Welcome to the April 20, 2005 issue of The Total View

Published by Success Performance Solutions, Written by Ira S. Wolfe

Visit our Human Resources Blog and Perfect Labor Storm Blog where we can post daily (and more often) human resource updates, news, and Perfect Labor Storm facts. 

Did you miss the April 12, 2005 edition of the Wall Street Journal?

" Don't Just Abandon A Hated Job; Diagnose Your Occupational Ills Check out the Career"

An interview about career change and transition with SPS founder Ira S. Wolfe.

What's Inside:

1. Cognitive Skills: A Smart Way to Hire Employees

What manager isn't thrilled to hire a quick-thinking, articulate, fast-acting employee? When you come across an employee like this, you instantly begin dreaming about him hitting the ground running and leaving the training gates in a burst of dust. But all too often, a few months pass and your world crashes. This up-and-coming star resigns and leaves for greener pastures.

Many organizations are learning through job analysis that a significant cause of high turnover is due to hiring individuals with general, or cognitive, abilities too high for the job. It's nice to hire "super-star" employees but only if you can put their extra horsepower to good use.

Hiring fast learners has its advantages. Employers can cut down training time. These high ability individuals absorb and undertand new information quickly.

The downside is that these same super-smart employees get bored easily as soon as the job is no longer challenging. By hiring quick starters for a moderately challenging or routine job, you bore the employee to tears as soon as they learn the job.

One client recently found this out the hard way. After a quick start, she discovered that an employee was absent from work more and more often. Ironically, the employee applied for a promotion. Expecting she would be a terrible job match for the new position, her employer fully expected to lay her off. Was she ever surprised!

After receiving her TotalView Assessment Benchmark score, her employer was shocked to learn that her abilities placed her in the top 30 percentile of the population. When asked during the interview why she should be considered for a promotion when she missed so many days at work, the employee admitted she was able to do the five-day job in only two days. She just stayed home those extra days rather than be bored at work. The employer agreed - her work was excellent.

Instead of losing this employee, they tapped her potential by increasing her responsibilities and putting all those "smarts" to good use.

Assessing cognitive skills today provides information to the employer as critical as personality traits when hiring candidates and promoting employees. But cognitive skills shouldn't be confused with "IQ" or education. What most managers mean when they talk about "smart" is general abilities or cognitive skills, not IQ. Cognitive abilities suggest how quickly and accurately an individual can think logically and sequentially through formulas, read and comprehend directions, think on his or her feet, visualize in three dimensions and think in the abstract.

How do cognitive abilities affect work performance? Let's compare the careers of two physicians. Both have graduated college and medical school with honors. Both have completed residencies at world-renowned medical centers. One became a pharma researcher, the other an emergency room physician in a trauma center.

The researcher has abilities in the 3 to 4 range, in the lower one-third of the population. After completing the TotalView Assessment, he was upset about his "scores". He argues, "I have never failed a test before in my life.(FYI - you don't fail personality "tests". They just compare your style and abilities to the rest of the population.) I have a 200 IQ and am one of the top scientists in the world. The test must be wrong."

Actually the "test" was right. While described by colleagues as brilliant, he was also described as thorough, meticulous, and fastidious. He checked, double-checked, and triple-checked all his work, perfect for a career in clinical trials and research. Fast and "quick on the draw" were not descriptors ever used to describe his behavior.

The ER physician had abilities in the 9 and 10 range, or the upper 10th percentile of the population. Put yourself in the shoes of an ER doc in the trauma center of a major metropolitan teaching hospital wedged between the interstate and inner city. Imagine how many fast decisions need to be made after a major traffic accident or gang was. Trauma and emergency physicians don't have time to think, they need to react....fast. They also don't have room for error. ER docs don't get many second chances nor the time to study options when someone's live in hanging in the balance. They don't get to contemplate "what ifs". They don't always get a chance to practice before they treat.

While both physicians are very skilled and respected, making different choices about their specialty tracks could have resulted in very different outcomes. When I asked the physician who chose the career in research why he didn't choose emergency medicine, he replied, "I could never keep up with that pace. I hate to be rushed into making the wrong decision." That's EXACTLY what cognitive skills measure! Cognitive abilities don't measure learned intelligence or knowledge, they measure how quickly people can process what they know and learn what they don't. For research the work requires a more structured, methodical, formulaic approach. In the ER, the workload is fast, furious and unpredictable.

Cogntive skills played a major role in helping these physicians choose the right career tracks. Cognitive skills help employers match the right people to the right jobs, reduce employee turnover and improve job satisfaction.

Hire employees with the "right" skills and personality.

Learn more about TotalView Assessment System.

2. Perfect Labor Storm Alerts #391 to #394

Don't miss day-to-day updates on Perfect Labor Storm. Save the Perfect Labor Storm blog to your favorites.

Fact #391:  Our society is aging. Between 1870 and 1990, the number of U.S. citizens aged 65 and older grew from 1 million to approximately 32 million. By 2030, the proportion of people over 65 will be 20% of the population. (Source: U.S. Census)

Fact #392:  As a result of an aging society and more active lifestyles for "older" Americans, the above 55 years old crowd described as follows: aging boomer (ages 55-64), young-old (ages 65-74), old-old (ages 75-84), and oldest old (ages 85+).

Fact #393:  Baby boomers has 27 million more people than the one that preceded it and about 10 million more than the one that follows.

Fact #394:  As 38 million baby boomers reached employment age in the 1970s and 1980s, the workplace exploded by 50 percent. In the decade following 2010, the portion of the population under age 45 - the principal talent pool for managers and workers - will shrink by 6 percent.

Don't be caught in storm without all the facts. "The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book: Why Worker Shortages Won't Go Away" is a must-read leading edge forecast that predicts workforce trends for decades to come. Order your copy today - Only $7.95.

3.  TotalView Corporate Coach

TotalView Corporate Coach is a revolutionary new coaching tool specifically designed for corporate coaches, consultants, and mentors.

The TotalView Corporate Coach Assessment occurs in two stages. The first stage involves the person you are coaching taking the online TotalView Corporate Coach Assessment, a proven professional psychometric assessment. The second stage of the TotalView Corporate Coach program involves the scoring and analysis of the completed Assessment to produce two reports; one for you as the coach and another for the person you are coaching.

Learn more about TotalView Corporate Coach.

4. NEW! Generational Style Assessment

Test your ability to communication with Gen X, Gen Y, Boomers, and Traditionalists. Our NEW Generational Style Assessment evalautes the communication or relational style you typically apot when interacting with individuals or groups of people from different generations. It then provides you insight into those styles that work for you, and what to do about the styles that don't. This self-scoring workbook includes the questionnaire, response sheet, how to interpret your results, and how to understand the different styles.

Order the Generational Style Assessment today.
Single copy of Generational Style Assessment - $15

Save! Order Generational Style Assessment in packages of 5 - $50 each.

Human Resource Consultants and Trainers - Order the Leader's Guide including Powerpoint slide for only $250.

To learn more about working with different generations, read about our new Generational Style Assessment and visit our bookstore to order Generation X, Generation Y, and Managing the Generation Mix.

5. SELECT employees with the Right Work Attitudes

A pre-employment screening tool to identify work-related behaviors such as Absenteeism, Honesty, Positive Service Attitude, Accountability, Frustration Tolerance, Acceptance of Diversity, Multi-tasking and more.... plus a Validity Check and Integrity Index. Each customized report includes a step by step interview guide including recommended interview questions. SELECT is available on-line, by fax, or by purchasing software for on-site licensing.

Syndication available - call us.