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employmenttechnologies-blog · 7 years ago

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5 EASY TIPS TO JUMP START SPRING HIRING

Key Strategies and Tips for Attracting and Hiring the Best.

Spring is one of the busiest hiring seasons of the year. With hospitality and tourism businesses gearing up for warm weather hiring, and many additional companies vying for the best high school and college grads, now is the time to make sure you’re ready to attract and hire top new talent.

So expect tough competition this spring—and start planning your strategy now for attracting and hiring the best. To get a jump start on spring hiring and stay ahead of the competition, try our 5 easy tips.

Some Hiring Tips that Can Go A Long Way

1. Snag the best talent early

Now is the time to do a quick check for delays and inefficiencies in your screening process. Any lags and weak links in your system can mean that by the time you get to hiring, the best candidates may already be at work—dazzling someone else’s customers.

The crux of effective seasonal hiring is to quickly screen applicants to a manageable and qualified group. There are a number of online screening tools that are easy to implement and can quickly streamline your recruiting and screening process. These tools not only cut your time and cost to hire, they also increase your access to quality applicants and improve your accuracy in pinpointing top candidates.

2. Treat your applicants like customers

The image you project to applicants during the hiring process makes a powerful statement about your business. To reflect your brand as a dynamic, progressive company, you need to start building that foundation when you hire.

Today in our media-rich environment, applicants expect more. Why not give them a truly engaging, interactive experience? For example, more and more businesses are using simulation-based screening tools. Simulations not only provide the highest level of accuracy in predicting job success, they also provide a fun and realistic way to introduce applicants to the job. New technology also enables you to easily customize standard screening tools by adding key information specific to your company. Applicants that are engaged and excited about your company are more likely to connect with your customers, and they’re more likely to become customers themselves.

3. Ditch time-consuming screening interviews. Go virtual!

If you’re still spending hours conducting phone or in-person screening interviews, you’ll likely be burned out by St. Patrick’s Day. No shows, late arrivals, delays, and time over-runs add to the stress and hassle of interviewing. Repetition and fatigue also take a toll on interviewer effectiveness and reduce the quality of each interview.

Virtual Interviews are an affordable and effective solution to the constraints of live interviews. With virtual interviews, scheduling is no longer an issue. Multiple interviews can be conducted simultaneously—anytime, anywhere. And with virtual interviews you can review interviews on your own schedule and at your own convenience. By switching to virtual interviewing, you take control of your time, schedule, and results.

4. Listen for their smile

Sometimes we are so caught up in the hiring process that we forget our customers. Whether you’re hiring seasonal workers or full-time employees, remember—these are the people who’ll work directly with your customers. You might have the best product or service in the world, but if a customer has a bad experience with one of your associates, you may never see that customer again.

Providing world-class customer service starts with a smile. That smile is as important over the phone as it is in person. So when screening candidates, don’t just look for that smile, listen for it in their voice.

5. Switch to just-in-time learning

With seasonal jobs, you can’t rely on traditional onboarding training methods to get your associates up and running quickly. Classroom training and “information dumps” just don’t work when you have a limited amount of time to introduce new employees to your company, your process, and your products.

With new simulation-based learning tools, new hires can practice and perfect their skills with virtual customers before they ever interact with your real customers. Imagine the change in your business if each new employee had the expertise to handle your most difficult customers or solve the most complex customer issues. According to Chief Learning Officer magazine, “Compared with traditional classroom learning, simulations help participants master content and new behaviors 40-70 percent faster.” When time is limited, just-in-time learning delivers just-in-time results.

With an efficient, engaging, accurate, just-in-time hiring and onboarding process, you can breathe easier this spring knowing the each new team member has what it takes to hit the ground running and to provide stellar service and support to your customers.

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employmenttechnologies-blog · 7 years ago

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Do you want to find a great supervisor that will inspire the team, motivate and coach? Now it is easy with Easy Simulation. See for yourself

#Teller Assessment Test

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employmenttechnologies-blog · 7 years ago

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This user-friendly, online simulation quickly and accurately pinpoints top performers who will greet your customers with warmth and enthusiasm.

#Call Center Simulation

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employmenttechnologies-blog · 7 years ago

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This user-friendly, online simulation quickly and accurately pinpoints top performers who will greet your customers with warmth and enthusiasm.

#Call Center Simulation

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employmenttechnologies-blog · 7 years ago

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A HELPFUL GUIDE TO PRE-EMPLOYMENT TESTING PART II: TYPES OF PRE-EMPLOYMENT TESTS

Hiring and Pre-Employment Testing.

Suppose your organization creates a new position, and you are tasked with choosing the right pre-employment test to identify the best new talent. You start your search by googling “pre-employment test” which yields about 195,000 results (or at least it did for me).

The good news is that you’ll have lots to choose from. The bad news is that pinpointing the right pre-employment tools for your specific hiring needs can be baffling.

There are personality tests, skills tests, cognitive ability tests, biodata tests, workstyle tests, and integrity tests. There are graphology (handwriting) tests, how you behave at a party tests, and there’s even a new smartphone test of how quickly you can inflate party balloons without bursting them.

With so many options, how do you decide which test is best?

If you follow a few key guidelines, it’s actually easier than it sounds. And I’ll walk you through each step.

HOW TO EVALUATE PRE-EMPLOYMENT TESTS

Step 1: Define What You Want to Measure

As we previewed in my last blog, the first step in finding the right pre-employment test is to define what your organization wants to measure and the outcomes you want to achieve. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Testing and Assessment: An Employer’s Guide to Good Practices advises you to start by determining the following:

Purpose: What do you need to measure? Examples include skills, abilities, and values that individuals must possess in order to perform well in the target job.

Prediction: What do you need to predict? Pre-employment tests are designed to predict a number of critical success factors, including job performance, productivity, training needs, turnover risk, leadership potential, etc.

Format: What is the best way to measure the desired skills and attributes? Types of testing formats include paper-and-pencil, online survey, work sample, and simulation, among others.

Step 2: Evaluate Tests Based on The Three Essentials

This step is the most critical. All pre-employment tests are subject to professional and legal standards. Fortunately, the U.S. Department of Labor offers guidelines for understanding what’s most important. To be specific, all good pre-employment tests must have three essential elements.

Validity (the test is an accurate predictor)

Reliability (test results are consistent and dependable)

Compliance (the test is fair and meets legal guidelines)

To ensure that a pre-employment test meets the three essentials for legal defensibility, ask these questions:

Is the test relevant to the job?

Are the results valid and reliable?

Is the test fair? Does it meet or exceed legal compliance guidelines?

Does the test minimize your risk of adverse impact against protected classes?

A pre-employment test must deliver on each of the three essentials: validity, reliability, and compliance. If it doesn’t, cross it off your list. It’s that simple.

Step 3. Compare Tests Based on Practical Considerations

Once you’re confident that a test predicts the key success factors you want to measure, plus the test offers strong evidence of validity, reliability, and compliance, then it’s time to look at practical considerations.

Cost and Return on Investment (ROI): Test costs vary widely based on factors such as test type, complexity of the job, and hiring volume. The time and training required to administer the test must also be considered. Look for tests that provide strong ROI in both cost savings and performance gains.

Efficiency: With internal resource costs high, and application abandonment rates as high as 60 percent or more, be sure your screening process is convenient and user-friendly for both administrators and applicants.

Applicant Experience: Applicants prefer pre-employment tests that are engaging, clear, and job relevant. “Face validity” is key. For instance, a keyboarding test for a keyboarding job has high face validity. Conversely, (unless you’re applying for a job that involves planning or attending parties) the balloon inflation test, or tests that query party behavior will likely fall short on the face validity scale.

We’ll look at practical considerations in more detail in Part 3 of this series.

TYPES OF PRE-EMPLOYMENT TESTS

While the number and types of pre-employment tests can seem overwhelming, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) offers easy-to-follow guidelines for understanding and evaluating the most common test types.

Based on the OPM’s independent and well-researched review, the following list summarizes some of the most commonly used test types, along with the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Job Knowledge Tests measure how much an applicant knows about specific job information or tasks. These tests are usually in pencil-and-paper or computerized formats. Typically consisting of multiple choice questions or essay items, job knowledge tests are designed to evaluate the technical or professional expertise and knowledge required for specific jobs or professions. One example is a police promotional exam that tests knowledge of laws and statutes.

Advantages

High validity, face validity

Relevant to particular aspects of job

Easy and inexpensive to administer

Best for jobs requiring immediate specific job knowledge

Good ROI for applicants who possess technical expertise in specific areas

Disadvantages

Risk of adverse impact

Expensive and time-consuming to develop and update

Poorer ROI for some jobs in which other tests are better predictors

Cognitive Ability Tests measure abilities involved in the mental processes necessary to solve work-related problems or to acquire new job knowledge. These tests consist of questions designed to estimate an applicant’s potential to use logic, reasoning, reading comprehension, problem-solving, and other mental abilities that are fundamental to success on the job.

Advantages

High validity

Easy and inexpensive to administer

Best for complex jobs

Inexpensive when purchased off-the-shelf

Good ROI for applicants who possess technical expertise in specific job knowledge areas

Disadvantages

Risk of adverse impact

Poorer ROI for some jobs in which other tests are a better predictor

Biographical Data Tests are based on the principle that past behavior predicts future behavior. These standardized questionnaires measure education, training, work experience, and interests in order to predict success on the job. Some biographical data instruments also ask about an applicant’s attitudes, preferences, and assess personality.

Advantages

Moderate validity

Easy and inexpensive to administer

Relevant to particular aspects of a job

Inexpensive when purchased off-the-shelf

Good ROI for top performers

Disadvantages

Risk of adverse impact

Low to moderate face validity

Costly to develop

Privacy concerns among test-takers

Subject to candidate embellishment and faking

Personality Tests measure motivation, teamwork, preferences, interests, emotional make-up, and style of interacting with people and performing in situations. They can be especially useful where job performance requires a great deal of interpersonal interaction or working in teams. The personality traits most frequently assessed in these tests include extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. These five traits are often referred to as the Five-Factor Model.

Advantages

High validity

Easy and inexpensive to administer

Low risk of adverse impact

Inexpensive when purchased off-the-shelf

Good ROI for critical competencies upon entry into the job

Disadvantages

Low face validity

Should be used with other assessments

Applicants have concerns about privacy and invasiveness

Subject to faking

Caution must be taken to avoid assessing medical (mental health) conditions

Simulations and Work Sample Tests place applicants in simulated work situations that are the same or similar to those performed on the job in order to assess their level of skill or competence. For example, work simulations might replicate interactions with customers, decision-making, or using data to solve problems. Simulations and work samples by design are highly job relevant and offer the highest predictive accuracy.

Advantages

High validity

High face validity

Low risk of adverse impact

Provides realistic preview of the job and the organization

Reduces turnover

Good ROI for critical competencies upon entry into the job

Disadvantages

If not automated, work sample administration can be time-consuming and may require training

Can be difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to develop in-house

In addition to its summary of test types, the U. S. Office of Personnel Management ranks how each type compares in terms of validity, face validity, and risk of adverse impact.

Check out this chart based on data from the OPM, documenting the most accurate test type – and revealing the tests that place you at the greatest risk.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

As pre-employment testing continues to evolve, expect to see upgrades in delivery methods, user-interfaces, and predictive analytics. AI (artificial intelligence) applications are all the buzz, offering employers new ways to collect and interpret applicant data. While the potential for faster and sleeker ways to gather job-relevant data is positive, some AI applications are opening up new questions related to privacy, EEO compliance, and ADA compliance. (More about AI testing in a future blog.)

That’s why it’s more important than ever to follow our three steps for evaluating pre-employment tests, with a focus on The Three Essentials of validity, reliability, and compliance. Whether you’re evaluating a traditional test, or one that just hit the market, these guidelines will help you cut through the uncertainty and marketing hype so you can choose the right pre-employment tools with confidence.

In an upcoming post, we’ll conclude our 3-part series on pre-employment testing with specific tips and strategies for matching the right pre-employment tools to your specific hiring needs. You’ll also get an easy-to-use checklist to guide you!

Maurie Jones is an Industrial/Organizational Psychology consultant from Orlando, Florida. She has spent more than 30 years in the industry designing, developing, and administering employment and promotion tests and systems. Her clients have included Fortune 500 organizations, financial institutions, law enforcement and fire agencies, and many others.

RESOURCES

A Helpful Guide to Pre-Employment Testing – Part I: The Three Essentials

U.S. Department of Labor, Testing and Assessment: An Employer’s Guide to Good Practices

U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Assessment Decision Guide

Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures

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employmenttechnologies-blog · 7 years ago

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Contact Center Hiring Goes Mobile!

3 Best Practices for Mobile Talent Assessment.

The massive growth and capability of mobile devices has made a significant impact on talent assessment. Millennial job candidates do everything on their phones, including applying for jobs. New mobile technologies offer key advantages to contact centers, enabling them to streamline their hiring processes and expand their access to the best new talent. At the same time, mobile hiring also presents significant challenges to recruiters and hiring managers who are striving to gain a complete picture of a candidate’s suitability for the contact center agent role.

To help you overcome these challenges and make the best use of mobile hiring tools, we’ve outlined three best practices.

1. Identify Agent Success Factors

The first step in optimizing your talent assessment process is to identify the key factors that determine success at your contact center. Every organization is different, but there are several consistent factors that contact centers look for in successful new hires:

Pleasant and courteous with customers

Great detectives that listen closely and uncover what’s important to each customer

Problem solvers that can follow policies and procedures

Efficient screen navigators and keyboard operators to avoid “dead air” and extended call handling times that lead to customer frustration

Confident when positioning solutions, negotiating payment terms, and overcoming objections by connecting them back to customer needs

Effective verbal communicators that are easy to understand and put customers at ease

Once you’ve defined the success factors for your organization, you can then determine the right tools for assessing those factors.

2. Use Mobile Technology to Expand Access and Target Success Factors

A key to successful contact center hiring is to use the right technologies for the right outcome. Research strongly suggests that the most accurate form of talent assessment is simulation. And the good news is that you can effectively measure many of the factors listed above on simulations that are mobile friendly.

By using simulations that immerse candidates in realistic job situations, you can accurately predict how they will perform for real once on the job. With the exception of screen navigation and keyboarding, you can measure all these important things with well-designed simulations delivered on mobile devices. And by adding a mobile friendly automated screening interview to the process, you can quickly and efficiently hear and evaluate candidates’ verbal communication ability as well.

Imagine assessing all of that in around 30 minutes – before job candidates ever walk through your door! This leads to greater efficiency, improved cycle time, and minimal drop rate. Given these gains, it’s easy to see how mobile talent assessments can play a key role in contact center talent acquisition.

3. Confirm Screen Navigation and Multitasking with Computer-based Tools

For many contact center roles, the importance of screen navigation, data entry, and multitasking is paramount. So be careful not to abandon computer-based assessments. If your target job is highly dependent on those abilities, consider adding an assessment that provides a direct measure of performance. Since these activities are performed on the job via computer, they should be assessed on a computer. Computer-based talent assessments can easily be added as part of a remote process. If you prefer to offer a purely mobile pre-screening experience, you can administer a computer-based assessment on site or as a remote follow up to the initial process.

The most important thing to consider is what is most critical for your center. Your business needs should always drive the talent assessment process. Measure what is most important, and the good news is you can do much of that by “going mobile.”

Hire Great People FAST!

You might say contact centers are in our DNA. There’s no industry we know better . . . and there’s no industry where we’ve had more impact. For a free consultation about streamlining and optimizing hiring at your contact center, contact me today!

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employmenttechnologies-blog · 7 years ago

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5 Steps for Creating A Positive, Motivated, and High-Performing Team

Effective supervisors are the single greatest catalyst for inspiring employee success and achieving high team performance.

It’s probably no secret that the #1 reason for low morale and high turnover is poor supervision. Luckily, the converse is also true. No one has more influence on creating a positive, loyal, collaborative team than the direct supervisor.

While it’s reasonable to assume that most supervisors want their teams to succeed, clearly not all teams are as successful as others. Team morale and retention seem to be ever-present challenges. So, what’s the secret? What do top supervisors do to create winning teams?

To gain insight, we surveyed hundreds of top supervisors, team leaders, and managers from leading organizations across the U.S. and Canada.

Here’s what we found. The most effective supervisors consistently follow 5 simple strategies to inspire their teams and optimize performance. These 5 strategies are summarized below, including quotes from participating leaders.

1. Be a Good Role Model

The best supervisors set a good example. This may sound simplistic, but it’s the most critical step in building a successful team.

Inspirational leaders consistently demonstrate the type of commitment and performance they’re looking for in their team members.

Top supervisors understand that trust is the outcome of consistency, integrity, and dependability, blended with a desire to succeed. Great leaders instill trust. They are quick to take initiative, follow through on promises, and set a high personal standard of excellence.

Insight: Enthusiasm is contagious. The best way to ignite enthusiasm and build collaboration is to set a positive example.

“An effective supervisor always comes in with a positive attitude and is always ready to help out.”

2. Build Relationships, Boost Retention

Inspirational leaders demonstrate a genuine interest in their team.

The best supervisors take the time to get to know each person. They are sensitive to differing attitudes and temperaments. They’re fair. They don’t play favorites, and they treat all of their team members with respect.

The most motivating action supervisors can take is to “catch people doing something right.” Top leaders recognize what each team member does well and provides opportunities for them to practice and excel in those areas.

Insight: There is no single factor more important in building high morale and retention than a good relationship between team members and their immediate supervisor.

“Good team leaders show a personal interest in each associate, remembering details about their lives.”

3. Speak Clearly, Listen Carefully

Communication is the key to any successful relationship, and effective leaders are effective communicators.

Top supervisors clearly outline expectations. They’re tactful in communicating sensitive and negative information. And perhaps more importantly—they’re great listeners.

This article in Harvard Business Review summarizes Gallup research that finds “engagement is highest among employees who have some form (face-to-face, phone, or digital) of daily communication with their managers. Managers who use a combination of face-to-face, phone, and electronic communication are the most successful in engaging employees.”

Effective leaders understand that communication is not what is said, but what is heard. Misunderstandings and poorly defined expectations are quick tickets to low morale and high turnover.

Insight: To achieve optimal results, top leaders clearly communicate goals and expectations and consistently verify mutual understanding.

“A good supervisor must have the vision of what is expected and be able to make the expectations clear.”

4. Coach for Success

Articulating goals and objectives is important, but the best leaders don’t stop there.

Inspirational leaders create a culture of learning. They engage the team in shared goals and generate enthusiasm by coaching team members to achieve individual and shared success.

Effective leadership includes both tactical and strategic coaching. Tactical coaching is immediate and focuses on knowledge, procedures, and data. Most often it centers on objective, measurable outcomes.

Strategic coaching is more long term and focuses on development. Strategic coaching is aligned with a growth curve and progress occurs in stages or phases.

Insight: Effective coaches fuel motivation by engaging their teams in goal setting, reinforcing personal accountability, and demonstrating a commitment to each member’s personal growth and success.

“The best supervisors . . . can get their team excited about achieving results.”

5. Optimize Performance

Supervisors are performance managers. They continually observe and monitor performance to ensure that each member of the team is on track. If supervisors skip or take shortcuts on any of Steps 1 – 4, then Step 5 is likely to nosedive into negative attitudes and poor morale.

Luckily, top leaders know how to turn performance management into a positive and motivating experience. They use three essentials to optimize employee performance: a) a clearly defined and agreed upon performance plan, b) ongoing coaching and feedback related to performance goals, and c) specific metrics to monitor progress and assess results. The combination of these essentials creates performance optimization. If any essential is lacking, optimal performance is unrealistic.

So, effective supervisors ensure that team members obtain and quickly learn the necessary knowledge; they deliver information clearly, at the right time, and in the appropriate manner; and they continually observe and monitor performance to ensure goals are being met.

Insight: When supervisors are successful in Steps 1 – 4, their teams shine in Step 5.

“Top leaders inspire their team and share in celebrating the team’s success.”

Championship teams always have a capable and inspirational leader. Identifying and nurturing that leader is always the first step. Our research and value proposition is to provide our clients with the means to successfully identify and nurture effective leaders who will inspire, motivate, coach, and lead their teams to peak performance. For a free consultation about team performance and leadership development, ">contact me today!

#Strategic coaching

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employmenttechnologies-blog · 7 years ago

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5 Great Reasons Why You Should Try Immersive Leadership Simulations

There is a lot of good advice about deciding who to promote to a leadership role, and when. That advice typically includes factors such as:

People who are good communicators

People who are top performers

People who have expressed an interest in career advancement

While these tips each add a piece to the leadership puzzle, the best advice is the most straightforward: seeing how people actually perform in a leadership role. And simulation provides the ideal, risk-free way to determine who has what it takes to be a strong and motivational leader.

Here’s the simplest way to describe how immersive leadership simulations work: these easy-to-use online tools allow candidates to experience the challenges of managing others in safe, simulated conditions.

Leadership simulations immerse aspiring candidates in virtual workplaces where they interact with virtual team members to solve complex problems, while motivating their teams to peak performance. Organizations can accurately determine the readiness of an employee to take on a leadership role, and employees can learn about their leadership potential and specific areas for improvement.

As a hiring and development tool, here are 5 key reasons why immersive leadership simulations make sense:

Insights:Leadership simulations are great for decisions related to hiring, succession, and development because of the objective insights they offer about each candidate. When a candidate is placed in a realistic scenario, simulations reveal whether a candidate is ready for a more demanding role now or in the future, and what coaching and development is needed.

Authenticity:Simulations provide a true measure of performance. Unlike interviews and self-report questionnaires, leadership simulations let candidates take on a leadership role as if they were actually in the position, bringing their interactions and decision making to life. Instead of a candidate telling youhow good he or she is at leadership, simulations allow the candidate to show you.

Experience:Simulations create a safe, controlled environment in which job candidates demonstrate critical leadership skills. This hands-on experience also gives candidates a firsthand working knowledge of the job requirements. In addition, simulations strengthen training programs by identifying the individual strengths and performance gaps of each person aspiring to a leadership role.

Convenience:Online simulations are available 24/7, so candidates can complete the simulation at their convenience. With our leadership simulations, organizations get instant access to results that include a prediction of each candidate’s potential for success in a leadership role, along with a personalized performance plan for ongoing coaching and career development.

Engagement:In today’s media-rich world, candidates expect more. The best leadership simulations create a fun and engaging experience that your employees and job candidates will actually enjoy!

Immersive leadership simulations make sense because they help you put the right people, with the right skills and attributes, into the right leadership positions.

Why Choose Employment Technologies?

Our award-winning simulations are proven to identify leaders who are two to five times more likely to manage effectively and set a positive example for their teams. Check out these simulations to help you hire and develop top: managers and supervisors, teller supervisors, financial center managers, and contact center team leaders.

#leadership simulations

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