Human Resource Consultancy firm Virtual HR Services Ltd has announced it will be launching the Personal Development Analysis (PDA Assessment Tool), in partnership with PDA International into the Kenyan market.
The tool allows organisations through their HR professionals to carry out competency behavioral assessments.
The assessments are carried out online using the system, which is expected to fully hit the Kenyan market at the end of October.
Using a simple, precise and scientific methodology, the tool then generates competency reports on all employees. This allows management to discover and analyze their employee’s competencies. This enables the leadership accurate person – to – job matches and thus develop and/or retain talent.
Gladys Ogallo, the Managing Director of Virtual HR said, ‘’Most employers have realised the need to carry out scientific assessments on new hires, to back up academic testimonials. They are also changing from using the traditional ways of identifying employees to be considered for succession. This has resulted to employers buying the idea of accurate assessments to base their judgments and is the reason we are launching the PDA Assessment tool in October.’’
Employees will benefit greatly with this assessment. They will be able to understand their strengths and developmental areas to improve their job or career prospects, current and future job performance and relationships with subordinates, colleagues and superiors.
‘’In some countries where we’re implementing the system, some employees being assessed initially found the assessments as threats to the current positions they were holding. However, the aim of this assessment is not to prove whether an employee is good or bad but to show suitability to a role; and to prepare them for training on the current role and the future role (career growth),” said Virtual HR MD Gladys Ogallo.
According to Gladys, the system will ensure succession planning, performance management; placements among others are done in a fair and accurate manner, benefiting both employees and employers.
‘’This is a great system for Graduate Development programs, for coaching, team building and development of talent pipelines,’’ she said.
Organisations that wish to take up the product will have the option of either purchasing it and using it in-house or acquiring the service from Virtual HR. For organizations that wish to use it in-house, their HR teams get trained and certified by trainers from PDA International.
Once staff are trained and certified, they can administer assessments to staff in-house, as well as generate various reports and give feedback.
For clients that do not want to have the system in-house, then Virtual HR Services administers the assessments to individuals, generates the necessary reports (Behavioral Reports, Competencies Reports and Group Comparison Reports) and shares this with the management or decision makers.
Gladys says they are targeting over 10,000 companies in Kenya both local and international as well as NGOs, touching at least 1 million employees within the next three years to acquire the cloud-based system that will not need any separate servers to host the system.
Virtual HR Services is currently using this system with 20 corporate companies in the Kenyan market. Organizations already using the tool include Cooperative Bank of Kenya, BRITAM, ICEA Lion Group, Chase Bank Kenya, Capwell Industries, Strathmore Business School and ACORN Management Services.
This tool is utilized by most of the leading companies ranked on Great Place to Work. In Africa, it is currently in use in South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania and Botswana have recently introduced PDA Assessment.
Outside of Africa, it is used extensively in the Americas, India, Malaysia, Indonesia.