Are You & Your Team Using CYA (Cover Your Ass) Tactics?

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As an HR manager, you wear many hats. You’re responsible for recruitment, onboarding, training, employee relations, compensation & benefits, and so much more. And let’s be honest, budgets are often tight. You’re constantly looking for ways to maximise your impact and do more with less.

Focusing on employee engagement and retention strategies is essential, but it demands a strategic HR approach. Investing in HR tools and techniques that enhance your understanding of your workforce and support their development is key.

The Untapped Potential of Psychometric Assessments

Many HR managers I speak with rely on psychometric assessments to validate their hiring decisions or assist with candidate selection. However, few integrate the results into their onboarding programmes, development plans, succession planning, or to equip managers with insights to better understand and grow their teams.

Do More with Less

Using psychometric tools for people development should be a no-brainer. After all, you’ve already invested in the assessments during the hiring process – and additional reports are often included in the cost (self-plug: ours definitely are!). Contemporary psychometric tools provide powerful insights into an individual’s cognitive abilities, interests, and behavioural preferences, making them a highly valuable but often underutilised resource.

Let me share a personal story about the impact of psychometric assessments on team development.

In one of my previous roles, I led a diverse team of individuals from various backgrounds. Despite my best efforts, the group felt more like a collection of strangers thrown together on a bus than a cohesive team. There were personal agendas, CYA tactics, missed deadlines, and poor productivity levels. I realised I needed a structured approach to better understand my team members’ strengths and development areas.

The Game-Changer

That’s when I decided to take a fresh look at psychometric assessments. While we were already using a basic four-quadrant personality test for hiring, I needed more robust tools. I wanted assessments that could provide:

  • Insights into cognitive abilities
  • A detailed breakdown of interests
  • Flexibility to customise assessments to specific needs
  • The ability to benchmark individuals and teams against tailored standards

When I found the right tool, the results were game-changing.

We gained profound insights into each team member, identified development areas, and facilitated both group and individual development sessions using the assessment resources. The gap analyses provided allowed us to target training initiatives effectively, saving us significant costs on generic training programmes. Managers were empowered with customised tools and actionable insights to support and develop their teams.

We extended this process to new hires, incorporating assessment data into onboarding and using management reports to create their first development plans. The outcomes were remarkable – engagement levels soared, attrition dropped, and productivity skyrocketed.

3 Steps to Harness the Power of Psychometrics

  1. Select the right assessmentsthat align with your organisation’s needs.
  2. Communicate the value of these toolsclearly to your team.
  3. Leverage the insightsto design targeted trainingand development programmes.

 

Are you ready to elevate your people development efforts?

  • Book an obligation free APPOINTMENTwith one of our consultants
  • Request a FREE TRIALof our assessments.
  • DM ME on LinkedInto discuss further.

 

#EmployeeEngagement #TeamDevelopment #Psychometrics #HRLeadership #WorkforceDevelopment #PeopleManagement #SuccessionPlanning #TalentDevelopment #HRStrategy #LeadershipDevelopment

 

 

This Japanese Phenomenon Might Soon Also Become an Australian Phenomenon

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Have you heard of Karōshi –the Japanese term for death by overwork.

A recent government survey in Japan found that around 1 in 10 Japanese workers clock in more than 80 hours of overtime per month, with one in five at risk of Karōshi.

But overwork is not just a Japanese issue; it’s a stark reminder of the toll excessive work takes globally, including here in Australia. A 2024 Australian survey found 4 out of 5 office workers experiencing burnout, often linked to heavy workloads and understaffing.

As with most workplace challenges, employee well-being has a massive financial impact on businesses of all sizes.

It’s estimated that disengaged employees cost the Australian economy a staggering $211 billion¹ annually—including losses from reduced productivity, absenteeism, and high employee turnover.

Even more alarming, nearly 25% of burnt-out employees haven’t spoken with their manager about this!

There’s a Better Way

GR8 Wellbeing is an innovative, data-driven assessment tool specifically designed to identify and address employee well-being challenges. Based on cutting-edge theories in industrial and organisational psychology, it empowers your organisational to:

  • Proactively identify burnout risks before they escalate.
  • Uncover the root causes of employee dissatisfaction.
  • Develop targeted interventions to improve well-being, engagement, and performance.

Invest in your workforce’s well-being—because happy, healthy employees drive organisational success.

Discover how GR8 Wellbeing can help your business thrive.

 

Source: HRM Online¹

#EmployeeWellbeing #BurnoutPrevention #HRInnovation #WorkplaceWellness #EmployeeEngagement #HRTools

 

 

My People Are Great But My Team Doesn’t Gel

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“I have great people in my business, but when working as a team they just don’t gel.”

 

Does this ring a bell with you?

Humans are complex individuals, but put humans together in a team, and complexity goes through the roof! So how do you ensure your teams deliver high performance and foster workplace collaboration?

A Champion Team Beats a Team of Champions

This adage, often used in sports, holds true in the business world as well. Professor David Clutterbuck, a renowned expert in team dynamics, defines a team as a “special form of group, where shared purpose and interdependencies replace common purpose and individual activity.” In essence, a team is more than just a collection of individuals; it’s a cohesive unit with a shared goal and a commitment to collective success.

By understanding these key characteristics, we can better appreciate the power of high-performing teams and the importance of fostering a collaborative and supportive environment.

 

The Three-Pronged Approach to Developing Top Teams

We live in an innovation-driven world, where building high-performing teams is more crucial than ever. To foster innovation and drive success, consider this tried-and-tested team-building strategy:

  1. Hire the Right People

Recruiting the right talent is the foundation of a high-performing team. To ensure a successful hire for your team, it’s critical to:

  • Benchmark Success: The first step is truly understanding what drives top performance in your business. Leverage the science of psychometric assessments to identify these attributes. This not only highlights development areas for existing team members but also creates a benchmark against which you can measure new team members.
  • Clarify Roles: Develop detailed job descriptions that outline the key responsibilities, skills, and experience required for each position.
  • Screen Effectively: Use a combination of screening techniques, such as resume screening, phone interviews, and video interviews, to identify qualified candidates.
  • Assess Fit: Consider a candidate’s fit with the manager, the team, and organizational values through tailored assessments.
  1. Onboard & Develop

The journey doesn’t end once the successful candidate signs the employment contract. To foster growth and employee engagement:

  • Onboard Effectively: Provide tools to help your manager onboard new employees and set them up for their first development plan.
  • Mentor and Support: Assign experienced mentors to guide new employees and foster workplace collaboration.
  • Invest in Training: Offer employee development programs to help staff acquire new skills.
  • Career Pathing: Create clear career paths to help employees see their long-term potential within the organization
  1. Create a Coaching Culture

Tony Robbins once said, “The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of coaching.”

To give this gift:

  • Lead by Example: Model coaching behaviors, such as active listening, empathy, and constructive feedback.
  • Provide Coaching Training: Equip managers with the skills to act as effective coaches.
  • Foster Open Communication: Build a culture of honest dialogue where employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas.
  • Recognize and Reward: Celebrate employee successes and provide regular recognition to boost employee engagement.

Invest in Your People

By focusing on these three key areas, you can build high-performance teams that drive results. Your people are your most valuable asset. Invest in them, and they will reward you with outstanding performance.

At GPI, we help organizations attract, develop, and retain top talent. Our programs increase team engagement and collaboration by more than 75%. See our testimonials here and book a call with me here to get started.

 

#TeamBuilding #HighPerformanceTeams #EmployeeEngagement #CoachingCulture

How to Prevent Mediocre Managers from Sabotaging your People Strategy

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Think about the worst manager you ever had; what qualities made them a bad manager?

You might think of some Not-Safe-For-Work words, but you might also say:

·  Micromanaging

·  Unempathetic

·  Uninspiring

·  Uncommunicative

·  Unsupportive

·  Unresponsive

Whatever you said, we’ve all encountered them. Those mediocre direct managers who lack the essential management skills to lead and inspire their teams. They’re not always bad people. Sometimes they’re great people in their technical roles, but they just really struggle to connect with people on an emotional level. This disconnect can lead to a host of problems, from low morale and decreased productivity to high turnover and a potential talent exodus.

Here’s the warning signs

These are some of the typical comments you’ll hear from your staff that indicate you have mediocre managers:

· “My manager is MIA. They’re never available when I need them.” We call these the Ghost Managers – now you see them, now you don’t!

· “My manager breathes down my neck, constantly checking in and questioning every decision I make.” These are the Micro Managers; they’re never willing to empower their team. Working under these managers is stifling. I’ve never had anyone tell me they love being micromanaged!

· “My manager’s mood swings are unpredictable. One day they’re supportive, the next, they’re critical.” These are the Moody Blues managers; their inconsistency drives people nuts.

· “I have no idea what’s expected of me from one day to the next.” These Garbled Guru managers confuse the heck out of their team; they struggle with communicating simple straightforward messages.

· “My manager just doesn’t understand me; we’re not on the same wavelength at all.” These Heartless Head Honcho managers are insensitive and don’t possess an ounce of empathy.

So what? Nobody’s perfect!

I agree, nobody’s perfect. Nevertheless, poor communication, a lack of empathy, and ineffective feedback can significantly hinder a manager’s ability to lead a team effectively. Micromanagement and neglect, on the other hand, can further erode morale, ,company culture and productivity. These behaviours damage genuine relationships and create a toxic work environment that can lead to decreased job satisfaction, increased turnover, and, ultimately, organisational crash landings!

3 Steps for Building a Coaching Culture in Your Organisation

To address the challenges posed by mediocre managers, organisations, regardless of size, must prioritise leadership development and people management skills.

In our experience, fostering a growth-oriented culture is key to a successful people strategy. Companies we work with actively support their managers’ growth and development to ensure they reach their full potential.

1. Offering accessible leadership development resources, such as practical management tools, online courses, workshops, and books. These can help companies empower managers with the tools they need to succeed. Building core skills through management training is essential for a high-performing team.

2. Implementing a mentoring program that connects experienced leaders with emerging talent, providing valuable guidance and support. A mentoring program improves employee engagement and fosters a positive workplace culture.

3. Engaging suitably qualified executive coaches to deliver tailored one-on-one coaching. This personalised development allows managers to address their specific challenges and aspirations. Studies tell us that over 70% of individuals who receive coaching benefit from improved work performance, relationships, and more effective communication skills.

Here’s what some of our clients say about their experience:

1. “Great People Inside tools & insights help managers to set our people up for success.” Karen Hailwood , ex CPO – https://www.phocassoftware.com/

2. We use GPI assessments for all our portfolio companies. GPI have tools they can customise for practically every HR situation and the outcomes are priceless“ Mark Flood , Director –https://renatus.ie/

3. “David believes in human based leadership and high self-accountability. Without reservation, I wholeheartedly endorse him.” Kim Fitzhenry Consultant at OSC (Optimized Supply Chain) Consulting

Remember, your people are your greatest asset. If you’d like to learn more about how Great People Inside coaching tools and executive coaching programs can support your managers, please contact us.

 

#LeadershipDevelopment #PeopleStrategy #CoachingCulture

23% of Employees Are Looking to Leave. Here’s How to Keep Yours & Save Up to $30K per Hire

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Did you know a whopping 23% of employees are actively searching for new jobs right now? That means there’s a strong chance your top talent is considering leaving. However, what if I told you there’s a way to not only retain your best employees but also significantly reduce the costs associated with hiring new ones in the future?

Let me tell you about one of our clients, a dynamic tech company. They were stuck in a perfect storm of challenges; 15% of their new hires were leaving before even finishing probation, and it was taking a staggering 40 days for new team members to become fully productive. This constant churn was obviously a huge drain on their resources and morale.
They were constantly interviewing, hiring, and onboarding, only to see new recruits vanish before they could truly contribute. They were devastated to see their team falling behind on projects, growing increasingly stressed, and incurring significant financial burdens that they couldn’t figure out how to stop. The cost of replacing an employee can be as high as 30 times their monthly salary, so this “revolving door” was seriously impacting their bottom line.

They knew they needed to address this urgently and asked if we could assist.

Here’s how we helped:

Deeper Candidate Insights: We analysed their existing team dynamics and benchmarked the specific skills, traits and work preferences required for success in their unique fast-paced work environment.

Targeted Recruitment: We then helped them re-engineer their recruitment process tailored to those insights which enabled them to attract and select candidates who were a perfect fit, not just on paper, but in reality.

Onboarding Optimisation: We provided practical tools and guidance to help their managers improve candidate onboarding experiences, ensuring new hires felt valued and supported from day one.

The impact? A phenomenal 55% reduction in new hire turnover and a 10-day decrease in the average time it took for new hires to become productive.

Is your company facing similar challenges with new hire turnover and productivity? Let’s chat about what you need. Drop a comment below make an appointment or send me a message to learn more!

#newhireturnover #recruitmentchallenges #greatpeopleinside #gpi #productivity

The recruitment maze: Adding objectivity to reduce risk to identify top talent

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Many of us can agree that recruitment is a risky business. Finding perfect candidates for all roles in your business who will meet the job requirements and excel within your company’s culture is akin to solving a complex puzzle. A recruitment maze. According to industry statistics, only 25% of the selected individuals are top performers. The question is, why does this happen?

How do you reduce risk to identify top talent to join your organisation?

The main challenge in identifying top talent is the need for more objective data available when making hiring decisions. Using more objective data for candidates on an individual basis and applying a human approach in the recruitment maze is discussed in this article.

Without a crystal ball, hiring managers often rely on a limited information set: resumes, reference checks, and gut feeling. While these elements are paramount, they provide only a fraction of the information required to make a well-informed decision.

A solid argument to reduce risk to identify top talent

John and Ronda Hunter’s research in “Validity & Utility of Alternative Predictors of Job Performance”, points out that interviews and background checks provide just 26% of the information required to make a successful hiring decision.

Recruitment maze

This stage is where most selection processes typically end.

How can we gather more valuable objective data to simply the recruitment maze?

The answer lies in measuring cognitive ability, behaviours, occupational interests, and overall “fit”. By incorporating these aspects into the hiring process, you can gather a powerful additional 49% of valuable objective data for candidates at an individual level. In essence, this approach slashes your recruitment risk by almost 50% and enables a greater tapping into the potential of candidates for longer employee engagement.

Making selections for our personal purchases

Think about the last important purchase you made: a new car, a smart TV, or a laptop. Chances are, you didn’t base your decision solely on how it looked. You likely considered various aspects such as performance, features, and how well it suited your needs and wants.

A need to improve the recruitment process

So why do we rely on just 26% of the available information with interviews and background checks when it comes to hiring?

Unsurprisingly, we get it right 25% of the time. It’s like betting on the roulette table or the slot machines. But there’s a better way.

A range of available assessments to help with the recruitment maze

With the advent of next-gen evaluations, you can substantially improve your hiring process. We’ve seen significant results working with clients.

Assessments are available off the shelf for a range of roles, including:

  • Managers
  • Salespeople
  • Customer service representatives
  • Blue collar workers

Moreover, you have the flexibility to choose specific dimensions critical to your business. Dimensions could relate to strategy, managing generations, or promoting a culture of respect, for example.

What’s more, these assessments are easy to use, cost-effective and validated. There’s no need for expensive certification courses. The GR8PI next-gen technology handles interpretation and provides reports in plain language that are easy to understand.

So why not give an assessment a try and see for yourself?

It’s time to break free from the old, ineffective methods and embrace a more data-driven, reliable and informed approach to hiring tomorrow’s talent.

As Einstein famously said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

It’s time to change and significantly reduce your recruitment risk while identifying top talent essential for your organisation to thrive. Trial an assessment for free today.

Isn’t it more important to prioritise job fit over white vs blue collar?

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Historically, blue collar vs white collar jobs referred to manual labour jobs that involved physical work. In the 1940s, this classification was not only based on the job itself but also on social class. Examples of such occupations include those in the construction, trades, and manufacturing sectors.

 

Fast forward to today, and collar colours

Today, blue collar jobs form an integral part of the workforce for many organisations, regardless of the industry sector. These individuals serve as the backbone of a company, frequently working in physically demanding environments and can face heightened risk.

Although businesses must prioritise customer satisfaction, ensuring all employees are content and well-suited for their respective roles and company are equally important.

 

What are the advantages of fit for white v blue collar and all employees?

There are numerous advantages, even in collar colour roles such as blue collar vs white collar jobs. Let’s look at some benefits here.

Any improvement in productivity translates to increased profits regardless of collar colour

A contented team of workers can greatly enhance their own productivity levels. A cheerful workforce creates a favourable work atmosphere that inspires employees to put in extra effort, resulting in improved organisational productivity. As most business people know, any productivity boost translates directly to increased profits.

Keep your top people

Happy employees, regardless of blue collar vs white collar or another collar colour, can also help reduce employee turnover. A high employee turnover rate can cost businesses severely.

 

According to AHRI, employee turnover costs 1.5 times the employee’s salary. 

 

Better mental health across all collar colours for jobs

Today, mental health has become a top priority in all workplaces. Employees well-suited to their job roles tend to experience higher satisfaction levels and are more likely to maintain good mental health. These aspects ultimately result in a more secure work setting.

 

When employees are happy in their jobs, they tend to be more alert and have greater attention to detail. And so, the likelihood of workplace accidents or injuries is reduced. Providing a safe work environment is always a must for organisations.

 

How to hire the right candidate for blue collar jobs?

Modern psychometric assessments can predict role success with high levels of accuracy. But they are rarely used for wage-based or less-skilled roles due to perceived cost constraints in many instances.

 

Great People Inside has a solution to this issue for successful business outcomes. Our highly precise psychometric evaluations are unbiased and efficient in assessing candidates for all job levels. From entry-level to executive positions, from the machine room to the boardroom.

 

The GR8PI platform can design cost-effective assessments to precisely measure fit and what’s essential to each specific role. The result for people in companies is improved productivity, reduced employee turnover, and better mental health.

Are you aware of other collar colours?

In addition to the well-known blue collar and white collar jobs, several other types of jobs are distinguished by collar colour. Each is explained in an article written by Kelly Campbell.

  • Gold collar – Signifies white collar workers with higher skills and are in higher demand. These include doctors, engineers, lawyers, and pilots.
  • Red collar – Refers to workers that work in the government whose salaries come from the red ink budget. This category may also include farmers.
  • Pink collar – An outdated term used to describe sectors historically dominated by women, including nursing and secretarial work.
  • Grey collar – These jobs are often associated with the gig economy or freelance work. Examples of grey collar jobs include graphic design, web development, and writing.
  • Green collar – This is one of the newest additions which refers to jobs in the environment.

We’ve seen the effects. We encourage you to try GPI for blue collar and other roles to make a real difference to your company.

The need to hire smarter with a novel approach in talent acquisition

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Impacting talent acquisition, the October NAB Forward View report cheerily tells us that:

“The labour market is expected to stay exceptionally tight in the near term, with unemployment bottoming out at 3.5% before drifting up to 4.3% over the next two years.”

It looks like spotting superstars for job vacancies will continue to be tough. That is assuming you continue approaching your talent acquisition the same way as you always did!

Rejecting applications

According to Indeed, “when hiring managers review resumes, they often skim to find the most relevant information.” In Australia, the result of this approach is that only 16% of resumes get an interview. Most would agree that statistically, among the 84% discarded, there must be the talent that can do the job. But they are rejected because of various issues with their application. The reasons for rejection range from:

  • unsuitable qualifications
  • not enough experience
  • too much experience
  • a poor cover letter
  • spelling mistakes.

Bias in talent acquisition

Unfortunately, how we humans make decisions to move people forward in the hiring process is also flawed. Science tells us that unconscious bias plays a key role in all our decisions. Our minds make decisions intuitively, even before we are aware of them. In his book “Hire with your Head” Lou Adler puts it quite bluntly:

“Intuition and gut feel don’t predict on-the-job success. All they predict is the likelihood the company will make a wrong decision.”

Another roadblock to successful hiring is that a staggering 5 in 6 applicants – or about 83% – report inflating their resume in some way.

Let’s reflect on this for a moment:

  1. When we review resumes, we are reading a document that is not accurate.
  2. As we read it, we are making decisions based on how we “feel” about what we have read.
  3. The result is three out of four people we hire do not fit.

Imagine a process in your business that delivered the right result – in this case, a top performer – only 25% of the time. Without a doubt, the process would be thrown out and a new one introduced.

Predicting success in a role in recruitment

Recruitment is all about trying to predict if a person you do not know will be a top performer in the job in your organisation. It doesn’t matter whether you work in a trade, as a teacher, salesperson, or CEO. Many psychologists agree that the biggest predictor of job success is cognitive ability. In recent years “soft skills” are also considered significant predictors of top performance in a job.

Soft skills used to be a “nice to have,” but today, emotional intelligence- “the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others”- is recognised as a better predictor of success than exam grades or certifications. Both studies by Accenture and Virginia Commonwealth University support this claim.

Use science to screen applicants as part of talent acquisition

NAB tells us spotting superstars for job vacancies will continue to be tough. On top of this, the current approach to screening applicants may get hijacked by our bias and dodgy resumes. What other approach might be useful to add to our talent acquisition armour? The answer is objective data.

With most significant personal investment decisions, such as buying a car or new HD TV, we support our human decision-making process with data. We research the specs for options to understand the performance of new investments to best meet our criteria.

Unfortunately, human beings do not come with a specifications list. To replicate our investment decision-making process when screening job applications, we need a simple economic tool that will provide us with objective data before we reach the stage of rejecting applications. Traditional fixed validated assessments just don’t offer the flexibility that is needed for this task.

The advancements made by the award-winning Great People Inside (GR8PI) platform allow companies of all sizes from all sectors to screen applicants cost-effectively.

In one short, inexpensive psychometric assessment, you can assess candidates as part of your application process for Emotional Intelligence and Cognitive Ability. And the output is a ranking of applicants matched to your specific criteria, which guides you as to which candidates you need to talk to. Speed is of the essence in a tight market, and using this approach gives you objective insights that you can act upon quickly.

If you’d like to learn more, reach out to us.

 

Five ways of reducing the risk of dropping employee retention

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Rate of Employee Retention

Employee retention is no doubt a key challenge. A recent study by Gartner states that the rate of employee turnover is likely to be up to 75% higher. And in addition, it takes 18% longer to fill any available jobs than pre-pandemic. Not to mention the annoying “quiet quitting” phenomenon, which is white-anting businesses too!

And the reasons why staff retention is affected?

The main reasons employees are leaving and affecting employee retention are:

  • inadequate salary,
  • deficient perks and benefits,
  • overworked,
  • lack of support,
  • career progression,
  • better work-life balance,
  • absence of recognition, and
  • unhappiness with management.

What can you do?

Whether we are trying to shift a few covid kilos or improve our qualifications doesn’t matter. There is never a single magic bullet. It’s usually a series of conscious actions and the discipline to implement them that results in the outcome we seek.

 

If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.

– Lao Tzu

 

Let’s start from the very beginning

Getting back to the basics by reviewing your people processes is a perfect place to begin to improve staff retention in your organisation. Here are a few thought starters.

#1 Realistic Position previews

The talent competition is fierce and at an all-time high, so your recruitment process needs to be engaging, timely and professional. How you or your team handle the recruitment process can strongly influence the desire for a new player to choose to join your company or not.

Research shows that providing applicants with a realistic job preview during the recruitment process positively affects the retention of those new hires. Selling the job or the business as Utopia is not a good idea.

#2 Professional interviews to increase employee retention

When it comes to interview questions, “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” or “sell me that pen” are way past their use-by date. The objective of the initial interview is to confirm that skills and abilities align.

The goal of the second or final interview is to confirm fit. Is the applicant a good fit for the job? Equally important is for the candidate to verify if the job is a good fit for them.

It’s a lot less costly to retain people than hire new staff, and with retention as key focus, you need objective information to de-risk the selection process. Tools like our customisable psychometric GR8PI assessments will give you these critical candidate insights— insights that are impossible to glean at an interview.

#3 Socialise and onboard for retention

Early failure is often high among new employees, and hybrid work has added further complexity.

Onboarding aims to help your new team member understand how to be successful in their new job. First impressions count: you have one chance to make a great first impression when an employee starts with your company.

So, it’s best to ensure you have strategic onboarding and assimilation processes that can quickly help new people become embedded in your business and the role. And therefore, more likely to stay. Possible approaches here include:

  • shared and individualised learning experiences,
  • formal and informal activities that help people get to know one another, and
  • assigning experienced employees as role models or mentors for new staff.

#4 Managers are key to minimise staff turnover

Those first few weeks and months in a new employee’s job are critical, especially in the new hybrid world. A first-rate manager-employee relationship is vital in delivering the employee experience and connection to the business for retention.

Compounding the challenge, many managers have never received any formal people management training. Frequently, a person has made it to manager due to tenure, success in their previous role, or the desire to retain a person.

While these may be valid, today, managers need access to new tools to lead and manage their employees. Such tools help them foster career aspirations, well-being, and connection to the organisational culture.

#5 Training and development to improve employee retention

CFO to CEO: “What will we do if we train them and they leave?”

CEO to CFO: “What if we don’t and they stay?”

This conversation rings true today more than ever.

But not just any old training works. Sending your people to a one size fits all training course is just wasting money. Everyone learns differently, and unless you fully understand what training is appropriate for each employee, you will not achieve the outcomes.

A gap analysis can clearly highlight the specific deficiencies. Our customisable GR8PI suite of dimensions helps you identify gaps. By enabling you to benchmark and compare your staff at a glance, you can customise the thorough training needed across the various groups.

 

Elon Musk says, “Some people don’t like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster”.

 

If you’d like some help in this area, please reach out or book a call to learn more.

How an HR management tool can predict sales people performance

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Better sales staff equals more sales revenue. It sounds simple. However, an HR management tool can help significantly to increase your salespeople’s productivity.  A complex task fraught with misunderstanding.

Finding high-performing staff involves a specific hiring approach that targets those with precisely the right attributes for the job at hand.

Once you have the right players, it doesn’t stop there. It’s a question of matching them to the right sales roles, managing them and developing the sales team in an ongoing way to ensure maximum efficiency and results.

Remember the old maxim ‘If you can sell, you can sell anything’?

Well, times have changed. Not all sales positions – or reps – are created equal.

According to studies by Herb Greenberg, Harold Weinstein and Patrick Sweeney in their book How to Hire and Develop Your Next Top Performer:

around 50% of sales employees lack the fundamental traits necessary for effective salespeople, and

a further 25% are selling the wrong thing, for the wrong managers, in the wrong place.

That leaves just 25% of salespeople operating to total capacity and producing great results.

So one size doesn’t fit all when finding the right salesperson to sell your product or services.

Financial benefits of hiring the best salespeople

Having a sales team composed of star performers can make a significant difference to your bottom line.

In a study of 100 businesses, Sales Force of Top Producers – A Manager’s (and Owner’s) Dream, reported in Employer’s Advantage, the company’s top performer outsold the bottom performer by a whopping average of 5.7 to 1 – with a range of 3:1 to 9:1.

Just imagine what kind of results you’d get if your entire team worked at the lower margin of 3:1, not to mention 5:1 or higher.

Salesforce Work.com and the TAS Group drew some more shocking statistics from their research. These include:

  • Two-thirds of salespeople miss their sales target.
  • More than half of all salespeople close less than 40% of potential deals.
  • Top-performing sales reps are 250% better at qualifying leads.
  • High performers are 2.5 times more likely to be effective qualifiers than the general population.
  • Revenue can be up to 25% greater at companies where sales and marketing integrate well.

Talent Management – how do you measure an individual salesperson’s productivity?

All this begs the question, just how productive is your own sales team? Can you measure individual productivity? And once you’ve measured it, how do you replace or improve average or poor performers?

The answer is using the advanced science from the next generation of smart psychometric assessment tools. Our award-winning Great People Inside psychometric testing platform will help you identify those essential success attributes for each sales role. As a result, you can match each position with the right employee.

Great People Inside’s psychometric analysis will tell you:

  • what makes your top performers so great
  • why your average performers are less effective
  • how to improve your least successful performers

How to hire the best people with an hr management tool

The right psychometric assessment tools can help you find the right people for your sales roles.

Applied correctly, the Great People Inside HR management tool can make your recruitment of future high performers up to three times more successful and also significantly reduce sales team turnover. When considering the statistics, these results should be music to any employer’s ear.

Figures reported in Employer’s Advantage show that three out of four new sales employees don’t last the distance. They have, in fact, only a 25% chance of staying with the company for an entire year.

Of those that do stick, only one in 10 go on to become a genuine top performer within three years.

So what is the essential DNA of these star performers?

Many have fundamental traits and attributes that help drive their peak performance for the longer term. Using our validated and reliable customised sales assessments, we work with you and scientifically study your current top-performing salespeople.

These measures enable us to create a customised job profile benchmark specific to your company based on your company’s top performers, not a random benchmark based on a collection of external organisations. A company customised standard means you can clearly see what sets your top performers apart from the rest.

This benchmark can also be used to significant effect when recruiting new sales staff, ensuring that candidates fit these rigorous criteria and carry the ‘work genes’ critical to success in their roles. You don’t take risks when buying a personal asset such as a car, so why risk it when hiring your most crucial business asset.

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