Workplace Alignment Assessment (WAA)
Updated
by
Amy Thomas
At a glance
Type of assessment | Personality |
Measures | Alignment between what a candidate is looking for from their ideal employer and what your organization provides |
Time | The WAA is untimed and takes around 10 minutes to complete |
Format | Candidates rank 20 work factors into five importance categories |
Workplace outcomes | Increased commitment to the organization, increased job satisfaction, decreased likelihood of turnover, increased tenure, less distress at work |
Recommended for | All roles, especially those with high turnover, or roles that include a significant employee investment and long-term retention is a goal, such as campus or graduate hires, or future leaders. |
Description
The WAA helps you to understand the degree of alignment between the work factors a candidate considers most important and the environment your organization provides to its employees. When there is a high degree of alignment between what the organization offers and what your candidates value in an ideal employer, your employees are more likely to be committed and satisfied in their role, and stay with your organization for longer.
When candidates complete the assessment, they’re asked to describe their ideal workplace by ranking 20 work factors into five categories, from those that are most important to them in their ideal workplace, through to those that are least important. Each candidate’s responses are then compared to the organizational profile of the hiring organization, which is the same list of 20 work factors, ranked in order of how strongly the organization emphasizes each factor.
Format
As the WAA evaluates alignment between a candidate’s preferences and the organizational environment, it is a two-sided assessment.
- The supervisor of the job that the successful candidate will be placed in sorts the same 20 work factors into five importance categories, based on the extent to which the organization provides or emphasizes those work factors in the role.
- Candidates sort the 20 work factors into five importance categories, based on how important they are to them in their ideal job.
The ranking task is simple, intuitive, and can be completed on any device, including mobile devices. It is an untimed task and takes approximately 10 minutes to complete.
Measures
The WAA measures the alignment between what a candidate is looking for from their ideal employer and what your organization provides.
The full list of the WAA work factors and their definitions is provided below:
Work Factor | Description |
Ability utilization | Being able to apply relevant qualities and skills |
Achievement | Gaining a sense of accomplishment from work |
Activity | Being continually occupied with work tasks |
Advancement | Having opportunities to advance up the organization's hierarchy |
Authority | Having the capacity to provide direction to others |
Autonomy | Planning one’s work without significant involvement from Supervisors |
Compensation | Receiving remuneration that compared well with that of others |
Co-workers | Experiencing harmonious relationships with colleagues |
Creativity | Having the capacity to trial one’s own ideas |
Independence | Working independently of others |
Moral values | Working without pressure to compromise one’s moral ideals |
Policies & procedures | Receiving fair and equitable treatment from the organization |
Recognition | Being acknowledged and credited for one’s achievements |
Responsibility | Making decisions on one’s own |
Security | Encountering stability of employment |
Social service | Having the ability to provide assistance to others |
Supervision – relations | Receiving support from Supervisors when dealing with management |
Supervision – technical | Receiving comprehensive training from Supervisors |
Variety | Having the capacity to do different things on a daily basis |
Working conditions | Being provided with satisfactory conditions in which to undertake the work |
Setting up the WAA
To start using the WAA, you’ll need to create an organizational profile, which involves ranking the 20 work factors from those that are most emphasized in the work environment of the position, through to those which are emphasized least. To ensure its accuracy, someone who knows both the position and organization well, usually the position supervisor, should complete the organizational profile.
If you’re recruiting for different positions, you should create separate organizational profiles for each job, since the degree to which each work factor is emphasized may vary from one position to another. For example, having the opportunity to advance up the organization's hierarchy (the Advancement factor in the table above) may be emphasized in many positions within your organization, but might not be as important in other roles.
If you’re recruiting for different positions that have very similar work environments, it might be appropriate to use the same organizational profile for all jobs. In this case, we recommend asking the supervisors for the different positions to use the WAA worksheet to reach a consensus on which factors are most (and least) emphasized by these roles.
Click here to learn more about using the WAA in your Criteria account.
Score Reports
The score report includes the overall match between the candidate’s and organization's ranking of the 20 work factors. This overall score is expressed as a percentile score and indicates the proportion of people the candidate has greater alignment than. For example, a score of 71% indicates that the candidate’s level of alignment with the organization is greater than 71% of people who have also completed the WAA for this job.
The report includes a detailed breakdown of the level of match or mismatch between the candidate and organization on each of the 20 work factors. It also provides recommended interview questions for work factors with a high degree of mismatch, to help you investigate these areas further.
Validity Information
In the validation of the WAA, 1250 people from 28 Australian organizations across a broad range of industries completed the WAA and a measure of organizational commitment. The results of the study showed that individuals with a higher match to their organizational profile were more committed to their organization. This correlation was 0.29 and is statistically significant.
Subsequent client case studies have also found that employees with higher overall scores on the WAA received 17% higher ratings of job performance by their managers, had 31% longer tenure, and were 5 times more likely to receive a promotion compared to low scorers.
Standardization Sample
We have collected a large number of individual work factor and organizational profile rankings. All possible combinations between these individual rankings and organizational profiles are calculated to create a distribution of match scores. Individuals who then complete the WAA for recruitment are compared to this distribution to determine what proportion of people they have a greater match score than. The standardization sample for the WAA includes 7,395 individuals from various management levels from graduates to senior level managers, and across many different industries including accounting & finance, sales, trades, IT, public service, and customer service.
Additional resources
Get an overview of the WAA assessment | |
View the sample report available for the WAA assessment | |
A guide for interpreting the WAA Score Report | |
Case study: Professional services firm hires more diverse and higher performing employees Case study: Federal regulatory authority predicts job performance and career advancement | View case studies where the Workplace Alignment Assessment helped organisations improve their recruitment process. |
Supervisors for different positions can use this worksheet to reach a consensus on which factors are most and least important for similar roles. | |
View the How To Guide for using this assessment in your Criteria account. | |
Your questions about Workplace Alignment Assessment answered | View the answers to some common questions about the Workplace Alignment Assessment. |
