The Impact of Assessment and Testing

How and when you deliver your assessments can be as critical to the success of your business as the content in your learning program. Ongoing assessment, such as with Mary Porter’s learning experience, linked to both a personal performance plan and the corporate plan fosters loyalty and a personal stake in the company. After assessment and the recognition your people should receive from their success, you will notice an increase in morale. They’ve carried out your expectations. You have given them a material testimony of their capabilities that you are working to preserve. Their experience translates into skills—skills that immediately translate into work. They will return to their jobs ready to implement their knowledge and skills with boosted confidence—confidence in themselves and in their company for making the investment in their ability.

This impact is similar with professionals who prepare, pursue and achieve information technology certifications or professional licensures and accreditations. It’s indisputable. As explored in the 2002 Global Information Technology Training and Certification study, research with contributions from more than 8,000 professionals from around the globe, certified employees consistently cultivate higher responsibility and customer-service levels, increase productivity and competitive advantage and are more likely to value their organizational commitment.

One professional who benefited from the impact of assessment and contributed to the study said, “I think they think they can rely on me now, and I’m competent in doing my job. In two years it’s gone from, ‘We’re not going to let you touch this system,’ to ‘Now you can decide who you want to use your system.’ With the training and the certification, I was progressed into the senior engineer role when somebody left.”

For Your Learning Program
The relevancy and legitimacy of the corporate learning program needs continual evaluation. Assessment and testing can consistently identify the positive and negative attributes of corporate learning programs. If your employees’ learning is consistently sub-par, your learning program may need to be reevaluated. You need both reliability and relevancy. Assessment and testing will ensure that your learning does not bias employees from certain ethnic, cultural or geographical areas. Good assessment exams provide this objectivity and legal defensibility.