Employee Productivity Analysis and Training

You Can Come on Board or Sink:

The case in point, Marriott International, with an estimated annual applicant flow of 2 million, 20 unique brands and 3,000 hotels in 60 countries, and an average annual applicant flow of 2 million, the selection process needed to be globalized and enhanced. This year, they installed a Global Selection Program that included 14 job-category specific online assessment that measures critical performance, administered to all hiring managers and job –specific interview guides.  Upon your consideration and necessitation, the accompanying interview guide could also be available in 22 languages. 

Through the installation of this system, the firm’s bottom-line got a boost.  By 2012, it is estimated that the cost savings from the previous selection programs would have already paid for the new system’s development costs, while also yielding the lowest costs in selection in more than a decade and better talent. 

Lets now consider the opposing scenario.  What if Marriot never installed a selection program?  The hiring costs for each employee, in addition to the layoff costs and under-productivity of each would no doubt cost Marriot at least $24million, considering the size of their applicant pool alone, and not their hiring and interview cost and loss of annual revenue.  

Hiring Top Performing Teams on a Limited Budget

Unfortunately, the cutbacks at the various companies have created the need for smaller number of employees doing the same amount of work in their organizations.  However, in order to be able to obtain the same effectiveness from the workforce, those employees are now increasingly encouraged to work in teams to collaborate and creatively share resources.  However, the question is, do these employees have the team player attitude and/or qualifications? At Center for Work Life, we recommend employers to assess for the Team Player dimension during the pre-employment phase.  According to a recent study conducted by the Gallup Corporation, within the thousands of teams studied, it was found that certain job applicants, once hired, had the ability to raise the engagement levels of their teams members, once dispatched to do team work at their positions.

There are four traits which are believed to be important factors in assessing employees in relationship to increasing team engagement among other employees:

vMobilization: The ability to mobilize people with decisiveness and genuine inclusiveness.

vClarity:  They reduce team members uncertainty by helping make clear the goal of the team and of each team member.

vRelationship:  They are more likely to help team members get things done, because their relationship with them is important.

vAffirmation:  These are people who have an optimism and enthusiasm that give others positive attitude.

By studying the individual employee engagement scores of each team member and the team as a whole, Innovent Consulting can help your organization assess for the right talent which will dramatically affect your ROI in the employees you hire in the long run.  Our assessment tools are designed by corporate psychologists, who are specially trained in not only designing employment assessment tools, but also guiding and empowering the hired talent throughout their work-cycle, while employed at your organizations.  This tool, not only creates efficiency in the selection process, but also provides the employee a great reason to feel optimistic and engaged in their position and their organization.

As we await the British imperial wedding, there are two scenarios which resonate:  The terrible state of the economy in Britain, and around the globe overall vs. the massive capital expenditure that this wedding will entail but also the inevitable possibility of change of leadership in Buckingham Palace and the burden of responsibility which may one day fall upon Prince William and his new bride.  Doubtless, it is hoped that the latter scenario will assist with the first and that the “changing of the guards” will not be as jagged of a transition as it has been in the U.S.

Spurred largely by the financial crisis, shareholders, Wall Street, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have demanded more accountability  from corporate leadership in U.S. corporations and there is a large shift of power from CEO to the board on a variety of issues.  CEO succession has been particularly a sore point.  Many boards than ever before are insisting that CEO’s have not just a successor or two in mind, but a comprehensive plan to identify, assess and develop a wide choice of candidates for both present and future.  As a result Human Resource Executives can get caught in the middle between the board and the CEO.  There are various dangers for HR executives in taking on the succession-planning role.  They must guard against losing objectivity in favoring or disfavoring a particular candidate; they may for example hesitate to push a CEO because when the current one leaves, they may be out the door as well.  Also the issue of confidentiality could cause some real stress on the board and the HR department equally, trickling down the various layers of the organization.  Keeping the identity of the candidates confidential is key in order to avoid non-productive competition, or changes of behavior within the candidates.

When the initiative or the succession-planning project is done by an external organization, the CEO succession strategy is part of a larger leadership-development process.  At Innovent Consulting, we call it the personal vs. the process side.  Internally there is the internal politics, the emotional aspect including friendships,  and loyalties related to merits rather than performance.  For such a process to run smoothly, it is key to make sure there is strong talent in key jobs, and leadership-development programs are designed around the competencies and characteristics actually needed. 

Such an organization will have the unique ability to freely work with the CEO and non-executives jointly to determine the kind of CEO the company needs, develop a list of success factors from that, and then assess the potential candidates against those factors.  The information can then be periodically reported to the board.

This way, the elimination of bias insures that people across the board, who have shown significant development and made significant contributions are considered.  With all the right intentions, talking knowledgeably and candidly may be easier said than done!