Talent assessment and diagnostic tools that establish where capability genuinely sits, across the organisation, the leadership team and the individual. Used to decide where effort and budget are worth committing, rather than to confirm what was already assumed.
Most talent spending is committed on the basis of a strongly held belief about what the problem is. Sometimes the belief is correct. Frequently the engagement survey said one thing, the exit interviews said another, and the initiative that got funded addressed neither. Assessment costs less than a programme that solves the wrong problem, and a great deal less than two of them.
Agree what is actually being asked, because the instrument follows from that. A question about organisational readiness needs a different tool from a question about one leader’s impact on their team.
Choose between organisational assessment, structured feedback and process review, or some combination. More data is not automatically more useful, and an unnecessary instrument costs goodwill as well as money.
Collect responses confidentially and read them for pattern, gap and contradiction rather than for headline score.
Findings mapped to framework components, with a recommended order of work rather than an undifferentiated list of weaknesses.
Every assessment reports against the Chrysalis Talent Management Maturity Framework, so findings arrive attached to a named component rather than as a general observation. That matters for sequence. A weak position on Talent Development usually cannot be addressed until Performance Management and Data and Insights are sound enough to support it.
Organisational assessment across all eleven components of the framework, establishing where the practice actually sits against where it is believed to sit. More on the maturity assessment
Structured behavioural feedback on an individual or a leadership team, gathered from managers, peers and direct reports. More on 360 feedback
Review of the recruitment process and the system running it, which is where much of an organisation’s hiring data either originates or fails to. More on ATS recruitment
Ability, personality and motivation assessment used to inform decisions on selection, development and succession, with feedback given to every participant. More on psychometrics
The purpose of assessment is not a report. It is a decision that can be defended: this is where the gap sits, this is the order it will be addressed in, and this is how anyone will know whether it worked. Organisations that skip the diagnosis tend to pay for it later, with interest.
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The structured gathering of evidence about capability, practice and behaviour, in order to decide where to act. It operates at three levels: the organisation and its processes, a team or its leader, and the individual. Each level needs a different instrument, and conflating them is the most common reason an assessment produces something nobody can use.
Almost always the organisational one. The Maturity Assessment establishes which of the eleven components are weak, which frequently reframes the question people arrived with. Individual instruments such as 360 feedback become more useful once it is clear which capability actually matters.
Where feedback is gathered from individuals, responses are aggregated so that no comment or score can be traced back to the person who gave it. Organisational assessment findings are reported to the commissioning organisation, and individual assessment results belong to the individual, with anything shared beyond that agreed in advance.
[TO CONFIRM WITH VERITY: whether comparative or benchmark data is available, and from where. HR Directors ask this because a score without a comparison is difficult to take to a board.]
[TO CONFIRM WITH VERITY: pricing or an indicative range for each instrument, and whether assessment is credited against subsequent work.]
No. Assessment is not a gate. Where a problem is already well evidenced, going straight to design is the sensible route. The case for assessment is strongest when opinions inside the organisation conflict, when previous initiatives have not held, or when spending needs justifying to someone who was not part of the original conversation.
Verity is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD with more than twenty five years in HR, across Tesco, Nissan, TUI, Camelot, BRE, Lundbeck and the IET.
[TO CONFIRM WITH VERITY: assessment and psychometric accreditation, which needs to be consistent across this page, 360 Feedback, Psychometrics and Career Coaching.]
A short conversation establishes which question is actually being asked, and which instrument answers it. Sometimes the answer is that no assessment is needed yet.
