May 11, 2011

Edited and Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Published by Success Performance Solutions.

What's Inside this issue of The Total View:

1. More Sales, Lower Turnover?  Hire Higher Cognitive Abilities

2. Workforce Trends

3. Applicant Processing

4. What Motivates Employees

5. Annual Performance Reviews Simplified!

6. CandidClues Assessment

More Sales, Lower Turnover?  Hire Higher Cognitive Abilities

Ask an employer to name one characteristic that makes one employee stand out above all others and he'll likely say attitude, work ethic, or team player.  Unfortunately up until now, few of these employers could really prove what traits and attitude differentiated employees  that positively impacted the bottom line from those that didn't.

But an article in this month's issue of HR Magazine cited how Bon-Ton, a department store chain, helped identify specific traits of candidates that could sell more per hour and reduce turnover.   Most importantly, the result allowed them to do both. Up to this point, many HR managers and subsequently their employers were satisfied to accomplish one or the other. In today's world, a top performing salesperson must be able to do both - sell more and stay longer.

According to the article, once Bon-Ton's cosmetic sales group developed and implemented pre-employment assessment tests in their hiring process, the company was able to increase tenure by 12 percent and accomplished a 3 percent more sales-per-hour with the first year.

What was most surprising though was that it wasn't customer service, communication style, or attitude that correlated most closely with lower turnover and higher sales.  The single most important trait was cognitive ability.  While good customer service and sales experience were important, the ability to take information from the customer and immediately solve their problem was the key differentiator and competitive edge.  One of the consultants interviewed for the article explained that cognitive ability predicts the capacity to alter the selling style to suit the customers and capitalize on each sales opportunity. In other words, cognitive ability, sometimes called general reasoning and general mental ability, help people connect the dots and learn on their feet.

Like Bon-Ton, many employers are learning the value of pre-employment assessment tests in helping improve performance, productivity, and retention. In fact, spending on assessments of job candidates and existing employees rose about 20 percent last year, according to Workforce Magazine.

Learn more about pre-employment tests - contact us today for a free consultation or demo. 

Workforce Trends

People used to retire at 65 because life expectancy was only about 67 years of age. Today it's up to more than 77, and medical progress means that many will be living a lot longer than that. 

Source: Trends, 2011 Special Economic Report 

For more  workforce and hiring trends, visit Perfect Labor Storm website and Perfect Labor Storm blog.

Applicant Processing Made Easy

Wouldn't it be nice if selecting the right candidate was this easy?

What Motivates Employees

Business values and motivators determine the "why" of human behavior.  
 

For managers, Business Values and Motivators answers the nagging question - How can I motivate my employees?  
 

For employees and individuals looking to re-energize their careers, the Business Values and Motivators report helps them understand what they value most.  As people, we tend to value certain viewpoints positively and judge others negatively.   How we value or judge determines our motivations and provide us with our sources of energy or conflicts and stress in our personal and professional lives.
 

What are Business Motivators? Read more.

Annual Performance Reviews Simplified!

Save time, increase productivity, and eliminate hassles when administering employee performance reviews with SimpleEvals.

Ask any manager what he or she hates most about the job and you'll often hear "performance reviews."   That's why we've created SimpleEvals.

We recognized a huge gap in the performance evaluation market between paper forms and online performance management. 

SimpleEvals is a user-friendly, centralized online solution to streamline and improve the annual, semi-annual or periodic review for small to medium sized organizations. It's convenient and very affordable too.  Our goal was simple: to help take the hassle out of getting managers to complete performance appraisal forms and giving employees more frequent feedback. 

The system comes with a library of competencies, an easy to use form creator, at-a-glance dashboards and reports, and a built-in reminder system to help HR track down managers when reviews are due....or past due!

More about SimpleEvals or Email us to schedule a FREE demo. 

CandidClues™

The cost effective solution to curb absenteeism and employee theft 

There is wide-spread concern about the honesty and integrity of employees. Most organizations have serious problems of pilferage, absenteeism, tardiness, employee disagreements that lead to violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and computer misuse. The annual loss from these counterproductive behaviors is estimated in the billions of dollars. There was a clear need for a brief assessment that could be used as part of the pre-employment screening process. CandidClues™ was developed to meet that need.

CandidClues™ assesses six areas of potentially counterproductive behaviors by a self-descriptive inventory that taps six substantive areas of concern as well a Good Impression (validity) scale.

• Hostility
• Conscientiousness
• Integrity
• Substance Abuse
• Sexual Harassment
• Computer Misuse