Everyone assesses or tests new hires.
You either do it before you hire or after.
The former is cost effective. The latter is costly.
Top reasons to assess:
Reduce turnover.
Reduce shrinkage (such as reducing employee theft)
Create a safe workplace for employees and environment for customers.
Improve customer service and sales.
Create consistency and accountability in reaching company hiring objectives.
Create a drug free workplace.
Why assess? Because there is nothing you can do that is better for your good, productive employees – the very people a company should be doing all it can to nurture. Reducing the number of problematic employees improves the environment for your good people – the people who show up, care, try hard and are productive. These are the people who make the company money.
Employees that are problematic in terms of work attitudes (showing up, working with the group, trying to a good job), safety, customer service, employee theft, workplace drug use, etc. are a huge negative impact on the morale and attitudes of the good employees.
While management will, ultimately, have to spend an inordinate amount of time, money, etc. dealing with problematic employees, it is the good, productive people who care about the quality of job they perform who, in the first instance, must deal with the problematic workers.
They are the ones who first see it, have to cover for it by doing the work not done by the problematics, put up with and work with the unpleasantness in the environment created by the problematics, counter the lack of service with customers (dealing with unhappy customers who experienced the problematics), avoid or correct unsafe situations, etc.
Good employees, ultimately, will experience morale drain. Day in and day out, every day. Ultimately, they will blame management for not proactively dealing with this situation. “Why do we hire these people in the first place? Doesn’t the company care?” “Why do I have to do their job?” Millions of anonymous employee opinion surveys by Orion Systems since 1985 powerfully reveal this truth.
The best thing any company can do to nurture their good, productive employees is strive to hire good people and avoid introduction of problematic hires into their workforce. Not only does this better enable good employees to do their job, but it demonstrates clearly to them that management cares about them and their work environment.