How to assess organizational skills

Staying organized is important in every work environment – whether your team is working in an office, in the field, or remotely. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re hiring a salesperson, engineer, software designer, or anyone else. Every employee needs to stay on top of tasks and schedules to stay effective.

When you hire someone who’s organized, you can be confident they can manage their work and time effectively.

At TestGorilla, we believe it should be easy to evaluate mission-critical abilities such as organizational skills. It’s why we’ve created a test library of more than 300 expert-created tests, making it simple to create pre-employment assessments in minutes.

It’s also why we’ve created this guide. After reading this article, you’ll understand why planning skills are important, what abilities you need to look for, how to assess organizational skills effectively, and how you can make the right hire.

What is an organizational skills assessment?

An organizational skills assessment is a pre-employment screening test designed to evaluate an applicant’s competencies and strengths. It helps you hire organized individuals for a variety of roles – including sales reps, admin staff, managers, shift workers, and more.

This type of assessment can cover topics like scheduling, delegating, time management, planning, adapting plans, and other capabilities.

Look for an organizational skills assessment developed by subject-matter experts, and choose a flexible solution that lets you adapt your pre-employment screening for different roles. This is important because the organizational skills a manager needs are different from the ideal skills of a utility worker.

Why are organizational skills important?

Organizational skills are important for virtually all roles. These abilities help you:

Meet company and team goals

Most workplace goals come with a deadline. When workers can plan, adapt, and prioritize effectively, they’re more likely to accomplish tasks on time and on budget. They stay on track and move forward to the finish line.

Avoid costly mistakes

Disorganization costs your company money. Lost work orders mean lost revenue, and misplaced forms and files require you to re-do work or spend hours searching for lost information.

When you have organized employees, they file paperwork correctly, don’t overlook important meetings and appointments, and submit their work on time. 

This helps you eliminate wasted time and lost opportunities that could cost your company money.

Reduce liability

If a disorganized worker leaves sensitive data unsecured, you can be held liable for any data breach. And if an employee loses work orders or files that result in financial losses for a customer or client, you could be facing a lawsuit.  

Organized talent is compliant talent, which is why you’ll want to protect your organization by looking for someone who’s conscientious and organized.  

Stay productive

Employees can get more done when they plan ahead and manage their time and work effectively. They’ll know what they need to tackle first, how to find the resources they need for their job, and how to break down bigger tasks into smaller steps.

This creates momentum and efficiency that helps employees get more done faster. 

Organized workers are also less likely to misplace papers and information, so they waste less time on the job looking for what they’ve lost.

Improve customer and employee satisfaction

For customers, organized workers mean faster service and less frustration caused by missed connections. When your employees plan well, your clients and customers can rely on them to show up for appointments, get work done on time, and cause fewer mix-ups and less miscommunication.

In other words, organized employees reflect well on your organization and your company brand. They ensure customers and clients feel good about doing business with you.

For employees, organized colleagues are important. Employees feel more comfortable working around peers who are on time and reliable, as they know they won’t need to pick up the slack for someone who forgot or misplaced work.

Simply put, organized workers help you create a better workplace culture and boost team happiness and satisfaction.

Identify opportunities and eliminate challenges

When your teams are organized, you’re ready to capitalize on opportunities that come your way.

Employees who retain notes and ideas so they’re easy to retrieve, for example, may come to meetings better prepared to brainstorm ideas for new services or products. Likewise, organized workers may have information at their fingertips that can help you sign new clients.

Team members with strong organizational skills can also help you avoid challenges such as double bookings, overscheduling, and missed deadlines.

What skills and traits are important for organized employees?

Communication

Organization is often about great communication with ourselves and others. Team members who can get work done efficiently are good at communicating their limits and saying “no” to what they can’t tackle. 

Organized workers are also good at communicating with their future selves. They set reminders to make sure they don’t miss deadlines, reflect on what went well in a project, and write lists to remind themselves of what they need to track.

In addition, well-organized employees will create project or work notes that other team members can use down the line.

Adaptability

It’s relatively easy to make a list or schedule. It’s a lot harder to know what to do when something significant and unexpected happens.

Workers with strong organizational skills not only plan ahead but are also great at creating contingency plans. This way, they can stay flexible, adapt if circumstances change, and still get work done.

Prioritization

Being organized requires knowing what to do and when. Highly organized employees can evaluate a list of tasks and decide what they need to focus on first, what they might need to delegate to others, and what they can leave until later.

They’ll usually capture this in a list, calendar, or some other system so they’re never at a loss about what they need to do next and can always jump into work.

Vision

Organized workers keep their eye on the prize. They focus on the big picture so they can make the right decisions and contribute to company success.

For example, if a team is aiming to increase sales, an organized employee may decide to focus on cold-calling or make a list of ideas to encourage new leads to sign on. Instead of doing busy work, they’re thinking about how to accomplish goals and objectives.

Tech skills

Workers can stay organized with sticky notes and a pen, but technology makes it much easier to keep everything in place and set reminders so no communication or work tasks get missed.

Organized workers use calendars, online to-do lists, spreadsheets, content management systems, AI, online research, and other tech tools to get more done faster. These tools also help them track task and project progress, as well as next steps.

Well-organized employees may use timers or alert systems to block out time to work and ensure they never miss a meeting or event. 

Overall, they know what tech is best for organization and understand what features help them work effectively.

Internal motivation

Employees need to be motivated to organize their tasks each day, stay on top of emails, keep their workspaces neat, communicate with colleagues and managers, and more. 

Organized employees won’t have to be told to do this work – they’ll simply do it themselves, saving managers time and effort and keeping the team on track.

Skills and traits tests

Reading Comprehension test

This test evaluates how well an applicant understands written information. It’s best for workers who will be receiving written instructions and will be communicating through emails, texts, and other written messages.

The Reading Comprehension test determines whether your job applicants can identify the main points of a written text and can draw conclusions from it. This is important to ensure new hires can understand written instructions well enough to act on them and file paperwork correctly.

Critical Thinking test

TestGorilla’s Critical Thinking test evaluates deductive reasoning, interpretation, and independent thinking. It measures an applicant’s ability to interpret sequences, understand cause and effect, and recognize assumptions.

This test is great for identifying organizational skills, as organized workers need to think independently to determine what they need to do and in what sequence tasks need to be done.

Problem Solving test

With our Problem Solving test, you can assess applicants’ ability to evaluate information, draw conclusions, and find solutions to problems. It’s important because planning and staying organized is often about finding ways around challenges.

The test also measures a candidate’s ability to create and edit schedules, make decisions, interpret data, apply logic, prioritize, and apply order based on specific rules. It can show how analytical a potential worker is – and therefore how organized they can be.

Attention to Detail test

Attention to detail is closely correlated with staying organized. Your workers may need to notice verbal details, such as whether a customer ordered a specific feature on a product, to stay organized and on track for fulfilling the order, for example.

Our Attention to Detail test measures an applicant’s ability to match and filter information, check consistency in data, and compare text for differences. These skills are important in helping workers understand the details they need to know to plan and execute work tasks.

Time Management test

Being organized means being able to manage time well. TestGorilla’s Time Management test evaluates prospective employees’ ability to plan and execute work. It also measures their ability to communicate and prioritize to stay on task.

This test can help you ensure you hire workers who can stay organized within specific schedules – perfect if your company is deadline-driven.

Project Management test

The Project Management test evaluates how well candidates can organize their work when they’re given projects to complete. It measures an applicant’s ability to understand, manage, and execute high-quality work.

In addition, this test helps you determine how well applicants can manage and create project budgets and schedules – to ensure they can stay organized enough to stick to them.

Leadership & People Management test

Supervisors, managers, and other decision-makers with direct reports need to organize not only their own work but also that of other workers and even teams. TestGorilla’s Leadership & People Management test measures their ability to do exactly that.

The test evaluates the ability to delegate, plan and support others in development, provide feedback, and get buy-in for objectives and plans. 

With this test, you can ensure you hire managers and leaders who can keep people organized and on track.

How TestGorilla can help you find the right organized employee

Knowing how to assess organizational skills shouldn’t be complicated. TestGorilla makes it easy, with our extensive test library and simple-to-create pre-employment assessments that let you make the right hire. 

TestGorilla helps you find organized workers so your workplace can run more effectively. We offer more than 300 tests to evaluate hard and soft skills, and you can mix and match tests to create totally customized assessments. Our tests are scientifically validated, help you avoid bias in the hiring process, and eliminate the time you would otherwise spend reading stacks of resumes.

Whether you need an organized admin person who can make sense of your filing system or an organized manager who can keep your team on target, TestGorilla gives you an objective way to measure organizational skills. 

Sign up for TestGorilla’s free plan today to see its value for yourself.