The assessment industry has advanced over the past few decades in particular as we talk about including Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Metaverse based assessments.

However, there remains to be questions over the best tools that can provide evaluation as employers run the risk of biases  widening an existing ineffective and dysfunctional labour market. 

“We have to make sure that we are not copying and pasting from other regions in the 20th century and instead we are expecting to be relevant to today’s market,” said David Jones, CEO of the Talent Enterprise, during a roundtable to introduce his new book “The Future of Assessments.”

The book looks at the impact of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Virtual Reality and the Metaverse on sourcing, securing and retaining the very best workplace talent for employers across the GCC and globally.

He explains that workplace assessments which has been developed in the West in the early 20^th century, such as the IQ test and MBTI, are increasingly irrelevant in the modern workplace. He added that more employers are looking for specific assessments to measure a range of independent cognitive capabilities more suited to predicting performance more relevant to workplaces in the mid 21^st century. 

Jones believes that a multi modal approach is the optimum way of assessing a talent. Such a modal would include a combination of “statistical rigour” and “practical relevance.”

According to Talent Enterprise, this multi-modal approach can help employers to carefully and objectively assess the key marketers or attributes of what they define as “high potential” talent.

“We have to be careful that we are not perpetuating bias by using the same kind of data which is why the more data we have the more reliable it can be,” said Jones.

He added that companies must make sure that they understand their data and have data insights that can be used as a benchmark and research. Nonetheless, to be creative in the way they create their assessments to ensure there is more agility in the workplace.

“We have to make sure that we have data security [laws] in place, we often find that we have to take the lead on behalf of our clients to take an objective point of view and clean the data,” he told The HR Observer, explaining the importance of not jeopardizing the data.

AI, Machine Learning and Virtual Reality are changing the way assessments are done, he explains, as they help in differentiating candidate experience amongst top employers which helps make the end user experience more valid, immersive, secure and relevant for the high potential candidates. 

A candidate is described as a high potential employee, if they are personally engaged, committed and aligned to the organisation. Therefore, having the right leadership behaviours are considered the strongest predictor of high potential talent, followed by cognitive ability, and both alignment and aspiration show up as predictors in equal measure. 

According to the research Talent Enterprise conducted, the analytical tools that are applied today have been important; however, they have found that 40% of high potential talent are not engaged or aligned with the organisation, almost a third are at high risk of attrition and more than 50% have concerns over their career. Therefore, Jones said that technology-enabled behaviour metrics assessments can be used to help engage more of the employees.

“Employers are trying to differentiate themselves and part of the candidate experience is how the assessments are deployed, because if you think about it from the end user point of view they do not  want that same experience,” he told the HR Observer. 

“They can show on a practical basis using some of these simulations and technologies to be able to show their practical competencies and behaviours along with their formal education,” he added.