As those of you who read our last blog will remember, there is an increasing number of people who are overqualified for their current role, which can cause a lot of issues and typically staff attrition.
The statistics speak for themselves, with currently around five million qualified individuals working in roles they do not need their degrees or apprenticeships to complete.
Detrimental to both businesses and employees, this current mismatch is causing unhappiness for both parties, with workers feeling stuck in a role they are not suited to and employers dissatisfied with current performance levels. The retail industry is no exception.
Currently responsible for the employment of over 3 million people, it is the UK’s largest private sector employer, with around a third of employees under the age of 25.
The issue of appropriate recruitment and in-house training exists in the world of retail, as it does across all other industries and professions. It is for this reason Coensus-hr is offering the recently introduced retail-fit assessments from Prevue, to help improve the processes of UK retailers.
Specialist skills and traits
Different from other sectors, it is important for retail workers to possess a core set of specialist skills and personality traits to carry out the duties required of them.
Naturally, employees will need to feel comfortable in social situations, especially if working in customer service departments where customer interaction is an important part of the job.
Which is why the retail-fit psychometric assessments have been tailored to ask questions relevant to the sector, helping identify whether a prospective candidate is suitable for the role.
The assessment is designed in a question and answer format, prompting the participant to answer questions relating to key areas of retail employment, including sales planning, stress tolerance, sales drive and personal interaction.
When assessing the candidate’s response, the retail-fit assessment will automatically evaluate the feedback to determine the candidate’s strongest areas, as well as the aspects that may be more challenging.
In addition to presenting the findings, the assessment also provides an ‘ideal response’ example alongside the feedback so employers can gauge how close the candidate is to the model employee for the role.
Building a candidate profile
Using information submitted by the candidate throughout the assessment, retail-fit builds a complete report around their skills, personality and motivations, presenting the data in fully paragraphed detail to give employers a comprehensive overview of the prospective employee.
A traffic light system ranging from red – not recommended, through amber – possible, to green – recommended’ illustrates the overall suitability of the candidate, giving employers a valuable insight to help them choose more accurately and more quickly.
For those candidates recommended for interview, suggested questions are included to help with the interview process. The questions help the interviewer explore the challenges and strengths discovered during the assessment process – ideal responses are included to make the process easier.
Like all the assessments offered by Coensus-hr, the retail-fit versions are designed to not just find the right person for the right job, but improve the whole recruitment processes.
The retail-fit assessments are not tests with right or wrong answers. Their purpose is to understand whether the applicant would be a good fit, not only from a skills perspective, but with the culture of the businesses taken into consideration too.
Retailers need workers who can handle pressure well, communicate with customers confidently and use their initiative to stay on top of numerous tasks at once.
These new retail-fit psychometric assessments available from Coensus-hr will assist employers in identifying these candidates, and improving business productivity within the retail sector.
They will also ensure we reduce the number of people undertaking work they are not suited to, which is a win for the individuals as much as it is for the businesses.