Government agencies have long relied on psychometric assessment in their hiring processes, but a focus on innovation and government accountability has led to government human resources reassessing how they choose high performance talent. The International Growth Centre, a highly-regarded NGO that works with governments around the world, has concluded that identifying high performance in the hiring process is fundamental.
There are a range of enterprise level psychometric assessment options like Hogan, Wave, OPQ ,DISC, and Myers-Briggs. These all have their pluses and minuses and have traditionally served as useful tools for HR professionals when it comes to employee selection and development.
Government has also developed and, in many cases, pioneered innovative capability frameworks which help map out behaviours, skills and knowledge an organisation needs in order to succeed.
While psychometric testing can still be a valuable tool, and capability frameworks matter, used in isolation these methods are often expensive, time-consuming and failing to deliver the kind of actionable insights that many government human resource professionals, project managers and leaders of new initiatives require.
Fortunately, they are also no longer the only option. Next-generation human performance technology that is fast and scalable exists. This technology harmoniously combines psychometric assessment with the core advantages of capability frameworks. The emergence of this technology in recent years has given those in government in need of forming or developing high performance teams a powerful and scalable advantage. This is especially important in the current environment in which government is facing significant competition for workers.
Next-generation human performance technology is built on a Define, Compare and Act (DCA) framework. It works by twinning the deep-dive, qualitative human insights possible in psychometric assessments with the contextual insights of a capability framework which most governments have concluded is essential for appropriate hiring.
The key breakthrough here is that without the context, no performer, however talented, can thrive.
If you don’t map the role, the culture and the person simultaneously and integrate this insight, then you are unlikely to maximise human performance —you’re basically taking a shot in the dark.
This is how DCA works:
– First, you Define your unique environment and specific capabilities required for role or business success
– Then you Compare existing employees and job candidates against these needs and each other in an unbiased manner, and
– Finally, you Act on this information with confidence to hire the best candidates into positions or invest in existing employees who possess strong potential.
Alternative to psychometric assessment for government
The advantage of using this next-generation human performance technology is being felt across enterprises of all sizes where it is challenging intuitive hiring and management assumptions with rich individual data framed within rich role and environment data. But in many ways, government is best situated to benefit, especially government departments and projects committed to realising the promise of both psychometric assessments and capability frameworks in unlocking human potential.
Find out how Movember’s Chief People Officer partnered with AbilityMap to evolve their Global Leadership culture using a HR tool that surpassed off-the-shelf capability frameworks.
