Dr. Scott Dust is the Chief Research Officer at Cloverleaf and a Management Professor at the University of Cincinnati.
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Over the last 100 years, assessments have quietly blossomed into an $8 billion industry. This breadth of interest from organizational leaders comes despite the fact that the industry has seen very little innovation over the last century. Further yet, to date, there is no clear evidence to suggest that assessments are associated with an increase in employee effectiveness.
My prediction is that the industry is on the cusp of much-needed, radical change. Given recent advancements in social science research and the availability of new technology, the assessment industry is headed in exciting new directions. Organizational leaders who understand these changes can be better equipped to recoup their investments in assessments. Additionally, players in the assessment industry would be well-served to internalize these changes and consider what’s next. Along those lines, I explain three phenomena that together could reshape the assessment industry for the next century.
From Extremes To The Right Amount And The Right Mix
The original push for employee assessments had a simple yet profound goal: Find the best person for the job. To do this, organizations measured a potential employee’s intelligence or job-specific skills and weighed them against cut-offs that were used for hiring. It didn’t work. As it turns out, people are complicated, and cognitive ability and experience are just two of many pieces of the puzzle. The industry slowly evolved. We now have assessments for a wide variety of phenomena, including traits, strengths, motivational drivers, cultural preferences and more. Additionally, organizations now use assessments more broadly, such as in leadership and team development initiatives. But the problem remains the same: There is no silver bullet. Optimal performance entails a wide mix of psychographics.
Another reason this didn’t (and still doesn’t) work is that many psychographics succumb to the “too much of a good thing effect,” whereby, like vitamins, they are beneficial at the right dosage but eventually become detrimental when exceeding a certain amount. Being achievement-oriented might predict high sales performance but at extreme levels can lead to burnout or competitiveness with peers. The objective should be to obtain healthy, not extreme, levels of key characteristics.
Relatedly, in many cases, moderate-to-high levels of a characteristic are sufficient. For example, I consulted an organization that was adamant that its employees be exceptionally innovative. Interestingly, these employees were already in the 95th percentile on innovation-related characteristics. The higher your base score, the harder it is to improve that score. Thus, it would have been a better investment to focus on alternative characteristics instead of attempting to move its employees to the 99th percentile.
Assessments of the future could be capable of knowing what mix of psychographics are ideal and how much is the right amount of each. Further, the goal may no longer be to simply increase a characteristic at all costs but do so only when it creates a return on investment.
From Static To Dynamic
Ever since their inception, assessments have been a static, one-time experience. Meaning, users complete a list of predefined questions that translate into a final score that lives on in perpetuity. This was fine when the goal was assessing aptitude at the point of hire. But recent research illustrates that one’s circumstances—life events, professional experiences, career changes—can influence relatively more fluid characteristics such as strengths, values or motivational drivers. As a recent and salient example, post-pandemic workers’ attitudes have inevitably evolved (e.g., the great resignation, quiet quitting).
Thanks to automation, it’s becoming feasible to ask additional assessment questions over time. Assessments can be refined as users engage in additional contexts such as interactions with specific colleagues or while dealing with certain challenges. Machine learning and artificial intelligence make these processes possible. Depending upon an assessment taker’s response, the ideal follow-up questions can be delivered or the results and insights stemming from the assessments can be updated in real time.
The technology is readily available; it’s only a matter of time before assessments become more dynamic. To maximize assessment utility, organizational decision-makers should be investing in solutions that can evolve, just like the people they assess.
From Data Dumps To Micro Nudges
When assessments were first being used, they were solely for the organization’s benefit (e.g., hire or no hire). Today, assessments are also used to help employees understand themselves and others. This typically comes in the form of detailed and customized reports.
The problem is that the human mind can only process a limited amount of information, most of which never makes it to long-term memory. Most assessment results are delivered as an overwhelming, one-time data dump. This happens so often that the trade has a nickname for this problem—the back seat effect—whereby detailed assessment reports are never fully internalized and tossed into the back seat of one’s car. Not because the reports aren’t thoughtfully constructed, but because they are simply too much information to handle at once. The result is that assessment insights are often lost or forgotten.
A better approach entails using micro nudges, where actionable insights are delivered in small doses over a long period of time. Those in charge of assessments need to be realistic. People can’t internalize information like supercomputers. The goal should be to deliver digestible nuggets of information at the right time and in the right place.
What Comes Next
Thanks to progress in social science research, our understanding of organizational psychology is more accurate. And thanks to technology—big data, machine learning and automation—our detailed understanding of human behavior has the potential to be leveraged in real-world, practical settings. My hope for the next century is that the industry will start leveraging social science research and technology in ways that maximize assessment utility.
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