The skills assessment is becoming more democratic
In two years, the use of the skills assessment has more than doubled. It must be said that it has been boosted by the Personal Training Account (CPF), which allows private sector workers to have it 100% financed after three to four years of experience.
The skills assessment was the subject of 85,000 funding requests validated in 2021, compared to 50,000 in 2020 and 33,000 in 2019.
Today, it is mainly women (80%) who embark on this process, according to a survey* conducted in January and February 2023 among 668 respondents who completed a skills assessment via the digital platform Even Not Cap. Beneficiaries are most often aged between 35 and 49 (52%) and mostly in employment (83%). Executives represent 31% of the requests recorded by the start-up, which is aimed more at a target of young workers, due to its 100% distance positioning.
The quest for meaning: main trigger
The quest for meaning is the first factor that encourages working people to take a skills assessment. Paradoxically, even if it distinguished “essential” professions from others, the Covid-19 crisis had no triggering impact for 76% of respondents, according to the survey. More worrying, the suffering at work ranks second among the triggers, ahead of the desire to learn. Nearly 60% of those polled mentioned the burnout, weariness and harassment as examples of suffering that led them to probe their aspirations. ” More and more general practitioners refer clients to us. Most often, these are people who live in toxic management situations “says Yves Tcheris, co-founder of Even Not Cap. A good reflex, albeit late.
Carrying out a skills assessment when all is well avoids entering into a state of emergency.
Remain discreet by conviction
If more and more employees are using a skills assessment, they are far from shouting it from the rooftops. According to the Even Not Cap survey, 76% of respondents did not talk about their approach to their employer, for fear of their reaction (30%) or because they were convinced that it was none of their business (60%).
“If this population prefers to hide their skills record, it’s mainly because they don’t want to think about their future career solely within the framework of their company. She prefers to consider all options, including leaving her employer to find fulfillment elsewhere.
Yves Trocheris
Assets also fear sending a negative signal to their N+1. “They are afraid of being shelved or of not having access to the same promotions as their co-workers. In short, to be frowned upon by their hierarchy…”, he illustrates.
The employer is however impacted!
Without always generating 180° turns, skills assessments most often lead to changes in job (43% of cases), sector (31%) or status (20%). Workers are 17.5% to have evolved professionally at the end of this stage, proof that the employer, rarely informed, is however directly impacted by this process.
Companies would have everything to gain from knowing that their employees take a skills assessment, if only to direct them to another position if they are not in their place, but also to become aware of their employees’ lack of interest and accept to see them go.
Yves Trocheris
In this, the professional interview, which takes place every two years, is insufficient. “It does not allow employers to take an interest in the projects of their employees and to ensure that they are in the right place to flourish and perform”.
Risk taking for the company
If the subject is taboo, it is also because skills assessments are not (or no longer) a reflex on the part of HR departments and managers. And for good reason: when a skills assessment is financed not by the employee’s CPF but by the employer directly, the employee has no obligation to share the results of his skills assessment with his manager or HR.
The people responsible for carrying them out are also subject to professional secrecy. ” This is a strong legal constraint for companies: it is as if they were writing a blank check, without knowing what they can get out of this process and taking the risk of seeing their employees continue their careers with their competitors. ..”, says Yves Tcheris. Logically, not many companies dare to offer this exercise of taking a step back to their employees.
* Online declarative study from January 19 to February 29, 2023 on a basis of 3000 people who have completed a skills assessment with Even Pas Cap! 668 responses analyzed.