Employee engagement impacts whether your organization’s productivity and profits increase or decrease.
Companies with highly engaged employees experience higher profits, higher productivity and lower turnover.
In contrast, companies with unengaged employees experience lower profits, lower productivity and higher turnover.
Therefore, it is important hiring Managers to evaluate which job applicant will be productive and motivated in their job using employment tests. Pre-employment test help you assess employee engagement.
I hear buzz about employee engagement, unengaged employees and employee commitment. But those terms are just buzzwords. So, I studied what employee engagement means using my pre-employment tests.
In my research I found that engaged employees are the same as what I have spent years calling ‘Superstar’ employees.
Engaged or Superstar employees exhibit two factors: They are both Highly Productive + Low Turnover.
So increasing your company’s employee engagement & profits start with you hiring job applicants who have work qualities similar to your best highly productive, low turnover employees in each job.
So, how do you stock your workforce with engaged employees = Superstar employees?
Fortunately, increasing your company’s employee engagement (& profits) boils down to doing the following six steps:
1STSTEP = List Your “Superstar” Employees In Each Job
Your Superstar employees are employees you metaphorically would like to “clone.” They are both
A. Highly Productive
B. Low Turnover
2ND STEP = Choose Employment Tests
The most scientific objective method you can use to assess job applicants is pre-employment tests.
In contrast, other assessment methods are very subjective, unscientific, and not objective. These other methods include most interviews.
For “white-collar” jobs, use two types of tests:
1. Intelligence – for work-related mental abilities
2. Personality – for Interpersonal Style, personality traits, and motivations
“White-collar” jobs include professional, office, sales, and management jobs.
For “blue-collar” jobs, use these types of tests:
1. Intelligence – for work-related brainpower
2. Reliability – for honesty, work ethic, impulsiveness, stealing, and substance abuse
“Blue-collar” jobs include warehouse workers, drivers, packers, janitors, production workers, and laborers.
It is important to make sure personality test or reliability test you use has section that scientifically “catches” applicants who try to outwit the test, to seem “better or different”
than they really are.
3RD STEP = Your Superstar Employees Take Employment Tests
You, of course, want to hire people who have work-related qualities similar to your Superstar, engaged employees.
So, benchmark pre employment tests you use. To do this, have your Superstars in each job take that job’s employment tests.
Then, statistically uncover typical or “benchmark” test scores gotten by your Superstar, engaged employees (employees you want to, metaphorically, “clone).
4TH STEP = Applicants Tale Employment Tests
When you test job candidates, do the logical thing: Seriously consider hiring applicants who get same scores as your Superstar, engaged employees.
But if an applicant gets test scores different than your Superstars’ benchmark test scores, then you probably want to find a better applicant whose work qualities measured by pre-employment tests are more similar to your Superstars.
5th STEP: Managers Who Encourage + Reinforce Employee Engagement
Some managers encourage employees to be engaged, that is, (1) highly productive + (2) low turnover.
But other managers are toxic. Such lousy managers harm job performance of your employees.
I also notice lousy managers often are too lazy or “busy” to find, test, assess and select good employees. Such lousy managers end up hiring unengaged employees who exhibit (a) low productivity and (b) expensive turnover.
So, make sure you have managers who hire Superstar, engaged employees + encourage their employees’ high productivity and low turnover. Otherwise, you might have a management problem, not a Superstar selection problem.
6TH STEP = Measure Your Success + Increased Profits
When employment tests and other methods result in you to hiring employees with work-related personality and intelligence similar to your Superstar, engaged employees PLUS you have wonderful managers managing them, then you should see three measurable improvements:
1. Higher productivity
2. Higher profits
3. Lower turnover
But, if you selected employees who differ from your Superstar, engaged employees and/or have lousy managers, then you will find these awful measures:
– Lower productivity
– Lower profits
– Higher turnover
Keep it simple to grow your organization.
Use pre-employment tests to scientifically hire employees with work-related qualities similar to your best employees in each job. In addition, provide them with terrific managers.
Then, your company can grow and prosper.
Learn more about assessing job applicants