How can you successfully assess your employees’ skills?

Assessing skills is not just something that happens during recruitment or at the end of a training course! It’s an integral part of a company’s human resources policy, helping employees to develop (or enhance) their skills. As long as you respect the key stages and use the right tools! Here are the best practices for a successful employee skills assessment.

Assessing employee skills: what’s in it for you?

Assessing the skills of employees in a company can meet a number of challenges. It makes it easier to identify skills that were previously ‘under the radar’. Technological innovations or a change in activity within the company may require employees to acquire new skills.

Skills assessment helps to identify training needs. This is the case when the company implements technical processes or uses new software. It is possible to assess participants in order to validate what they have learnt, or to decide on enhanced support.

Finally, skills assessment is a key tool for participating in the professional development of employees and leading teams. By investing in a long-term vision of their careers, companies can build loyalty among their employees and avoid employee fatigue, which is often synonymous with staff turnover.

Good to know: in France, employers can offer training to help develop skills and ensure that employees can adapt to their jobs (article L6321-1 of the Labour Code). The skills development plan provides a framework for possible training initiatives.

Quatre étapes pour réussir l’évaluation des compétences des collaborateurs

Assessing the skills of your employees is not something you can improvise! Here are four steps for organising this process within your company.

Step 1: Establish a framework and define objectives

A successful employee skills appraisal requires, above all, the support of the people who are the first to be affected: the company’s employees. To achieve this, it is essential to determine :

• the purpose of the assessment: to identify the training required, to validate what has been learnt at the end of in-house training, or to help employees progress within the company’s organisation;
• the time frame and methodology: the tools used and the assessment methods, with maximum transparency and education.

Step 2: Identify the skills to be assessed

Skills can be :

• related to technical knowledge or expertise (hard skills) ;
• soft skills: autonomy, oral communication, flexibility.
• cross-functional, which are both behavioural and technical: public speaking, for example.

Step 3: Choosing a valuation method

There are several approaches depending on the objectives being pursued, and it is entirely possible to combine several methods.

• A self-assessment or 360° assessment;
• An individual interview, either face-to-face or remotely;
• Technical or behavioural skills tests, using digital tools to collect and analyse the results.

Step 4: Draw on the results to implement an action plan

Assessment is not just about interviews and tests. It has to be followed up with concrete action to see positive effects for both the company and the employee!

Analyses of the results can be used to:

• Draw up training plans;
• Offer support
• Or adapt employees’ career paths.

What tools should be used to successfully assess employee skills?

In the context of an interview, a simple Excel evaluation grid may suffice to list skills already acquired or to be improved. But for more relevant results, we recommend using digital assessment platforms: for their efficiency, reliability and the transparency they offer.

Here are several criteria to look for:

• The assessment tool must be easy to use, with simplified handling for both employees and assessors.
• It should offer several methods so that assessment is not limited: an online interview solution, situational tests, technical skills tests.
• Integration with the company’s tools is preferable (LMS – learning management system, for example) to make it easier to report and analyse the results.
• Security guarantees are essential, both for the tests to prevent cheating (proctoring and anti-fraud system) and for the protection of employee data.

Good to know: A solution like TestWe meets all these criteria. The digital platform can be fully configured according to the objectives being pursued. TestWe integrates with the various tools used by the company and enables a transparent assessment process for employees.