Does your organization struggle with employee performance? We can help with that! This month we share 5 Steps to Moving Low Performers Up or Out. Studies have shown top performers, in nearly any business, will out-produce low performers from 200-to-900 percent. That means your low performing employees are costing you money. As you ramp back up from the vacation season, consider these best practices to increase performance during the third and fourth quarter.

We are highlighting Profiles Skills Tests™ in August. Use your training and development budgets more effectively. Don’t spend money and time where it isn’t necessary. Profiles Skills Tests™ include a comprehensive list of skill tests to measure essential pre-employment skills and knowledge. Our technologies use performance-based testing to ensure accurate, reliable measurement of a person’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. Profiles International offers over 1,500 customizable employee skills tests in six languages. Knowing exactly where your employees need training allows for faster onboarding, lower training costs and more productive teams.

Read this month’s feature case study to learn how a large hospitality company lowered manager and hourly turnover and increased the quality of service and employee productivity by partnering with Profiles International.

We have a new blog and we are sure you are going to love it. You can access short but highly valuable daily updates and posts in areas such as leadership, motivation, productivity and engagement. It’s packed with information to help make your job a little easier. We even have videos on the blog. Don’t miss it.

DID YOU KNOW? We found some shocking statistics on the number of applicants who use false information and the high cost of negligent hires. Take a look at this month’s DID YOU KNOW section then give your Profiles Partner a call to see how you can keep that from happening to you.

Featured Article

Building Performers

LOW PERFORMERS? 5 STEPS TO MOVING LOW PERFORMERS UP OR OUT

Every business, despite best efforts in recruiting, hiring and motivating employees, eventually faces the problem of low performers. Tasks get done but seldom on time. Absenteeism and tardiness creep up. The manager gradually shifts some of the workload to other, higher-performing workers. As the manager, you wish people like this would just disappear, but it seems they never do. They just seem to hang on and on… In some circles this is labeled “presenteeism,” and having these low performers at work may be costing you more than if you paid them to stay home! Top performers, saddled with the extra load of carrying dead weight, may simply choose to move on. What can you do, then, to solve this dilemma? Here are five key steps to change the performance pace in your organization.

1. Identify the problem in clear, measurable terms. If you’ve been meaning to set performance standards for each job in your area, now is the time. Absenteeism, tardiness, missed productivity levels and timeline delays could all become part of a set of performance standards (although you will be well-advised to set these standards in their more positive polar opposite verbiage.)
2. Communicate. Meet with your low performers, lay out the expectations and the places where performance regularly falls short and make clear what the specific expectations are for future performance. Make it clear these expectations will be tracked and frequently evaluated. Then do just that—make the consequences of failing to meet these goals clear and enforceable. Consider coaching these employees toward improvement. The PXT Coaching Report can help managers communicate and coach employees.
3. Work your plan. Execution is the key. Follow your scheduled evaluations of performance with clear feedback. If expectations are not being met, give the feedback immediately. While your fondest hope may be to see these people improve their performance, it’s much more likely you are simply documenting the path to the door. Either way, timely feedback, action on promised consequences and consistent application are your key to solving the problem.
4. Document your process. One successful manager said, “The most expensive time an employee is on my payroll is the interval between when I decide to fire them and when they go out the door.” Because firing someone, especially someone who has been with the business for a long time, is very painful, you may find yourself procrastinating. Your delay at this stage can only compound the damage. Following Jack Welch’s advice to remove the bottom 10 percent of employees each year is not an easy path, and you may differ in your approach to making your business better, but to ignore a consistently low-performing employee is to ensure your operations will never be as good as they could be.
5. Take Action. If you’ve followed steps one through four, you are ready to make the necessary decisions for the good of your company and other employees.

Of course, when it is time to hire a new employee, we would all like to avoid replicating the departed one! This is the opportunity to use a well-structured hiring process, information from assessments, background checks and other valid information you can gather to add a top performer to your business.

Studies have shown top performers, in nearly any business, will out-produce low performers by anywhere from 200-to-900 percent! Imagine the effect on your company, if you could replace one low performer with one top performer. Then, imagine you did it again and again… The good news: You can!

Featured Product

Skill Tests Compliment Your Business

By Jay Hargis, SBP Talent Insight Group

Profiles Skill Tests are a perfect complement to your assessment testing business. Profiles Skills Tests are easy to understand, simple to use, and are often the first tool the HR department goes shopping for. With titles that include the entire Microsoft Office Suite, Customer Service and Banking Simulations, Industrial Safety and Healthcare, there isn’t an organization out there who doesn’t need to verify skills. The Profiles Skill Test catalog is constantly being updated with new and updated titles that are available for your prospects and clients.

Every single organization has hired that person who claims to be an expert at Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and/or Outlook only to find out that they don’t have a clue! We all know that the majority of candidates lie on their resumes—Profiles Skill Tests are a great way to make insure that the candidate has the knowledge that they say they have before your prospect or client has actually hired the person. Profiles Skill Tests are easily delivered either on-site in the human resources office or over the web.

The Profiles Skill Test delivery system is easy to use and allows the client to send one, two, or an entire battery of skill tests to their candidates, via the web, quickly and easily.

Selling Profiles Skill Tests is easy and don’t require a long drawn out sales cycle. Typically, the prospect calls you after a web search for skills testing. Next, you consult the catalog of Profiles Skill Tests, and send out a demonstration meter for the client to try. The tests sell themselves and you take the order. Profiles Client Services team will help you get your client set-up with one or all of the available Profiles Skill Test titles. Your client can also customize Profiles Skill Tests, combine titles, or create their own from scratch for a very reasonable cost.

Profiles Skill Testing is the low cost, low risk, purchase for your prospects and clients and serve as a great “foot in the door” for you! Easy to explain, easy to understand and designed to measure knowledge. The hundreds of titles, ability to customize, and wide-range of skill areas, make Profiles Skill Tests an easy business decision.

Featured Case Study

ProfileXT Provides ‘ABCs’ to Hospitality Organization

Hiring well should not that complicated. So when the ProfileXT® (PXT) and two other Profiles assessments helped save a Lincoln, Neb., hospitality organization $345,000 by allaying management turnover, the executive director of HR was pleased to see an additional benefit: simplicity.

Challenges:

1. Consistent high manager turnover; 20% + industry average
2. Needed to analyze candidates – quickly
3. Ripple effect turnover among hourly staff and affecting services & sales

Solution:

1. Benchmark the type of manager they needed
2. Use Profiles’ assessments during Interviews
3. Hire managers that will have the unique skill set needed

Results:

1. Reduced manager turnover to 12%
2. Reduced hourly turnover by 32%
3. Higher quality service & productivity

Click here to see the full Case Study.

Did You Know?

Shocking HRStats: Why Pre-Employment Screening Is Important

Sometimes words can’t do justice to the story of pre-employment screening. The statistics below describe the kinds of workplace risks Profiles International assessment solutions and pre-employment screening will help you avoid. Contact your Profiles Partner to learn more.

HR Statistics: False Information

53% of all job applications contain inaccurate information.
_{*Source: Society of Human Resources Management, 2003}

In a survey conducted by CareerBuilder.com, 49% of the 3,100 hiring managers surveyed had caught a job applicant fabricating some part of his/her resume.
_{*Source: CareerBuilder.com Survey, 2008}

34% of all application forms contain outright lies about experience, education, and ability to perform essential functions on the job.
_{*Source: Wall Street Journal, 2003}

9% of job applicants falsely claimed they had a college degree, listed false employers, or identified jobs that didn’t exist.
_{*Source: Resume Inflation: Two Wrongs May Mean No Rights, by Barbara Kat Repa, Nolo.com, 2001}

11% of job applicants misrepresented why they left a former employer.
_{*Source: Resume Inflation: Two Wrongs May Mean No Rights, by Barbara Kat Repa, Nolo.com, 2001}

HR Statistics: Bad Hires

Negligent hiring cases have had verdicts of up to $40 million.
_{*Source: Gurtin vs. Nurse Connection, et. al., 2002}

The average settlement of a negligent hiring lawsuit is nearly $1 million.
_{*Source: Human Resources Management, 2008}

Employers have lost more than 79% of negligent hiring cases.
_{*Source: Fortune, 2000}

It costs $7,000 to replace a salaried employee, $10,000 to replace a mid-level employee, and $40,000 to replace a senior executive.
_{*Source: Recruiting Times}

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the average cost of a bad hiring decision can equal 30% of the first year’s potential earnings.
_{*Source: U.S. Department of Labor}

Replacing supervisory, technical and management personnel can cost from 50 to several hundred percent of the person’s salary.
_{*Source: Society for Human Resource Management, Recruitment and Selection Presentation, 2008}