PeopleAnswers—a provider of web-based hiring assessments for brands like Panera Bread, Macy’s, and HSBC—announced significant enhancements to its talent assessment software suite, including new business intelligence capabilities, behavioral onboarding tools, and a flexible interview guide.

Together these enhancements ensure a more streamlined recruiting process and enable evidence-based human resources.

Companies using the PeopleAnswers behavioral assessment to pre-screen, interview, and hire employees can attribute validated and measurable business outcomes to their hiring process and decisions, thus establishing the cornerstones of an evidence-based human resources program.

“Companies and organizations worldwide battle the same recruitment issues—selecting high-quality employees consistently and reducing employee turnover. These days, they simply can’t afford a bad hire,” says Madeline Laurano, talent systems analyst and advisory practice manager, The Newman Group, A Futurestep Company.

“PeopleAnswers addresses a critical need in the recruiting process by connecting selection, onboarding, and career planning. Technologies that establish such connections play an essential role in effective employee recruiting.” 

These significant software enhancements include:

• Intelligent Reporting – A business intelligence engine giving users access to rich analytics enabling them to more effectively monitor productivity and candidate flow through the recruitment process. Users see sophisticated visual data displays with controls for advanced reporting and ad-hoc analysis to help guide hiring and workflow process decisions. This is a unique feature not available within other assessment platforms.
• Authenticity Alerts – A series of complex algorithms that monitor candidate response patterns and notify managers of results that are inconsistent with the vast majority of respondents. This functionality operates continuously in the background to give hiring managers confidence the information candidates submit is authentic.
• Custom Interview Guides – Allow companies to define custom interview packets, combining the best portions of in-house interview practices with the PeopleAnswers content. These guides give hiring managers the capability to tailor the interview process using all or a subset of PeopleAnswers’ highly customized interview question outputs, scoring models, and instructions. When interviews follow a structured course customized to each candidate, the resulting face-to-face interaction reveals relevant information that helps managers make that all-important hiring decision.
• Behavioral Onboarding – Provides valuable insight to supervisors about how to effectively onboard, train, and manage their new employees. Behavioral onboarding leverages assessment data beyond the hiring decision to allow companies to acclimate new employees to their positions according to each individual’s behavioral makeup. By establishing a plan for successful onboarding, this tool is a vital component in minimizing turnover during a new hire’s critical first few months on the job.

“Every hire is an investment that can impact customer service, profits, and the company brand,” says Gabriel Goncalves, CEO and president, PeopleAnswers. “Creating a direct relationship between talent and performance, while also making the recruiting process more efficient, holds significant value for companies, especially in uncertain economic times.

“We stay tuned to business trends and to our end users through the PeopleAnswers Client Advisory Council to plan new functionality that will continue to help our customers drive performance improvement while minimizing employee turnover, both helping keep them ahead of the competition,” Goncalves says.

These new features and capabilities are now available and included in the software subscription price for current customers. PeopleAnswers integrations are developed according to the HR-XML open standards specifications enabling companies to integrate faster with lower cost and risk. PeopleAnswers is a member of the HR-XML Consortium.