evaluation process. It will allow us to know first-hand the attitude of the person being evaluated and their line of thought in different situations of more or less risk.
- Motivational interviewing: it is useless to have an employee for a new challenge, if the person’s expectations are different. How to align organizational values, expectations, and needs? We use techniques that focus on these variables.
- Assessment Center: a highly flexible methodology that presents a battery of tests of all kinds to the people evaluated to analyze their response and behavior. Although they are usually group, they can also be considered in individual format and in Assessment Center Online format. Their potential is that they are capable of reproducing business environments (one-to-one, group, individual…) and evidencing behavioural styles in each of them.
- Development Center: Similar methodology to the previous one, with a clear development objective. It allows you to establish and define development plans (individual, group) after knowing the results.
- Performance Management and Performance Evaluation: perhaps the most common type of evaluation carried out on internal talent. According to a series of indicators or KPIs, the degree of compliance with the objectives set is measured. In this type of evaluation there are two particularly critical aspects: the setting of SMART previous objectives and the subsequent feedback.
- 360º, 180º, 90º Feedback: You can review what each of these variants consists of in this article on 360º Feedback.
Evaluation and internal talent: aspects to take into account
The starting point of any evaluation process, especially if it is carried out on the internal talent of our organization, is to define what variables we are going to observe and measure.
Once our objective has been established, we will have to design our evaluation project. To do this, we must ask ourselves the following questions:
- Who are we going to evaluate? The entire organization, specific people, departments…
- Who will evaluate the participants? Internal staff or an external company specialized in evaluation?
- Through what means or tools? To be defined according to the ultimate objective of the evaluation.
- At what time and for how long? In some cases, the evaluation will be carried out continuously over time. Conversely, we may need isolated assessments at specific times. In any case, we must reflect our evaluation needs in the annual calendar.
- What resources do I need to carry out this project? Including all kinds of resources: material, human, economic…
With all this information, it will be much easier to establish a global internal talent assessment plan. This roadmap will allow us to stick to our target and correct in time in case of deviation.
But, beyond the design and implementation of the evaluation, we must consider two critical areas:
- The need for constant communication: Before, during and after the evaluation. People in our organization may be afraid of any kind of evaluation. If we do not want to make the work environment more difficult and we want to encourage participation in the evaluation, we must always inform about why and its importance as a tool for personal development and that of the company as a whole.
- Closely related to the previous one, we must share individual feedback with the people evaluated. People value very positively that time is invested in them, explaining to them what their strengths are and their areas for improvement, the latter always understood as a possibility of improvement within the organization itself and, ideally, linked to training and development actions that help them progress internally.
In addition, just as important as communication is the rigor and quality of the evaluation. At Psicotec we comply with the highest international quality standards: the ISO 9001 and ISO 10667 standards, which ensure good practices in the evaluation of people in work and organizational environments.
Internal Talent and Assessment: Key Applications
Internal talent assessment offers multiple benefits to companies, including better talent management and a more efficient definition of objectives and their monitoring. In addition, it allows us to keep a more faithful control of the work carried out, which can translate into a more flexible and tailor-made remuneration system that, if managed well, will allow us to increase the employee’s commitment to the organization.
But along with these benefits, there are two that, due to their strategic nature and long-term focus, allow us to lay the foundations for the future of the business: the identification of internal potential and the implementation of succession plans.
Identification of internal potential:
More and more companies are effectively implementing performance appraisal systems and effectively measuring a range of KPIs on individual work. But this type of evaluation, if taken in isolation, can have a certain lack of perspective.
A person can perform better or worse at a specific time in a given position. But its current performance has no direct (or inverse) relationship with its future potential. There are many cases in which people with average performance have hidden levels of competence and motivation that make them stand out at the level of potential. That is why, if we do not want to miss the opportunity to “bring to light” all that hidden internal talent, we must complement performance evaluations with others focused on identifying potential.
By combining current performance and future potential, we can get a better picture of the life cycle that each of the people in our organization goes through.
Implementation of a succession plan:
Likewise, from the field of talent development, we must also differentiate between current and future needs, those critical for the continuity of the organization over time.
Naturally, every company needs to fill vacancies in strategic positions and/or our most senior professionals. In these cases, planning and anticipation are our best allies. If we identify the upcoming retirements or dismissals and the skills necessary to perform their positions successfully, it is very likely that we will discover within our own companies suitable professionals to take on a new responsibility.
There are many cases in which there is a tendency to look for external professionals. But wouldn’t it be better to develop a person who knows the internal processes, feels connected to the organization and aspires to continue growing with it? From Psicotec Training and Talent Development Area we underline the importance of succession plans as a tool that favours talent management, the work environment and knowledge management. Today it is a trend.
Conclusions on evaluation and internal talent
In short, while the identification of external talent is important for any human resources plan, internal talent management is equally necessary. If we want to reduce turnover, improve the work environment, boost commitment and ensure internal development, we will have to give a leading role to all those professionals who cost us so much effort to incorporate.
In this internal talent management, evaluation is a particularly sensitive aspect. To dispel any fears, we will have to transform it into an opportunity for growth and development, from which, in addition, multiple HR policies can derive: career plans, training actions, new remuneration systems…
Among all of them, Psicotec we highlight, due to their importance and their relationship with the company’s own identity, two: The identification of internal (hidden) talent and the implementation of succession plans.
Thus, thanks to a professional evaluation, we will transform the today into the tomorrow of our organization.
Do you need to evaluate talent in your organization? Do you want to know the development potential of your professionals? Do you want to find out who could occupy strategic positions? At Psicotec we have already helped more than 70 companies to evaluate their internal talent and we will be happy to help you too.