Evalex – nurturing professional talent since 1980

In 2002 I did my first psychometric evaluation. I remember driving out to Rivonia and spending five hours ticking “would you rather” boxes. At the time it seemed pointless. “Surely there are better ways for my employer to engage my time that forcing me to spend hours and hours reflecting on myself,” I muttered. “I know what I’m all about. Just let me get on with it.”

A week later I got my feedback: “You would far rather get the photocopier working properly than plot the strategic direction of a business – and that’s perfectly fine. Not many people can do what you do.”

It was a watershed moment for me. After years and years struggling to be a visionary, I realised that it’s okay not to be one. Visionary thinkers need people like me – people who can get the photocopier working properly (in a manner of speaking); people who say, “Good vision, but what if we tweak this bit here and fiddle with that little bit over there? Here are a few routes we can take.”

The assessment tool that led me to this moment of truth was Evalex, which has been around since 1980 (and is still around today). My personal Evalex story is about to come full circle as we recently took them on board as clients at CN&CO.

Carel’s journey with Evalex founder Pieter Bronkhorst dates back a little further than mine.

“We started doing work with Evalex in around 2000,” he recalls. “Of course, I was completely against the idea. I had always been – and still am, to a lesser extent – opposed to using science and algorithms to determine a person’s abilities. But Hendrik Bronkhorst – also from Evalex – eventually won me over and I soon realised that there’s a lot of merit to the insights that Evalex can provide.”

It’s difficult to describe what Evalex is without resorting to the type of wanky corporate and academic language that we hate so much at CN&CO. Terms like:

• “… sophisticated global internet-based talent solution consisting of eight modules covering the total HR value chain …”
• “… psychometric tools with extremely high predictive validity …”
• “… massive managerial performance and competence database …”
• “… assessment solution for each level of work …”
• “… enviable databases of the human characteristics of high performance at each level of work against which employees and management teams are benchmarked …”
• “… competence library covering cognitive, leadership, managerial, behavioural, business and technical competencies …”

However you phrase it, Evalex’s ability to help organisations find, develop and hold on to amazingly talented people is irrefutable.

Local solutions

“What we love about the Evalex team is that they have developed the tools locally to assess all these things, and built their databases up over a period of 35+ years,” says Carel. “So it’s a local solution in a local context, rather than some plug-and-play northern hemisphere system.”

Plus we love the people behind Evalex.

“Even though they’re really, really smart, they don’t speak in corporate and academic language, rather in a way that people can understand,” adds Carel. “Pieter and Hendrik were also instrumental in helping me to decide to come back to SA from Australia in 2008 to be part of the founding of Etana Insurance, and for that I am forever grateful.”

CNC&CO will be working with Pieter and team on a variety of marketing initiatives – and we might even consider helping them out if their photocopier goes on the fritz. Watch this space!