By Rachel Laliberté

A case study in using an assessment tool to engage and retain young professionals.

In our fast-paced society, with constant changes and new opportunities at hand, organizations need to ensure that employees feel valued in order to retain their talent. One of the challenges in today’s workplace is finding a positive way to engage young professionals, often referred to as “millennials.” Recognizing that millennials (the generation that follows Generation Xers), make up the largest demographic in their organization, MMM Group Limited[1], an engineering consulting firm, has proactively implemented a program to meet that challenge.

Tara McMahon, Chief Human Resources Officer with MMM Group Limited, points out that their strategy flows from the talent perspective; they want “to engage talent, and retain talent.”  MMM Group Limited is seeking to help their young professionals develop career paths within their organization. To better guide their employees in defining career development pathways, MMM Group Limited needed to apply a program whereby participants could increase self-awareness of their own strengths and realize opportunities within their workplace setting.

To aid in realizing their goal, MMM Group Limited chose the Work Personality Index^® (WPI), an assessment published by Psychometrics Canada. The WPI helps employees realize and build upon their strengths by identifying key motivators and behaviours. Initially, the ability to deliver the assessment online attracted MMM Group Limited to use this specific tool. Since MMM Group has offices across Canada, they needed a tool that everyone in their target group could access. McMahon states that a key feature in choosing Psychometrics Canada and their WPI tool was the one-on-one coaching session offered to the participants after they complete the assessment.  Psychometrics’ in-house consultants—Shawn Bakker and Aidan Millar—conducted tele-coaching sessions to help participants explore their career paths by clarifying assessment results, and helping participants focus on their strengths and possible areas for development.

Engaging the millennial demographic has required a commitment from MMM Group Limited to invest the time to initiate and maintain a program to help build the careers and futures of their young professionals. McMahon emphasizes that “spending the time and effort” to help their employees discover career paths and set career objectives exemplifies MMM Group’s commitment and care for their employees. Finding the right tools to help the process was important to developing talent within their organization.

The “career-reflection” that comes with the process of completing the WPI assessment, and participating in the coaching session afterward, along with the knowledge that your company is supporting you, reinforces in employees the sense that they are valued within their organization. The feedback from participants in this program has been positive, and MMM Group Limited is proving that it pays to be proactive in enriching the careers of millennials; they are demonstrating that their company can attract talented young professionals by offering to nurture future career paths.

Rachel Laliberté, has a BA Eng and is on staff at Psychometrics Canada.