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As a new year and a new decade begin, we all have the opportunity to view our world anew. For our part, we have refreshed our brand identity as reflected in our new logo, website and communication collateral. We trust that you find the website easy to navigate and find our solutions interesting. We have embedded a number of short, relevant videos throughout the site, all designed to deliver the information to you in an effective and engaging manner. I think if we can expect anything going forward, it will be about making business and our lives easier.
Most of us we will be familiar with the saying, “the only constant in life is change”. Undeniably, the entire world had that message indelibly reinforced throughout 2020 as we struggled with the dreadful impacts of COVID-19. During that time, companies were forced to rightsize in an effort to survive. They were forced to make tough decisions on who stays and what is essential to the survival of the business. Others had growth plans put on hold, as they awaited clarity and could develop clear strategies for the future.
As 2021 stretches before us, we know that the challenge of COVID-19 is still not yet behind us and yet more new challenges still await us. One thing we do know, something that we can absolutely rely upon, is that your people remain your primary point of difference.
As Lee Iacocca once put it, “In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.”.
2021’s success will again depend upon good people doing a good job. Although in this new era, where they are doing that job can vary considerably. The reality for many organisations going forward will require them to review their current personnel resources. For many, it will require a restructure for a new way of doing business.
It is therefore important to consider using talent audits and corporate diagnostic tools to help in determining the potential strengths and capacity of key staff/teams, the mental health of each employee and how they will complement the organisations strategy. Furthermore, understanding how to maximise your resources by redeploying people and, where necessary, carrying out proper outplacement to mitigate employee and corporate stress is something that needs full attention.
Understanding the Corporate Potential & Capacity for Change
When rightsizing your operation, it is crucial to examine the current potential and capacity of your talent and how it will align with the reorganisation strategy. Talent audits are an important measure to get a baseline of your current team and can be used to help identify the employees’ potential bench-strength and capacity in the rightsizing and reorganisation of companies.
Determining your bench-strength can be done through the use of the right assessments, such as our Validity Group Assessments, which evaluate the inherent potential and capacity of your existing employees. When making decisions on rightsizing operations it is important to stress that past performance does not necessarily predict future performance, especially when a change occurs. Accordingly, it is imperative that you have a baseline of your existing culture through a talent audit to better align the right potential and capacity into other roles.
Specifically, talent audits can be conducted to add value to organisations in order to:
- Provide statistical analysis of the attributes and characteristics of a group of individuals;
- Help identify the characteristics of individuals who are at different levels of potential;
- Provide a prescriptive analysis of the key strengths and synergies to build stronger teams.
This provides you a reference point to help in making strategic decisions on who might be the best fit to align with the company vision and reorganise the culture. Research conducted by our partners at SMG found that increased engagement within teams is directly correlated in identifying synergies within the organisation, and how they can be deployed appropriately to maximise team performance.
Starting Anew
We have certainly moved beyond a selection process based solely on interviews. Despite the number of interviews that might be conducted, there will remain key pieces of data that you require to make a fully informed decision. The application of the right assessment selection platform supports your selection protocols simply, easily and effectively. The use of ours, means that you can do so without the need for expensive certifications. That any of your hiring managers can easily apply the report to their selection process – ensuring that any potential for bias is reduced significantly – and you establish a robust protocol to build a solid organisation.
As we started this piece, this is a time when ease-of-use is increasingly important, as with ease of access by those who need it, and easy delivery is a non-negotiable. With our easy process, anyone in your organisation can make a secure purchase online for the assessments they require, have it sent to the person they wish to evaluate, in the language required, and have the report forwarded to them. All done simply, easily, effectively and securely. And certainly all done well within the budget constraints of 2021.
Moving Forward
So as you move into 2021, you will continue to face numerous challenges and have to make difficult decisions. We can support you in making some of those staffing decisions by delivering you unbiased data. It may well be a time where you continue to make tough staff decisions, making them unemotionally but with a sense of compassion is one way in which we can assist and support your efforts.
We wish you every success in the year ahead and hope we can be of service to you.
