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An American tool manufacturing company engaged Talogy to help them improve the quality of their entry-level manufacturing workforce. Specifically, they intended to increase productivity and reduce safety-related incidents. In early 2015, this organisation decided to revisit their selection system and adopt an enhanced version of the assessment to take advantage of new technologies and ensure that they were continuing to follow best selection practices.
In 2012, this organisation implemented the Talogy manufacturing solution (formerly known as Select Assessment® for Manufacturing (SAM)), an in-depth online assessment that measures the key competencies for success in a manufacturing environment. While a very effective assessment, the version being used had specific hardware and software requirements that were sometimes problematic. Additionally, the assessment was proctored and its length made it challenging to process large numbers of candidates. In 2015, Talogy released an enhanced version of the same assessment that was shorter and had fewer technical requirements. The changes were aligned with the needs of this organisation, and thus they decided to switch to the newest version of this assessment. A concurrent validation study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of this new version of the assessment.
In this study, 137 entry-level incumbents completed the new version of the assessment. Their job positions varied from machine operator to maintenance to manufacturing team member. Supervisors provided job performance ratings and safety incident information on the same individuals.
Job performance was rated on several domains: task performance, contextual performance, and global performance. Task performance refers to performance on tasks specified in the job requirements, whereas contextual performance describes employees’ behaviours that are beneficial to the organisation but outside of established job responsibilities. Global ratings assess the supervisor’s overall impression of the individual. Overall performance is a combination of all these domains. In addition to performance ratings, supervisors were asked about the promotability of each individual.
The assessment scores were compared to the key outcomes to determine the relationships between the Talogy manufacturing solution and job performance and promotability.
The overall scores were linked to supervisor job performance ratings. In the first graph, the average performance percentile was calculated for the top and bottom assessment performers. A percentile below 50 means below average; percentile at 50 are average, and percentiles above 50 are above average. As shown in the graph, top assessment performers were rated noticeably higher on all areas of job performance as well as overall performance compared to the bottom assessment performers. In the case of overall performance, for example, bottom assessment performers were in the 28th percentile. These are far below average performers on the job. Alternatively, high assessment scorers are far above average performers (66th percentile).
In addition, top scorers for our manufacturing solution are much more likely to be recommended for promotion. Supervisors were asked if the employee would be recommended for promotion. Among the top assessment scoring employees, 83% would be recommended for promotion, in comparison with only 35% of low scoring employees. Again, this assessment is able to clearly identify the highest caliber employees in the organisation.
Another important bottom line outcome this organisation attends to is safety. Supervisors also provided ratings on individuals’ safety behaviours, such as appropriately reporting incidents and adhering to rules. Results show that top assessment scorers are involved in fewer safety related incidents. The last graph shows that a much lower percentage of top assessment scorers are involved in one or more safety incidents (7%) than the bottom assessment scorers (19%). Put differently, the top assessment scorers were almost 3 times less likely to be involved in a safety related incident.
For this organisation, the updated Talogy manufacturing solution accurately identifies high performing and safe individuals in their entry-level manufacturing positions. This assessment will aid this organisation in improving the quality of their manufacturing workforce by boosting performance and reducing safety risk. And, they can do this while simultaneously reducing their time to hire and improving the candidate experience.
