For all the advances in technology, business leaders understand that without great people, you cannot build a great organization. 

Finding the right people for a business can be a difficult task with many variables to consider. It's important to use the latest research and tools to make the precise decisions about talent - this is where SHL comes in.

Andy Bradshaw, CEO at SHL, says that fitting talent into a business is a complex process with no easy answers:

“You want the very best people aligned and engaged with what you're trying to do. SHL provides insight into people that could be used across the workforce for better hiring, succession planning and development decisions across an organization. We provide the insight that enables organizations to get better outcomes for their people and from their people.”

Getting these insights is particularly important at the senior end of the organization, as Sarah McLellan, Head of Professional Services (EMEA) at SHL explains: 

“SHL looks at multiple criteria, trying to determine whether there is a match between an individual and an organization. We explore behaviors and capabilities, skills and experiences and then the final component around potential. What does an individual bring that they could develop and grow later with the right nurturing? We assess somebody's preferences such as how they prefer to work, their motivation and their cognitive reasoning skills.”

The result, Sarah says, is a holistic insight into whether an individual is going to be a good match for a particular role. 

This analysis is useful for both talent acquisition and managing employees within a workforce, facilitating learning, reskilling and career development conversations within management. Ultimately, the role of SHL is to provide science-based insights that lead to better outcomes. 

Erin Crask, Solution Architect at SHL explains how SHL’s talent management solution mobilizes leaders, HR, business partners and participants in leadership development programs, enabling them to find potential in unexpected places:

“SHL dashboards allow leaders and managers visibility on the high potentials or who might be ready for a new role. A special feature is called ‘hidden gems’ which finds pockets of talent that we can use to grow diversity and increase the depth of our bench.”

The pioneering work has led to SHL being awarded the prestigious M. Scott Myers Award for Applied Research in the Workplace in 2018. Sarah McLellan says that this marked a turning point for SHL, in terms of international recognition for the quality of the research they have carried out: 

“A piece of research involved 9,000 leaders all across the globe, over 80 different organizations. SHL was able to identify 27 different contexts that leaders typically find themselves in which responses were most effective. If we can understand that combination of attributes, we can holistically predict somebody's likely level of performance. Combining that with already established science using personality assessments, we were able to produce an assessment that has four times the power of a more traditional approach to measuring and understanding leadership behavior.”