core value assessments

Hiring Assessments Can Revive Your Bottom Line

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 HireRight“If it weren’t for assessments, I would hire the way I always do and  get the same bad results!” — President, Engineering Company

 

Many companies today are focused on increasing sales, saving money and improving profitability. They spend a lot of time evaluating equipment and systems to ensure the best ROI. However, they fail to take the same amount of care when selecting the right resources to hire and manage their most important asset – their employees!  The result is, they miss many opportunities to hire the right people, and often lose top talent and customers due to their mistakes – costing them time, money and market share.

Cost of Poor Hiring Practices

Many executives know their turnover rate – some are proud that they are below industry standard. However, they have not quantified the financial impact to the bottom line and are in denial that they can do anything to improve it.

When you take the time required to tabulate the cost of a bad hire, promote the wrong person, or lose a talented employee, you will realize you must objectively assess potential job candidates for job fit, core values and required skills.  Using qualified assessments can significantly lower theft, cost of turnover, workers’ compensation, unemployment and other employment/liability claims when used appropriately. Remember, include intangible costs such as loss of reputation, quality, customers, vendors and other important factors in your calculations, since all of these can negatively impact your bottom line.

Select Qualified Hiring Assessments

There are over 3,000 publishers of assessment products in the market. Most assessments do not comply with the Department of Labor’s guidelines for pre-employment use (See: Testing and Assessment: An Employer’s Guide to Good Practices, Department of Labor). High-quality tools will have technical manuals (not just a letter from a law firm) to ensure each assessment meets the validity and reliability specifications for pre-employment and selection purposes. Ask for the technical manual and refuse to use an assessment for pre-employment purposes without one.

Assessments with High Validity and Reliability are Incredibly Accurate

Many assessments used for training or coaching purposes will show differences in people. However, they usually do not comply with higher statistical requirements for pre-employment tools. Not only is using the right assessment of legal importance, using tools that actually have the highest validity and reliability will measure people accurately and objectively – a requirement to predict future success. The best assessments provide you the ability to become a laser-like coach. Also, due to their accuracy, you will improve your selection process and reduce costs. Remember, any tool, system or process used during the hiring or promotion process must comply with pre-employment requirements.

When you select the right qualified assessments and use them as directed, they work and will positively revive your bottom line.

©Jeannette Seibly, 2015

Source: “Hire Amazing Employees,” Chapter 11, Assess for Job Fit—Use Qualified Assessments http://BizSavvyHire.com

Jeannette Seibly has been a business advisor and facilitator for over 23 years; she guides the creation of new solutions for business challenges and is the author of Hire Amazing Employees.  Check out her website: http://SeibCo.com. Or, contact Jeannette @ http://SeibCo.com/contact

Are Your Company’s Values Meaningful?

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Everyone brings their own set of personal values into a company, whether it’s when to pay bills, if and when to respect authority or follow rules, or even what’s an acceptable time to arrive at work or an event. Some employees’ values will naturally fit into your organization’s culture, while other employees won’t align with your written business practices and unwritten business expectations. (Qualified core value assessments can reduce selection errors so you hire the right people with values that match your organization. [http://SeibCo.com/assessments ])

The purpose of having a written set of company values is to get everyone on the same page in order to create a workable structure for open communication, clarity of expectations and ethics, respect, trust, and so on. For values to have a positive influence, all employees and managers within an organization need to feel free to voice their concerns and learn how to interact without fear of retribution. Creating meaningful workplace values contributes to reducing turnover, increasing sustainable profits, and building a positive business reputation, since everyone is working from the same set of company principles.

(c)Jeannette L. Seibly, 2013

Avoid Costly Hiring Blunders

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Many business owners and executives often find hiring a painful process. A challenge they hate. As a result, they rely heavily on the interview as a major decisive factor, which only provides hiring success a shocking 14% of the time! Sadly, this creates costly hiring blunders. They often forget to include other equally important indicators in their hiring decision process. The goal of any hiring system? Collect enough of the right information to make solid decisions.

Applicant Tracking System can help you attract great candidates and simultaneously provide factual details of their past employment, education and skills. Select a tracking system that is user friendly and can be reached within one or two clicks from social media sites or other venues. The beauty of these systems is you capture their attention now and have them complete the application form at the same time. Remember this important distinction: a resume is a marketing tool, but an application is a legal document that requires actual dates of employment, salary and titles, to name but a few of the facts provided, that all help you make better-informed decisions.

Qualified Assessments allow us to see the whole person. Nearly 90% of a candidate’s true self is frequently camouflaged by resumes which selectively depict a person’s education, skills and job experience. That true self is often further camouflaged by the strength of an interviewer’s skills. Avoid these pitfalls by selecting assessment tools that meet the Department of Labor’s guidelines. This is important because you want to be sure the quality of the results actually reflects the job fit of the person you are interviewing, for both the present and the future. Remember, we often hire for perceived job skills and in the end, fire for a poor job fit.

Full Due Diligence requires conducting background checks, real reference checks and collection of other pertinent information. Be sure to have more than one final candidate.When you only have one candidate, you are more likely to rationalize why it won’t make a difference, many times to the detriment of the enterprise. Too often employers select only one and after it’s too late, find out something they hadn’t discovered earlier. The bottom line is … you can pay now to conduct a proper assessment process, or pay later in loss of business, increase in litigation or theft of data, money or proprietary information if you’ve hired the wrong person. You decide.

Join us on Thursday, September 13 @ 9:00 a.m. MDT (11 a.m. EDT/8 a.m. PDT): Hiring Refresher for Busy Bosses.  http://wp.me/pN8WG-97  Find out more about how to effectively use the above-mentioned tools to make better informed hiring decisions.

 “Hiring Amazing Employees” eBook is available at http://BizSavvyHire.com

©Jeannette L. Seibly, 2012