Psychometrics for Internal Benchmarking

The three major aspects of running an informal internal benchmarking study

Initial Sampling:

The minimum sample for an internal benchmarking study is 10 participants (n=10 or greater). Fewer than 10 participants simply won’t yield sufficiently reliable results, and thus won’t provide statistically meaningful data.

Descriptive Statistics:

Once you have your data, it will need to be analysed. Typical descriptive statistics that organisations are interested in include the mean (average), median, mode, range, interquartile range, and standard deviation (SD).

Informed Decision making:

Your descriptive statistics should give you an indication of how high your internal staff score on average, along with the distribution of scores. These data will help to choose cut-scores and pass-marks, informing future selection decisions.

How organisations use internal benchmarking studies

Deciding on cut scores and pass-marks is an essential aspect of using psychometrics. Internal benchmarking studies are an invaluable way of gauging the average performance of your incumbent workforce, allowing you to set pass-marks in line with empirical data. Although almost all assessments come with norm groups, internal benchmarking adds a degree of personal touch, ensuring that subsequent selection decisions are made based on local data.

Internal profiling using personality questionnaires also yields significant insight and is almost always worth doing. This is particularly useful when using personality questionnaires to gauge behavioural / culture / values fit, which is increasingly used as part of employee selection. For example, giving a personality questionnaire to 10-200+ internal employees allows you to identify the personality traits which are especially common among internal staff, helping to quantify aspects of organisational culture were previously inaccessible.

How Test Partnership can help

Test Partnership’s ability tests can be very easily given to internal employees, allowing employing organisations to gauge the average and distribution of scores within the company itself. Identifying these descriptive statistics can then help inform selection decisions, as the employer will know, roughly speaking, the typical performance of current staff. This information then informs the use of cut-scores and pass-marks, allowing organisations to use more stringent and defensible selection criteria.

Test partnership also offers personality questionnaires, which can be used for internal profiling. Our personality questionnaires can easily be given to incumbent staff, helping to identify behavioural and cultural trends among existing staff. This information can help identify the particular traits and dispositions which are indicative of culture / job / behavioural fit, helping the organisation to use assessment in selection.

Assessments we recommend for internal benchmarking

The following assessments are commonly used in internal benchmarking studies. Often, they are used to either inform cut-scores and pass-marks for ability test projects, or to measure behavioural traits when identifying culture / behaviour / values fit.

1) Insights Series

The Insights Series of ability tests comprise computer adaptive numerical, verbal, and inductive reasoning tests.

Overall, completing all three assessments typically takes around 30 minutes, making insights both convenient for candidates and informative to employers.

2) Concepts Critical Thinking

This test measures the ability to conceptualise, apply, analyse and evaluate information in order to reach a meaningful conclusion.

More powerful than a traditional verbal reasoning test, Concepts Critical Thinking is essential for roles involving complex qualitative information and / or meaningful decision making.

3) TPAQ-45 Complete Profile

This test measures the key personality traits which collectively comprise a person’s character, temperament and behavioural preferences.

The TPAQ-45 Complete Profile measures 45 distinct personality traits, providing an unparalleled level of depth when predicting future performance, job-fit, and culture-fit.

Trusted assessment partner

Over 6000 companies across 40 different countries trust our specialist expertise to deliver robust people performance metrics.

Large influencer or small startup; all companies recognise the importance of selecting the best employees and we help you achieve your goals.