Product Focus
ProfilesEasy^TM

Creating a ‘Strong Bench’ at Specialized Loan Servicing

When Lisa Rice sought an assessment tool for her financial services company, she put together a task force of eight to research the products. Several months and three Profiles’ products later, she sees a slight reduction in turnover, buy-in from managers, and a strong benchmark for future hiring and employee placement.

Rice is vice president of human resources for Specialized Loan Servicing LLC in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Founded in 2003, SLS is a financial service company that employs about 410. With a slogan of “Big enough to deliver, small enough to care,” the company services mainly mortgage loans and prides itself on good customer service. With workers in all areas — support staff, welcome center, human resources, mailroom and asset conversion — Rice and her task force found three products to help them: Customer Service Profile^TM, Step One Survey II^TM and ProfileXT^TM.

“We use the Customer Service Profile^TM that is specific to the financial business and the Step One Survey II^TM Integrity Indicator. For our professional roles we use ProfileXT^TM. They are helpful in different ways,” said Rice, who has 16 years of HR experience in different industries. “We have established a strong bench around the Customer Service Profile^TM, which we implemented seven or eight months ago. We have been able to go back and look at who leaves, and what their scores were and tie [the scores] into the interview process.” In that way, Rice has been able to hire people with scores that better match the jobs for which they are applying.

Profiles assessments also help managers ask the right questions, Rice noted, and suggest areas to explore in depth during the interview. “ProfileXT^TM helps to see if there are large disconnects between the style and the candidate,” she said.

Managers who hire sometimes learned the hard way how accurate the assessment tools are. When an assessment indicated a candidate was not a good fit for the job and managers hired the candidate anyway, they later acknowledged the “big red flag” that the assessment raised. “As people wanted to leave or were being asked to leave, we’ve gotten buy-in across the organization,” she said.

To get a benchmark, Rice asked 10 employees to take the assessments, based upon performance. " Profiles offered a strong correlation between candidates and job, as well as a good format," Rice said. “It’s easy to read and they walk you through the interview process. It seemed relevant to our industry and we saw a correlation to how we were reviewing our employees’ success,” she added.

The thoroughness of Profiles and the time the company spent establishing benchmarks impressed her, Rice said. Even now that SLS has changed the way it is doing some of the assessments, Profiles continues good customer service.

Perhaps most importantly, Rice sees changes in the company’s managers. “The assessments have given us an opportunity to educate our managers on how important competencies are, and how important the interview process is.”
 

Profiles Tip of the Month

How to Reduce Stress

With 75 percent of employees believing that workers have more on-the-job stress than a generation ago according to the Princeton Survey Research Associates, stress management programs at work are popular. Studies show such programs are more effective if coupled with organizational change. Stress at work is caused by duties that go beyond a worker’s capabilities or resources. With that in mind, employers should make sure the workload is in line with what an employee is able to do. Other ideas suggested by American Psychologist include:

If the Shoe Fits: The Story of Sava Senior Care

Getting the right person who fits 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 a bit like a magic shoehorn.

Manzi brought the ProfileXT^TM to Sava Senior Care in July, but she had also had experience with the assessment tool when she worked in the insurance industry. She has found that it is the 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. “Part of our process when we review the outcome of the assessment with our employees is having a very candid discussion on how their thinking and behaviors matched up to our benchmark for high-performing employees. People understood they might be a mismatch for the position. They opted to move into other positions where they could be successful. Sometimes it is a matter of moving them back into the role they are passionate about.”

Sava Senior Care is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with 184 locations in 18 states. The company provides long-term care services to nursing home residents from coast to coast, Manzi says.

The company has used the ProfileXT^TM in a couple of ways. First, all 269 full-time employees in sales and marketing went through the assessment process. “We correlated the results of the assessment to our performance,” Manzi says. “From that point we developed a plan for performance improvement. We also developed training programs in the areas where we needed to enhance the competencies of our team.

Finally, executives also applied the ProfileXT^TM to the hiring process. “Prior to the face-to-face interview, the candidate takes the assessment and we use the assessment Placement Report as part of our behavioral interviewing component. Where we have followed this process, we have seen significant improvement in overall performance.”

Manzi worked with Profiles International directly the first time she used the ProfileXT^TM and was impressed with the organization’s excellent service and quick turnaround. This greatly influenced her decision to stay with Profiles. “The assessment is easy to understand for both our employees and candidates,” she adds. “When I used due diligence again to find the right tool for Sava, this one met our needs. It’s much more comprehensive than others we researched.”

Years later, when the opportunity arose to deploy assessments again at her new organization, she retained SmartMoves, Inc., in San Rafael, California, owned by Barbara Spector, to obtain the assessment tools she needed for Sava Senior Care. “Barbara has been instrumental in bringing a different aspect of working with the assessment tools to us by using the instrument to match traits between the manager and his or her employee. Additionally, we have worked on team dynamics by matching the manager profile with the team’s profiles and performance.  So we moved from impacting individual results to impacting team performance.”

Spector says she and Manzi collaborated to build a team spread that showed the characteristics the people on Manzi’s teams had in common. “Ms. Manzi was then able to do coaching and help the manager of the department work with people where there was a big difference in styles. This enabled the teams to work together more harmoniously without as much misunderstanding, stress and conflict.”

Spector’s SmartMoves, Inc., became a Profiles strategic partner 10 years ago, and her business has doubled almost every year since, in terms of profitability and number of clients.

Using Profiles’ assessments like the ProfileXT^TM is a no-brainer for executives like Manzi. “Why change something that isn’t broken?”

Assessment Tools Must Be Reliable

When someone takes an assessment several times and receives the same or nearly the same score, this is a good indicator of the instrument’s reliability.

This reliability factor is the fourth of 13 Department of Labor Guidelines for assessment instruments, and the one we will examine this month.

The Department of Labor expects a level of reliability that provides both accurate and consistent results, called a reliability coefficient. The higher the reliability coefficient, the more reliable the instrument. Profiles’ research team analyzes our assessment scoring and other data to validate the reliability coefficient.

To be considered reliable, assessment instruments must fit within these four areas:

• The tools must measure what they say they measure. For example, if an instrument claims to assess mental ability, it should apply specifically to mental ability.

• Assessment instruments must be consistent in their measurement. This means consistently reliable results.
• The tools must be relevant to the jobs that applicants seek. For a job in which excellent customer service is important, an assessment might test how well the applicant relates to and empathizes with others.
• Finally, assessment tools must allow for more effective employment decisions in hiring the most qualified workers. For example, in a position in which accurate measurements are important, the test should focus on an applicant’s aptitude for taking measurements and recording them accurately.

The most highly regarded assessments are regularly validated in the workplace. Often our research provides advances that lead to the creation of newer versions of assessments. We maintain reliability in each new version.

All Profiles assessments meet or exceed Department of Labor Guidelines, and we work diligently to help our clients understand our tools and how to use them correctly.

Who’s in Charge Here?

In a large financial services office, all work on a key project stopped when the top decision-maker was absent for reasons she had not anticipated — a death in her immediate family. She had not appointed or trained anyone to make decisions in her stead.

People at the head of a small manufacturing company failed to anticipate the sudden, prolonged absence of the CEO due to illness. No one knew where he kept key data and information. Even the password to his computer was locked away for a time, putting the brakes on all business. After work slowly started up again, employees continued to operate in crisis mode for a lengthy period of time. The result was low production, high turnover and a serious threat to profits and survival.

Both situations could have been easily handled if the CEO or owner of the business had planned for a successor. In the best-run companies, planning for a future without the current CEO often begins years before the top decision-maker’s retirement. Some experts say planning 15 years in advance is not too soon.

Succession planning does not have to be intimidating, but it must be intentional. This means every company, agency or institution should have a well-thought-out plan that lets the CEO-to-be learn the job before they actually have to perform on their own.

The key steps to a solid succession plan should be simple and logical. Top players in finding a successor are a company’s executives and human resource specialists.

Common sense dictates a potential successor is knowledgeable and supportive of the company’s business strategy and will reinforce corporate goals. That means a human resource executive should have the successor’s credentials at their fingertips. They should know what education, experience and special skills and knowledge the successor possesses.

Here are some steps CEOs often follow when choosing a successor:

• Select the right person. This is often difficult because of the CEO’s closeness to the job. The help of other executives, especially those who understand the job and will be affected by the change, should be enlisted. All employees with skill and knowledge should get consideration, and the future CEO should be considered alongside the future goals and needs of the business.
• While no one wants to hand over the job and scurry out the door, it’s important to establish a schedule. This goes hand-in-hand with the training process. The successor should learn the job while doing, with a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities.
• After the training is complete, the departing CEO should turn the job over and go. Of course, this formerly busy executive will have prepared in advance for leaving — including what they are going to do with the rest of their life — so they will actually leave and not return unless it’s for a visit.

While planning a successor for the top job is crucial, company executives must remember all key jobs need the right people. The way to retaining talented people at all levels is to make sure they are in the right jobs to begin with and to provide growth opportunities for them.

ProfileXT^TM Aids Financial Group in Matching Top Performers

Low employee productivity hampered the progress of a financial services organization located in the Southeast. An examination of the issue focused on the relationship between employee performance and “Job Match” to the ProfileXT^TM . Using study information, the company developed a “Job Match Pattern” to select more productive employees.

Participants

The study went forward with 36 mortgage bankers. The evaluation of each participant’s performance included a sales goal ratio and a supervisor’s performance rating on a three-point scale, where 1 equaled a top performer, 2 an average performer and 3 a marginal performer. The company rated 11 participants top performers, nine participants as average performers and 16 as marginal performers. The average top performer met 97.2 percent of their sales goals, while the average marginal performer met 32.7 percent of their sales goals.

Job Match Pattern

Using the ProfileXT^TM , a pattern was developed in January 2006 for the mortgage banker position using the scores of top performers. The financial services organization now uses the pattern as the benchmark to predict the performance of mortgage bankers based on the ProfileXT^TM pattern match.

Performance Grouping

The pattern, based on the information gathered, describes the attributes of the existing top performers. All 36 mortgage bankers were then matched to this pattern. A review of employee ProfileXT^TM “Job Match” percents shows an overall “Job Match” of 87 percent best identified top performing employees. This is a breakpoint to represent a good match to the “Job Match Pattern,” suggesting that 87 percent or greater should identify a top performer.

In the study:

• Seven of 11 top performers are correctly identified as top performers by the pattern.
• Four of 11 top performers are incorrectly identified as bottom performers by the pattern.
• Twelve of 16 bottom performers are correctly identified as bottom performers by the pattern.
• Four of 16 bottom performers are incorrectly identified as top performers by the pattern.

Details

1. The average sales goal ratio for those who met or exceeded the “Job Match” percent breakpoint is 76.1 percent.
2. The average sales goal ratio for those who did not meet or exceed the “Job Match” percent benchmark is 48.9 percent.

Summary

Although this organization’s top performers made up less than one-third of the total sample of Mortgage Bankers, more top performers that were matched met or exceeded the “Job Match” percent benchmark than both average performers and marginal performers combined. Thus, by selecting candidates based on the overall match of the ProfileXT^TM , organizations such as this one are better able to increase productivity by identifying those that are likely to succeed.

ProfilesEasy^TM

Finding qualified employees through an online application process just got easier for both your HR department and the qualified people interested in working for your company. ProfilesEasy^TM , a new electronic application system from Profiles International, allows the employer to learn quickly which of the applicants for a job are qualified to do it without having to page through dozens of resumes.

How?

The online program allows human resources departments to customize the content of the application, asking 10 questions that are specific to the job opening. The simple process is time-efficient for both the human resources department and the applicant; offering the consistency that allows employers to meet EEOC reporting requirements; ensuring the privacy of applicants’ information;

and allowing a busy executive to review applications when traveling on business or requiring flexibility to examine applications at a time and place of their choice.

Applicants will find the same flexibility as employers, and the system’s ease of navigation becomes even more attractive to them when they discover they can apply for more than one job and quickly attach a resume. ProfilesEasy^TM allows them to search an employer’s site for openings, review the details of each position and learn more about the company.

For employers whose filing cabinets are overstuffed with paper, and for those seeking an organized way to save impressive applications, ProfilesEasy^TM is the answer. It offers resume tracking and retains important information without overstuffing your filing cabinets.

Nothing could be Easier…