Tips to Evaluate Future Skills Using Talent Assessments

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by Dean Callaghan, C. Psychol., Ps.S.I, Managing Director at Aon’s Human Capital Solutions

In today’s fast-paced and ever-evolving business landscape, by using talent assessments organisations can better understand current and future skills gaps in their workforces.

Key Takeaways

1. Organisations can assess for core capabilities of their workforce now that will indicate readiness to learn future skills.
2. Resilience is an important skill to assess and build, as it assesses the ability to adapt and cope with change.
3. Having an inclusive mindset, which enables inclusion and diversity, helps to boost wellbeing and belonging in the workforce.

Across all organisations, planning for future skills is a top priority for HR professionals and leaders.

Our clients are increasingly asking fundamental questions like: What skills do we need right now and in the future? What potential and skills do we have within our workforce now? How can we close the gap between existing skills and what is needed tomorrow? While future skills planning involves many areas, the use of talent assessments to determine the skills and aptitude among current workforces is an asset we see organisations underutilising.

An organisation can optimise its talent strategy with the right assessments and hire and develop a workforce equipped to adapt to the future, embrace change, and thrive in uncertainty.

Tip #1: Use a Tried and Tested Model for Digital Readiness

Digital readiness is an indicator of the ability to learn future skills. It makes people feel comfortable with technology and helps them successfully navigate the digital world of work. Digital readiness includes:

• The desire and ability to learn and seek new development opportunities
• Flexibly adapting to a workplace that’s ever-changing
• An openness to try new things

Tip #2: Assess Your Existing Workforce for Digital Readiness

Based on four years of data from Aon’s talent assessments (including 48 million assessments), we find that digital readiness is equally represented across genders, but more prevalent in workers aged 50 and above and with senior managers.

Which roles in your organization are most vulnerable when it comes to automation? Since they will require reskilling and upskilling, this group is a good place to start.

Aon’s Digital Readiness Model can be used to understand the individuals, teams or the entire employee populations digital competencies. Individuals with a high score can be moved into positions of influence. Teams or larger workforce groups can undergo an audit to see how the current workforce compares to future skills, allowing organisations to identify skill gaps and plan on filling these.

Tip #3: Assess Talent for Resilience

Assessing talent for resilience measures how adaptable, stress resistant, and motivated the individuals are in a workforce. Understanding and closing gaps of resilience within an organisation on an individual or team level helps realise potential and bottom-line performance for the long term.

Resilience can be assessed using Aon’s Human Sustainability Index (HSI) on an individual, team and organisational level. HSI is inclusive and scalable, enabling you to target interventions with maximum impact and in a cost-effective way.

Tip #4: Assess Talent for an Inclusive Mindset

An inclusive mindset builds and maintains relationships and values and respects different perspectives. Collectively, it can support the wellbeing of all employees.

Employers should check if data within their own organisations reveals any patterns and trends related to certain job functions or demographics. With this knowledge they can build and boost inclusivity throughout the workforce.

Employers who identify those employees with a strong inclusive mindset, can support their organisations diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging goals by involving them in special projects or moving them into a position of influence.

Tip #5: Assess for Timeless Soft Skills

People bring more than just skills and experience with them to work.

Soft skills include communicating with impact, creating emotional attachment, driving results, and taking initiative. Personality assessments, such as Aon’s ADEPT-15®, can uncover the unique aspects of an individual’s personality to identify these skills.

To learn more about how your organisation can evaluate future skills by using Talent Assessments, get in touch with Aon’s Human Capital Solutions Managing Director, Dean Callaghan at [email protected].