Abstract- Changing Nature of Talent Assessment and Development

This paper examines the changing nature of talent assessment and development from the different lenses like
future of work, impact of technology on talent assessment and the shift in approach towards identifying and
developing talent.
Future of work: Organizations are becoming leaner with greater emphasis on multi-functional teams addressing
specific challenges. Role boundaries are becoming thinner and the leadership habits required in such a market
place is changing dynamically. This implies that they need to assess behaviours that are beyond their current
competency framework. Organizations will try to assess factors like learning agility, ability to unite people to a
common purpose, resilience, whole systems thinking, appreciation of diversity and cultural competence.
Talent assessment: As the job market remains competitive, skill requirements are undergoing a rapid change.
Organizations are using various approaches like data and artificial intelligence driven talent acquisition and have
also taken to these advanced technologies, with a better approach to identify candidates via online assessments,
simulators, personality assessments, gamified evaluations and so forth.
Impact of technology on Assessment & Development centers: The digital era has thrown light on some
critical pitfalls in the traditional ACs.
o Logistics hassles,
o Lack of scalability,
o The need for certified and experienced assessors
o Loss of productivity due to travel and long hours
o Predictability of the assessment
o Assessor bias and questionable accuracy of manual reports which depend primarily on the
rating scale used for the assessment process.
With technological advancements that enable voice and visuals to be captured in real-time, live role-plays can
form part of a virtual assessment centers. Virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence have already been used in
assessment centres. The possible advantages of all these technological advances are many fold:
o The accuracy of assessments can increase through the combination of many data points and
use of algorithm to assess the big-data coming from various sources
o The speed at which assessment results are available, the quality of feedback and scalability
can also increase significantly
o Machines as assessors would evaluate stress, language patterns and discern leader
characteristics. They would also provide knowledge that will normally be available from a
coach or facilitator.
o The role of humans in assessment center would be limited to design skills, software computing
skills (coding) or the skills to articulate the need to a software developer
o Investments in assessments would also help in training need identification instead of assuming
common training needs for all employees
Changes in the way organizations define and develop talent -With organizations moving away from bell-
curve based performance management use of online tools for immediate feedback and performance
improvement is gaining significant attention. Collective talent will gain emphasis as performance would be
viewed not only on an individual basis but as “network performance”. specially trained and configured groups can
easily outperform individuals on routine business tasks. Rather than focussing only on “Individual” high potential
talent the shift will be to towards creating A- teams that are demonstrating high potential and learning agility.
Organizations will also start to use the performance management system to prioritize assessment of team
performance and drive collaboration within workforce.
 Approach shift in talent development Organizations are looking to change the way people learn.
Learning is becoming more integrated with work, more personalised and slowly shifting towards a
lifelong learning model. Huge emphasis would also be there on reskilling workforce and have good
appreciation of digital technologies like IoT, cloud, AI and analytics. L&D will not direct or provide
learning opportunities but move away to focus on content curation. There will be greater emphasis on
rotating talent with learning team members working side by side with people that have capabilities in
“need-to-have-learning skills” and providing exposure to experts and real-time mentoring opportunities.
Artificial intelligence will help in predicting learning needs and help uncover skill gaps. We can envision
intelligent machines that guide learners through courses, interactive modules, and assignments,
automatically scoring them and providing feedback.
 In conclusion, we can observe that the trends mentioned indicate a definite shift towards the way
organizations look at talent, assess them and develop them. organizations will initially take a blended
approach of embracing technology and refining their approach towards the way they identify assess and
develop talent. Traditional and virtual assessments will continue to co-exist for the next few years but
sooner than later, technology would take over. The pace of transition from traditional approach to
embracing the new trends will depend upon the overall need and business imperative of the
organization

References-
https://blog.mettl.com/talent-hub/best-practices-in-talent-assessment
https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/hogan-future-hr-assessment/
https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/5-ways-to-assess-talent-and-build-for-the-future/
https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/5-ways-to-assess-talent-and-build-for-the-future/

Authors - Julie Hiipakka Can L&D Drink its own champagne, Neoskilling for Digital Transformation and
the Artificial Revolution by prof L Prasad and S Ramachandran