Aon partnered with a global manufacturing company to rethink and implement a new assessment process for hiring and promotions. The case study below details Aon's approach to the assessment design and implementation.
About the Brand
- 200,000+ employees
- 23 time zones represented worldwide
- 70 languages spoken by employees
A major, global Fortune 500 manufacturing company was at a crossroads. The company was facing intense pressure to rework its basic business processes, including recruiting and hiring. The goal: Hire top-notch talent to help the organization realize its new vision, which was a high-performing, customer-centric, innovative one.
After many years of hiring and promoting candidates based on tenure and perceptions, it was time to develop an objective assessment process that could drive intelligent decision-making on its tens of thousands of potential hires around the world every year.
Completely Rethinking Assessment on a Major Scale
After many years without a formal assessment model, the company needed to completely rethink and realign its hiring and promotion processes to fit a new vision for innovation.
The previous methods were overly subjective and not tied to the organization's high-performance, customer-centric, innovative mission. Talent leaders were looking for a global assessment solution that was objective and evidence-based to ensure the organization could hire the absolute best talent available.
Selecting a Global Partner for Enterprise-Level Change
The company compared multiple assessment partners through a competitive RFP process. Ultimately, leaders chose Aon because of Aon's deep experience in the manufacturing industry as well as its ability to deliver an assessment solution on a global scale.
The company knew this project would be very large, and it needed a reliable, tested partner with experience rolling out similar projects across many different cultures, time zones and languages.
"We choose Aon as our overall assessment partner given their commitment to R&D with computer adaptive assessments, customized service, a broad range of assessment tools and ability to help us reach our goals."
The Aon Solution
Aon rolled out an assessment solution that is completely customized to the company's needs.
The Aon team developed more than 20 assessments and over 75 structured interview versions, to be used for different job roles, from salaried entry-level contributors to people managers to senior executives. The tests are translated into more than 22 languages for use around the world.
Because of Aon's Computerized Adaptive Testing technology, no two test experiences are the same, making it very difficult for any candidate to replicate or share test questions with others. This added security means tests can be offered without a proctor and taken by candidates on mobile devices.
Additionally, Aon rolled out a culture-fit assessment that measures every candidate's alignment to the company's Innovation-first culture.
Rolling Out the New Assessment Solution
Because the project was large-scale and involved a wholesale change in strategy and process, Aon worked with the company to roll out the new assessments slowly, in phases.
It was especially important to communicate to employees and managers why the company was implementing the changes, and what positive developments a better assessment system would bring for the company and its people in the long term.
"We needed to tell people, 'These are the new, award-winning, custom assessments just for you, this is why we're using them, and this is how we're going to hire the best people in the world and reach our goals.' "
— Client Manager at Aon
Assessments That Predict Performance
To understand the new assessment system's impact on performance, Aon tested groups of existing employees. Those employees who scored highly on the assessment were twice as likely to be high-performers on the job. That close connection between the assessment and eventual performance inspired confidence from the company's talent team.
After rolling out the assessment system globally, the company plans to test between 50,000 and 60,000 candidates each year. Prioritizing evidence-based assessment is changing the company's culture and leading teams toward a vision of innovation and excellence.
