Product Focus
Step One Survey II^TM

If the Shoe Fits: The Story of Sava Senior Care
Finding the right person to fit in a particular job can be like trying to find the right foot to fit the glass slipper. For Danette Manzi, senior vice president of Sava Senior Care Administrative Services, the ProfileXT^TM is like a magic shoehorn.

Manzi, who had experience with the assessment tool, brought the ProfileXT^TM to Sava Senior Care last July. She found that it is key to finding sales associates who fit the positions she needs to fill.

“The ProfileXT^TM got the right people into the right jobs,” says Manzi, who has more than 20 years of experience in selecting long-term care professionals. “We review results with our employees, candidly discussing how their thinking and behaviors matched our benchmark for high-performing employees. People understood that they might not match the position, but they could move into other positions and be successful.”

Assessment Tools Must Be Fair to All Groups
This month we examine the third Department of Labor guideline for occupational assessments. This rule says that assessment instruments should be unbiased and treat all groups with fairness.

Fairness in hiring, training and promoting employees is not only required by law, but it also benefits the company to hire the person with the most relevant abilities, skills and job knowledge.

However, selecting the right employee often presents managers with a challenge. Job interviews must be wide-ranging, designed to elicit the best information and conducted within the law. Asking the wrong question can cause big legal issues for a manager and the company if a job candidate believes there has been bias. At the same time, the necessary questions must be asked to ensure the hiring manager has the information to make a good decision.

The client adds, “We have also found it is a much better judge of honesty or integrity than when our managers relied on gut instinct.”

Honesty and integrity are important to every company, but the threat of lawsuits has made it difficult to have confidence in asking the questions that help determine an applicant’s integrity. If you call the candidate’s previous employer for a reference, you might get no information – or a carefully worded statement that confirms dates of employment.

If you are suspicious about a candidate and decline to hire him or her because you cannot get the information you seek, will you be able to show that you used fair and unbiased information?

Profiles’ SOSII^TM enables employers to objectively obtain accurate information, identify the best candidates and conduct better interviews. All of Profiles’ assessments meet or exceed Department of Labor guidelines, and we work diligently with our clients to help them understand our tools and use them correctly.

Profiles Tip of the Month

Two’s Company, Four’s a Crowd
Robin made an appointment with a valued client. They were going to talk about the new insurance plan Robin represented. As she prepared for the meeting, Robin decided to take her colleague Jason because he knew the plan better than she did. Jason agreed but wanted to bring along Tom and his excellent PowerPoint presentation.

When Tom’s colleague Marta heard about the presentation, she asked to join them so she could learn from the presentation. Robin was excited to have so many people going with her. But she forgot one key thing – to ask the client’s permission to bring along the others.

When she arrived at the client’s office with three more in tow, there were not enough chairs in the client’s small office. The conference room was in use. Clearly overwhelmed, the client told Robin she had 20 minutes.

Robin did not get the sale and has not been able to get an appointment with the client since. The moral of this story? Don’t present your client with surprises.

What Does Good Leadership Look Like?
People who reflect on the subject of leadership do not always agree on what makes a good leader. Most of them focus on leadership instead. Here are 10 different traits used to describe effective leaders:

• They have a clear vision of where to go and how to get there.
• They favor action over inertia.
• They take responsibility for their actions.
• Their values are reflected in their actions.
• They recognize that they need other people and build relationships.
• They are confident enough to consider opinions different from their own.
• They provide the training and tools employees need to complete required tasks.
• They often work alongside their people.
• They are honest about their own weaknesses and hire people who will shore them up. They are both teachers and pupils of their employees.
• They work hard but take time for themselves.

On Leadership and Success: Some Thoughts

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation.
- Warren Bennis, author and professor

Where there is no vision, the people perish.
- Proverbs 29:18

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.
- Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's

We know not where our dreams will take us, but we can probably see quite clearly where we'll go without them.
- Marilyn Grey, educator and speaker

All serious daring starts from within.
- Eudora Welty, writer

ProfileXT^TM Helps Healthcare Organization Improve Selection Practices
Leaders of a healthcare organization faced with low employee productivity wanted to hire more employees who excelled in their jobs. The current study was conducted to examine the relationship between employee productivity and job match to ProfileXT^TM.

Participants - Sixty enrollment specialists had taken the ProfileXT^TM and received a performance evaluation by a supervisor on a five-point rating scale. These evaluations showed 13 employees exceeded expectations (4-5 rating) and six failed to meet expectations (1-2 rating). The remaining 41 people met performance expectations (3 rating).

Job Match Pattern - In a concurrent study format, a job match pattern was developed for the enrollment specialist position using the PXT^TM. A sample of 13 top-performing enrollment specialists formed the job match pattern. This pattern now serves as a benchmark to which other employees can be matched.

Performance Grouping - All participants were compared to the job match pattern.

After a review of the sample’s PXT^TM percent matches, an overall job match of 78 percent or better identified top-performers and was selected as a break point to represent a good pattern match.

The study showed that the pattern efficiently identifies top performers. Of 60 employees in the study, 34 met or exceeded the benchmark. Nine of the 13 (69 percent) top performers were included in this group, while only two of the six (33 percent) bottom performers displayed the same match. Thus, the pattern differentiates top and bottom performers as shown by the company’s own performance evaluations.

Details - The company’s hiring practices are more consistent after using the PXT^TM. Organization leaders are more confident in their hiring decisions knowing the PXT^TM is based on firm employee attributes.

Summary - Using the PXT^TM to benchmark employees, the organization has shown the ability to successfully screen enrollment specialist candidates. Of the 34 who met or exceeded the job match pattern, only 5.8 percent (2) were bottom performers. Seventy percent of the top performers (9 of 13) were included in this group. Clearly, selection practices can be improved using job match patterns created by the PXT^TM.

Step One Survey II^TM Saves Consulting Company from Costly Hiring Mistakes
Jean, human resources director for a large consulting company, stared at the resume on her desk. A few years ago, she would have wasted precious time trying to read between the lines.

Her first step was to identify, through scientific methods instead of “gut reaction,” the best candidates to interview.

Jean and her employees in HR routinely use the Step One Survey II^TM to evaluate applicants for integrity, substance abuse, reliability and work ethic, with the reports provided in an objective manner.

The SOSII^TM also allows them to conduct uniform interviews that elicit high-quality information.

The reports supplied by SOSII^TM gave them Quick Check, which included a candidate's employment status, availability to start, most recent salary, and supervisory experience; Employment Profile, an employment history plus supporting interview questions; an integrity report, which summarized admissions regarding theft of money, property, data and time; a substance abuse report, which showed admissions regarding the personal use and/or distribution of illegal and/or regulated substances; a criminal convictions report, which revealed admissions regarding criminal convictions; and an attitude report, which showed feelings regarding integrity, substance abuse, reliability and work ethic.

With a final review of the structured questions that she would ask Robert related to key issues identified in his responses, Jean felt well-prepared and confident. She was ready to welcome him into her office.