Stop and think: What are your firm’s biggest challenges? Excluding external factors like market volatility or the lightning-fast pace of technology, I’m guessing you’ll list at least one of these four major concerns:
- Hiring the right people
- Ensuring effective training
- Developing the next generation of leaders
- Improving team productivity
While these may seem like separate challenges, they share a common solution: assessments, followed by action. But with so many assessments out there, how do leaders choose the right tool for the job?
CrossGroup has over 35 years’ experience deploying multiple assessments to meet our clients’ needs, from strengthening hiring processes and building customized training to developing leaders and accelerating team performance. Needless to say, we’ve learned a lot.
Here are our top tips to help you save time and money, choose the right assessment, and use it for maximum benefit:
1. Know Your Challenge.
Before choosing an assessment, consider your firm’s strategic goals. What matters most right now and in the next 3-5 years? Do you need to hire better, train better, develop leaders, or enhance teamwork? All assessments provide valuable insights into employee behaviors, motivations, and capabilities, but they serve distinct purposes. If you’re facing multiple challenges, prioritize them before you start your search.
2. Assess Your Options.
Frankly, there’s a lot of hype and hocus-pocus out there. In professional settings, reliability, validity, and reputation matter. You need to trust that the assessment measures what it says it does, and you want to know that it’s been used successfully in similar business environments to achieve real results. Do your research or ask CrossGroup to help you narrow down your options.
3. Find the Right Fit.
CrossGroup’s extensive experience with different types of assessments has led us to focus on the following four:
- The PXT Select is a comprehensive assessment of cognitive styles, behavioral traits, and occupational interests. We use it to create organization- and role-specific profiles of ideal candidates and predict job performance and cultural fit. The PXT Select also helps employees develop self-awareness of strengths and growth areas and can be used to improve cohesion and collaboration among team members. It’s ideal for hiring, individual and team training, and leadership development.
- The DiSC is a behavioral assessment that categorizes individuals into four primary personality types based on dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientiousness. It illustrates how employees approach tasks, interact with others, and respond to challenges, and can be used for individual and team training as well as leadership development. The DiSC is best suited for improving interpersonal communication, helping team members work well together, and informing managers how to coach employees effectively.
- The Five Behaviors Assessment is based on Patrick Lencioni’s influential work on high-performance teams. It combines the DiSC profile with an assessment of team performance in five areas: trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results. It helps teams understand how members’ personal preferences impact the group and identifies key actions to boost performance. Five Behaviors is ideal for training intact teams and helping leaders successfully manage team dynamics.
- 360 Reviews provide performance feedback from supervisors, direct reports, colleagues, and even clients. This multidirectional approach allows an individual and their manager to look for repeated patterns that reveal both strengths and opportunities for growth. We believe 360s are critical tools for making an organization feedback-friendly and for helping leaders stay on a path of growth.
4. Don’t forget to build trust.
Some organizations make assessments the “property” of the HR department and hiring manager. But if leaders don’t speak up about why and how an assessment is being used, it can generate mistrust among employees. The most successful firms embrace assessments as a tool for improving awareness and team building at all levels, and leaders participate openly alongside employees. We all have room to grow, and good leaders go first!
5. Make it stick.
Assessments are meaningless if the results don’t lead to behavior change. They are most powerful when used to spark in-depth self-reflection, discussions, and commitments to take action. That’s why CrossGroup pairs assessments with individual and team training, as well as 1:1 coaching. We get people talking about their strengths and weaknesses, thinking about ways to put their newfound self-awareness into action, and holding themselves and each other accountable for positive change.
Curious about assessments and training with CrossGroup? Set up a complimentary consultation with us today.