Impact Today™
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Financial Firm Matches Bankers to Job
Companies suffering from low worker productivity need to investigate how well their employees match their job duties. One financial services organization in the Southeast, facing a productivity problem, conducted a study to examine the relationship between employee performance and job match to the ProfileXT™. What they learned has armed them to better select productive employees.
Participants
The company used 36 mortgage bankers to help examine the problem of low productivity on the job. Leaders evaluated each banker's performance, using a sales goal ratio and a supervisor’s performance rating. Supervisors gave top performers a 1, average performers a 2 and marginal performers a 3. Of the 36, the company rated 11 as top performers. The average top performer met 97.2 percent of his/her sales goal.
Nine bankers ranked in the 2, or average, position, and 16 ranked as marginal. The average marginal performer met 32.7 percent of his/her goal.
To continue reading this success story, click here.
Companies suffering from low worker productivity need to investigate how well their employees match their job duties. One financial services organization in the Southeast, facing a productivity problem, conducted a study to examine the relationship between employee performance and job match to the ProfileXT™. What they learned has armed them to better select productive employees.Participants
The company used 36 mortgage bankers to help examine the problem of low productivity on the job. Leaders evaluated each banker's performance, using a sales goal ratio and a supervisor’s performance rating. Supervisors gave top performers a 1, average performers a 2 and marginal performers a 3. Of the 36, the company rated 11 as top performers. The average top performer met 97.2 percent of his/her sales goal.
Nine bankers ranked in the 2, or average, position, and 16 ranked as marginal. The average marginal performer met 32.7 percent of his/her goal.
To continue reading this success story, click here.
Labels: Assessments, Case_Study, Job_satisfaction
¶ 11/29/2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Ill-Fitting Jobs Cause More Than Blisters
Like a shoes that pinch, a job that doesn't fit creates a multitude of problems for both the employee and his employer.
This thinking isn't new. The "healthy mind/healthy body" theory has been conventional wisdom among sophisticated businesses, CEOs, and perceptive managers for years. If you like what you do and you're good at it, you will be at ease in your mind, and stress, which can cause disease, will be at a manageable level.
What's new is that recent research by university management professors gives weight to this theory.
Using workers from the same business, the researchers studied their jobs, took samples of their saliva to measure the levels of a disease-fighting antibody, and interviewed the workers about their recent illnesses. The research goal was to discover how their jobs affected their stress levels.
They discovered that the healthiest workers have a high level of self-confidence and lots of responsibility and autonomy. They didn't blame themselves when things went wrong. They were suited to their jobs, and their illnesses were minimal.
The least healthy workers were not matched well to their work. With low self-confidence and a big tendency to blame themselves for every misstep, these people often did jobs with too much responsibility for their ability levels. This produced too much stress, and over a three-month period, this group averaged two or more cold or flu attacks lasting more than a week.
This research vividly illustrates how important job fit is to the employee and employer. A salesperson that doesn't like talking to people not only won't make consistent sales, she might have high absenteeism rates because of illness. Conversely, an efficient executive with a high level of autonomy and lots of freedom to confront issues on her own terms will likely be on the job day after day, with little or no illness.
Assessment tools that measure job fit compare to giving your employees the right shoes for the job. Maybe in return, they'll run a marathon for the company.
This thinking isn't new. The "healthy mind/healthy body" theory has been conventional wisdom among sophisticated businesses, CEOs, and perceptive managers for years. If you like what you do and you're good at it, you will be at ease in your mind, and stress, which can cause disease, will be at a manageable level.
What's new is that recent research by university management professors gives weight to this theory.
Using workers from the same business, the researchers studied their jobs, took samples of their saliva to measure the levels of a disease-fighting antibody, and interviewed the workers about their recent illnesses. The research goal was to discover how their jobs affected their stress levels.
They discovered that the healthiest workers have a high level of self-confidence and lots of responsibility and autonomy. They didn't blame themselves when things went wrong. They were suited to their jobs, and their illnesses were minimal.
The least healthy workers were not matched well to their work. With low self-confidence and a big tendency to blame themselves for every misstep, these people often did jobs with too much responsibility for their ability levels. This produced too much stress, and over a three-month period, this group averaged two or more cold or flu attacks lasting more than a week.
This research vividly illustrates how important job fit is to the employee and employer. A salesperson that doesn't like talking to people not only won't make consistent sales, she might have high absenteeism rates because of illness. Conversely, an efficient executive with a high level of autonomy and lots of freedom to confront issues on her own terms will likely be on the job day after day, with little or no illness.
Assessment tools that measure job fit compare to giving your employees the right shoes for the job. Maybe in return, they'll run a marathon for the company.
Labels: Job_satisfaction
¶ 11/26/2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Differentiating Top Performers
By John Hauber
A division of a large, publicly traded insurance and benefits company has used assessments in selection of their sales representatives for some time.
While they believe these tools have helped them select better people for sales roles over time, they were also open to the possibility that other tools might improve their selection process, especially in selection for positions where selling was not the primary function of the job.
To continue, click here.
By John HauberA division of a large, publicly traded insurance and benefits company has used assessments in selection of their sales representatives for some time.
While they believe these tools have helped them select better people for sales roles over time, they were also open to the possibility that other tools might improve their selection process, especially in selection for positions where selling was not the primary function of the job.
To continue, click here.
Labels: Assessments, Case_Study, Job_satisfaction
¶ 11/01/2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Job satisfaction and the risk of increased turnover
Job satisfaction has steadily declined in the American workplace over the past ten years. The Conference Board reports, “half of all Americans are satisfied with their jobs, down from nearly 60 percent in 1995.” Only 14 percent say they are “very satisfied.” The largest decline was in employees ages 35-44. CareerBuilder has recently reported, “six out of ten workers plan to leave their current employer for other pursuits within the next two years!”
With declining job satisfaction comes the risk of increased turnover and all of its well-documented costs:
Job satisfaction has steadily declined in the American workplace over the past ten years. The Conference Board reports, “half of all Americans are satisfied with their jobs, down from nearly 60 percent in 1995.” Only 14 percent say they are “very satisfied.” The largest decline was in employees ages 35-44. CareerBuilder has recently reported, “six out of ten workers plan to leave their current employer for other pursuits within the next two years!”With declining job satisfaction comes the risk of increased turnover and all of its well-documented costs:
- Increased hiring expense
- Decreased productivity
- Increased absenteeism
- Wasted training dollars
- Decreased safety
- Improve satisfaction and retention; improve profitability.
Labels: Job_satisfaction, Retention, Survey
¶ 9/02/2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The story of Sava Senior Centers
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™ is a bit like a magic shoehorn.
Manzi brought the ProfileXT to Sava Senior Care last year, 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.
To read the rest of this case study, click here.
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™ is a bit like a magic shoehorn.Manzi brought the ProfileXT to Sava Senior Care last year, 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.
To read the rest of this case study, click here.
Labels: Assessments, Case_Study, Job_satisfaction
¶ 8/23/2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Love of job related to culture
A recent Harris Interactive poll has uncovered some cultural connections to one's feeling about their job.
- Generations: 53% of Baby Boomers love their job while only 37% of Generation X said they love their job. On the other hand, 19% of Generation X hate their job while only 7% of Baby Boomers claimed to hate their job.
- Marital: only 29% of those that have never been married love the job while 50% of those that are married love their job. When asked if they would like to immediately let, 24% of never-married employees said, “yes” as compared to only 9% of married employees.
- Regional: loyalty seems to increase as one moves to the west. In the Northeast only 39% love or like their job while 48% of those in Western states either love or like the job.
- Economic: 49% of employees paid at affluent levels ($75,000 in the survey) love their job while only 36% of those earning less than $35,000 love where they are working.
Labels: Culture, Generation, Job_satisfaction, Survey
¶ 3/01/2008 0 Comments Links to this post
Sunday, February 24, 2008
What employees really want
Success is only possible when employees are connected to a common vision of the future of theorganization. Management typically develops incentive programs they feel will drive employeebehaviors to achieve their organizational goals. Typically these incentive programs are based onmanagement's perception of their employee's desires. However, research shows that managementhas historically been out-of-touch with employee desires.Managers mistakenly believe their employees have monetary motives and designed their incentive programs for attaining goals and hitting company benchmarks to raises and bonuses. However, surveys dating back to 1946 have consistently shown employees to be most motivated by shows of appreciation for their work (see chart).
Success is only possible when employees are connected to a common vision of the future of theorganization. Management typically develops incentive programs they feel will drive employeebehaviors to achieve their organizational goals. Typically these incentive programs are based onmanagement's perception of their employee's desires. However, research shows that managementhas historically been out-of-touch with employee desires.Managers mistakenly believe their employees have monetary motives and designed their incentive programs for attaining goals and hitting company benchmarks to raises and bonuses. However, surveys dating back to 1946 have consistently shown employees to be most motivated by shows of appreciation for their work (see chart). Caribbean or Cash
One large appliance sales company wanted to motivate their employees to sell more televisions. They announced that the person selling the most would win a trip for two to the Caribbean. Sales went up and they thought the program was a success. However a third party took a look at the results and saw that comparative sales were up only for a small percentage of salespeople. Sales were flat for the balance. Further study showed that the sales increases, when compared to competition, was actually a decrease. What was thought to be a success was really a failure as the company lost market share.
The majority of their salespeople were not motivated by a trip because they could not afford the daycare for their children while they were away. They obviously had no reason to want to win the contest. The next year they ran the contest with an option to take the trip or have a cash bonus. They had much better results.
Even Better Results
There is a way to get better results for less money. To read the rest of this story, click here.
Labels: Assessments, Job_satisfaction, Motivation, Rewards, Survey
¶ 2/24/2008 0 Comments Links to this post
