360 Talent Solutions

Overcoming Skill Shortages with the Predictive Index: A Comprehensive Guide

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In today’s fast-paced business environment, skill shortages have become a common challenge faced by organizations. Skill shortages are a situation where businesses have a shortage of qualified employees to fill the available job positions. Skill shortages are having a detrimental impact on businesses, including lost productivity, increased costs, and missed business opportunities.

Read the statistics:

  • The global talent shortage is at a 16-year-high, and it’s not slowing down. 
  • 43% of organizations face skill gaps already, and a further 44% expect a skills shortage within the next five years.
  • Companies with 250+ employees are struggling to recruit and retain qualified candidates.
  • In August 2022 the Federation of Small Businesses found that 80% of small firms faced difficulties recruiting applicants with suitable skills in the previous 12 months.
  • Over 65% of organizations are hiring to close potential skill gaps — making recruiting top talent extra competitive.

 

Predictive Index (PI) is one solution that can help organizations overcome skill shortages. PI provide a range of tolls that assesses an individual’s behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities, helping organizations to identify the right candidate for the job. In this article, we will discuss how Predictive Index can help overcome skill shortages.

Table of Contents

What is Predictive Index?

Predictive Index (PI) is a leading provider of psychometric assessments, offering a range of tools to help companies make better hiring and talent management decisions. Founded in 1955, PI has a long history of providing reliable and valid assessments to organizations around the world.

PI provide a range of psychometric assessments that helps organizations to hire the right candidate for the job by assessing their behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities. PI assessments have been used by global organizations to predict job performance, improve team dynamics, and identify high-potential employees. The Predictive Index is built on the foundation of two key theories – the behavioral theory and the cognitive theory.

The behavioral theory states that people behave in a certain way due to their inherent behavioral tendencies. The cognitive theory, on the other hand, suggests that individuals differ in their cognitive abilities, such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making skills. PI assessments measure both these factors to provide an accurate assessment of an individual’s behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities.

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Using Predictive Index to Overcome Skill Shortages

Identifying Skill Gaps in the Organization

The first step in overcoming skill shortages is identifying skill gaps in the organization. Skill gaps are areas where the organization lacks the necessary skills or expertise to achieve its objectives. PI assessments can help organizations identify these skill gaps by assessing the existing employees’ behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities.

By using PI assessments to create accurate job profiles, organizations can identify the necessary skills and expertise required for a particular role. Once the job profile is established, the PI assessments can then be used to assess existing employees’ behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities to determine their suitability for the role.

By assessing an employee’s behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities, PI provide insights into an employee’s strengths, weaknesses, and potential areas for development. This information can be used to create targeted training and development programs to improve employees’ skills and expertise, reducing skill gaps within the organization.

In addition, PI assessments can be used to identify potential candidates for promotion or career development opportunities. By assessing an individual’s behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities, organizations can identify employees who have the necessary skills and potential to take on new roles or responsibilities within the organization.

Understanding Job Requirements and Creating Job Profiles

Once skill gaps are identified, the next step is to understand the job requirements and create job profiles. A job profile outlines the skills, experience, and qualifications required for a particular job. The Job Assessment by PI can  help companies to understand job requirements and create job profiles by providing a detailed analysis of the behavioral and cognitive attributes necessary for success in a particular role.

The Job Assessment works by assessing the job requirements, which allows companies to identify the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience needed to perform the job. The Job Assessment creates a job profile that outlines the behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities required for success in the role.

The job profile created provides valuable insights into the key characteristics required for success in the role. This information can be used to develop job adverts and job descriptions that are more accurate and specific, making it easier for companies to attract and hire the right candidates for the job.

In addition, the Job Assessment can be used to evaluate existing employees’ behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities to determine their suitability for a particular role. This allows companies to identify employees who may be well-suited for a new role or promotion, based on their existing skills and attributes.

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Screening and Selecting Candidates

PI assessments can also be used to screen and select candidates by creating behavioral and cognitive profiles of potential candidates, allowing organizations to select the candidates that best fit the job requirements. PI assessments can also help organizations to assess candidates’ potential for success, identify strengths and weaknesses, and predicting job performance. This helps organizations to select the right candidate for the job, reducing the likelihood of skill shortages.

PI assessments can help companies to screen and select candidates by providing a comprehensive assessment of candidates’ behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities. By using the assessments to evaluate candidates against a job profile, companies can identify individuals who possess the necessary skills and attributes required for success in the role.

PI works by administering a series of assessments to candidates that are designed to measure their behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities. Based on the results of these assessments, PI generates a behavioral profile that provides valuable insights into the candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, and potential areas for development.

Using the behavioral profile generated by the tool, companies can assess the candidate’s suitability for the role, including their fit with the organization’s culture and values. This information can be used to make more informed hiring decisions, reducing the risk of hiring individuals who may not be a good fit for the role or the organization

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Benefits of Using Predictive Index for Skill Shortages

Increased Hiring Accuracy

By assessing an individual’s behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities, PI assessments provide a more comprehensive understanding of a candidate’s suitability for a job. This reduces the likelihood of hiring the wrong candidate, which can result in additional costs, lost productivity, and decreased morale. 

PI assessments can help companies to increase their hiring accuracy by providing a more comprehensive assessment of candidates’ behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities. By using PI assessments to evaluate candidates against a job profile, companies can identify individuals who possess the necessary skills and attributes required for success in the role.

PI works by assessing the job requirements and creating a job profile that outlines the behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities required for success in the role. Candidates are then assessed against this job profile using a series of assessments that measure their behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities.

The behavioral profile generated by the tool provides valuable insights into the candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, and potential areas for development. This information can be used to make more informed hiring decisions, reducing the risk of hiring individuals who may not be a good fit for the role or the organization.

By using the PI assessments, companies can increase their hiring accuracy by ensuring that they are hiring candidates who possess the necessary skills and attributes required for success in the role. This can help to reduce employee turnover, improve employee engagement and productivity, and ultimately contribute to the company’s bottom line.

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Reduced Time and Costs

By providing a comprehensive understanding of a candidate’s behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities, PI assessments reduce the need for extensive interviews and testing. This helps to streamline the hiring process, provide a more efficient and accurate assessment of candidates, and reduces the time and costs associated with hiring.

PI assessments can be administered quickly and easily, reducing the time and costs associated with traditional hiring methods such as resume screening and in-person interviews. PI’s behavioral profile provides valuable insights into a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, allowing companies to more quickly identify the most suitable candidates for a role. This can help to reduce the time required for hiring, as companies can more efficiently screen and select candidates who are the best fit for the position.

Furthermore, PI provides the ability to identify potential areas for development in candidates can help companies to more effectively onboard and train new employees. By providing insights into the candidate’s behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities, companies can tailor their training and development programs to meet the needs of each individual employee, reducing the time and costs associated with training and development.

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Improved Employee Engagement and Retention

By selecting the right candidate for the job, organizations can ensure that employees are engaged and motivated to perform their job responsibilities. This, in turn, can lead to increased retention rates, as employees are more likely to remain with an organization when they are engaged and motivated. 

PI assessments identify potential areas for development in employees and recommend targeted training and development programs to help employees improve their skills and reach their full potential. Following the completion of a behavioral assessment, in-depth reports are created, which are designed to support line managing in developing their team members.  This can improve employee engagement and lead to long-term retention.

Group of business people looking at laptop

Final Thoughts

Skill shortages can have a detrimental impact on businesses, including lost productivity, increased costs, and missed business opportunities. Predictive Index  can help organizations overcome skill shortages by identifying skill gaps, creating accurate job profiles, and selecting the right candidate for the job. Their assessments provide a more comprehensive understanding of an individual’s behavioral tendencies and cognitive abilities, increase hiring accuracy and reduces time and costs associated with hiring. While there are challenges in using the tool, such as misinterpretation of results and limited applicability in certain industries, the benefits outweigh the challenges. The Predictive Index tool is an effective solution to overcome skill shortages, ensuring that businesses have the necessary skills and expertise to achieve their objectives.

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As organizations become more competitive, it has become increasingly important for them to hire employees with the right skills and fit for the job. To achieve this, many employers are using psychometric assessments to evaluate potential employees.

In Partnership With Humanostics

360 Talent Solutions Ltd is an Associate Partner of Humanostics® , a PI Certified Partner authorised to use the science, assessment software, and curriculum of management workshops of The Predictive Index.

In partnership with Humanostics, we provide companies in the UK and across Europe access to the assessment tools provided by The Predictive Index.

Take the 6-minute PI Behavioral Assessment™ today.  Once you have completed the 6-minute assessment, I will send you a Full Behavioral Report by Predictive Index.

How Can We Help

When it comes to predicting future performance, technology is key:

  • Education, years of experience, and references all have low predictive value. Yet, we rely on these for screening early in the recruitment process.
  • Cognitive and Behavioural Assessments, have much higher predictive value, and when combined with interviews, provide the most effective method for predicting future performance.

For me, hiring without the use of psychometric assessments is like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing … and no picture on the box. It’s not fun, it takes longer, and when you are almost finished, you realise you have pieces missing.

Take the assessment today and start measuring more to improve your recruitment.

If you are interested in learning more or are ready to incorporate behavioral data into your recruitment process, please contact me today, I will be happy to help.

Let’s get started!

Dave Crumby

Founder at 360 Talent Solutions

Certified Predictive Index Practitioner 

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