Profiles International is a proud sponsor of Aberdeen Research Group's latest report: Human Capital Management Trends 2012. Aberdeen has been on the forefront of identifying the practices that differentiate best-in-class organizations from their peers.

As companies are required to do more with less, talent decisions take on greater complexity. The mandate for greater efficiency with fewer resources draws attention to the power of assessments. The data derived from these tools can help to maximize performance and productivity while reducing the cost and risk associated with bad hires. Assessments can also drive workforce and succession planning.

Aberdeen researcher Mollie Lombardi revealed organizational fit was the top factor in quality of hire two years in a row. She also found best-in-class organizations believed team fit was more important than a candidate’s skills when evaluating overall organizational fit. This can lead to a broader use of assessments across the employee lifecycle.

Defining Best-in-Class
Aberdeen divided study participants into three categories — best-in-class, average and laggard — and used a maturity class framework with three main performance criteria to distinguish best-in-class companies from other organizations:

• Hiring manager satisfaction: How much satisfaction with new hires has improved in the last 12-month period indicates how well the recruiting and staffing function is doing while matching new employees’ skills, talents and behaviors to hiring managers’ needs.

• Bench strength: The number of key positions that have already identified at least one willing and capable successor shows how good organizations are at identifying and developing the next crop of talent, based on future needs.

• Employee performance: How many employees received an “exceeds expectations” rating on their last performance review demonstrates how well organizations are at aligning individuals’ efforts with organizational expectations.

Best-in-class organizations represent the top 20 percent of aggregate performance scorers and demonstrate their dominance with the following scores:

81 percent of employees rated themselves as "highly engaged" in their most recent engagement survey.
71 percent of key positions have a ready and willing successor identified.
13 percent year-over-year improvement in hiring manager satisfaction.

The Best-in-Class organizations display a number of common core characteristics:

Deep understanding and commitment to align talent initiatives with the overall business objectives.
Investment in world-class technology throughout most aspects of talent and workforce management.
Demand for greater access to data and information to help streamline processes and create efficiency.

Excellence in human capital management is derived from a combination of strategies, capabilities, and technologies. Learn more about this research and Aberdeen Group by downloading the full report