Before computers took over the world, touch typing was a massive part of education. In the U.S., secretaries learned touch typing on typewriters for decades, and school-age students later got typing classes to prepare them for real-world jobs.

Unfortunately, those clerical skills may be dwindling. Assuming their students are digital natives, many schools opt out of keyboard classes altogether! Even many older workers still default to the “hunt and peck” method to make up for skipped typing classes in the past.

That’s why testing for typing skills is crucial with any position. However, what is a good typing speed for jobs? How do you figure out which employees can keep up?

Here’s what every employer should know about typing speed.

Before we dive into the details, there’s one important thing to cover. How do we measure how fast an employee types?

The standard unit of measurement for typing speed is words per minute (WPM). This measurement is exactly what it sounds like: how many total words a person types in one minute.

However, things get a little more complex from there.

We can’t just take an employee’s total word count and divide it by the number of minutes they’ve been typing. We also need a definition for what counts as a single “word.”

If you have an employee type up a casual email, they’ll often use shorter words. Compare this with an employee who’s typing up a white paper filled with scientific terms and technical jargon. Using the WPM calculation above, the second employee would be penalized for having typed fewer words per minute, even though their average word might have been far longer!

That’s why most WPM calculators count a single “word” as five characters. In other words, it would be more accurate to say that we’re calculating how many five-character chunks a person can type in one minute.

These characters include keystrokes like spaces, punctuation, and numbers. However, pressing the shift, backspace, or delete button does not count as a character.

To get an employee’s gross WPM, you’d count all the characters on the page, divide it by five, and divide by the total time (in minutes) spent typing.

We don’t just want employees to type fast; we also need them to type with accuracy. That’s where their net WPM comes in.

Net WPM measures both speed and accuracy. An employee who types fast but makes constant mistakes may have a lower net WPM than an employee who types slower but with no mistakes.

As an employer, net WPM is often a better testing tool for employees. Employees with a higher net WPM spend less time backtracking and correcting errors. You’re also less likely to have to edit their work or worry about uncorrected mistakes getting into their documents.

To find an employee’s net WPM, you’ll first need their gross WPM. Once you have it, subtract the number of mistaken characters they entered and left in the document.

You can instead subtract the total number of mistakes made, even those they corrected during the minutes they were typing. However, it’s helpful to encourage corrections, as we want employees to create documents that require the least amount of edits. What’s more, some typists can still reach a high net WPM even while making corrections, so penalizing them for errors despite their high speed may do your company and the typist a disservice.

Because it’s so useful, net WPM is what most people are talking about when they say “WPM.” It’s also the score most calculators and tests will try to find.

We’ve hinted at this above, but it’s important to talk about why employee typing speed matters. There are a few key reasons:

It’s possible for employees to self-report their average WPM using free online typing calculators.

However, this isn’t the best way for your organization to collect data on its employees, nor is it an ideal way to gauge their actual typing speed. Because various online tests may use different metrics (for example, counting mistakes in the net WPM vs. leaving them out), you might get a range of disparate answers that can be hard to compare.

Instead, the smarter move is to have your employees take a single typing test. This allows you to standardize your reporting and get scores that are easier to understand side by side.

If you’re hiring, it’s ideal to check typing speed as part of the pre-screening or employee test process. This allows you to rule out candidates who wouldn’t have the productivity to perform their tasks at speed. It also ensures that you’re only considering candidates who are the right match for the job!

That’s where we come in.

Our typing tests make it easy to calculate your workers’ keyboard skills in no time. The automated software is intuitive and easy to administer, and it’s even easy to adapt to specific industries. Whether you’re checking typing skills for a role in bookkeeping, sales, marketing, or another field altogether, our office skills tests can help.

These tests also allow you to support workers who might need extra help. If you have an otherwise high-performing worker whose productivity suffers due to low typing speed, helping them invest in their skills may make their job easier.

What is a good typing speed for jobs? At the end of the day, the answer depends on your needs! Consider the amount of data your employee will need to handle, the type of writing your employee will do, and how much of their job will be in front of a computer to figure out which WPM you should look for.

As you weigh your employees’ clerical skills, make sure to partner with Success Performance Solutions. Our huge range of assessments makes it easy to measure current employees and job candidates alike, no matter your industry. For more information, call us at 800-803-4303 or reach out online with questions.