Many office job roles require employees to be able to type large amounts of text quickly and accurately. Good typing technique is more than a useful skill, as a mistake by a data entry clerk or secretary could cost your business time and money. Knowing how to test an individual's Words Per Minute (WPM) typing rate effectively will help you to ensure that you select the right people for large-scale typing tasks.
It is possible to test typing speed manually, using a computer and a stopwatch. To do this, give the individual to be tested a long document and see how much they can copy in a given space of time, discounting any incorrectly typed words. The main advantage of this method is its flexibility, as you can have your candidate type whatever document you want for as long as you want. However, it does require some admin time, as you will need to check the work by hand.
A wide range of online typing tools can be used to estimate WPM speed. Sites such as Speed Typing Online and Calculator Cat work by having users type a pre-set paragraph as quickly as possible, before providing a score for speed and accuracy. This provides a convenient and free way of testing an individual's typing skills. However, these sites work only with their own pre-set phrases, which may not be ideal if you are looking for staff to deal with specific types of documents or technical terms.
The Typing Institute of America offers formal qualifications in typing for those who need quantifiable evidence of their typing skills. The Institute gives passing candidates one of five grades, from Master to Proficient. Training and testing is undertaken through the Institute's sanctioned organizations. As of July 2013, the only sanctioned organization is TypingWeb, which offers structured online typing courses for free. This process requires a considerable amount of time, but is the surest way of checking a person's typing skills.
Improving Typing Speed
Muscle memory plays a large part in typing, with experienced typists able to work without hunting around for individual keys. You may be able to speed the development of this muscle memory using typing games, which aim to familiarize you with the keyboard and improve your speed and accuracy. For example, Sense-Lang offers a balloon game, where players need to burst lettered balloons by pressing the correct key, while TypingWeb provides exercises that show you which finger you should use to press each key.
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