Employee Insights LLC

Do you know if your Pre-Employment Testing is validated or has adverse impact?

A recent article by Dr. Wendell Williams points out something that many people seem to know, there are a lot of junk assessments on the market.  To those of us who have known (and deal with it everyday) it is not a surprise that these tools are used but not validated.  Most of our clients never even ask about the potential for adverse impact or the validity of what we are providing  (see our page via the link).   (more…)

Disc Profile “C” – Coffee with Connie 

Here is the last in the series of DISC personality video’s.  This video is focused on the “C” personality type.  They are cautious and try to be perfectly accurate.  About 25% of the population are considered to have  the “C” Profile.  They attempt to be professional and  finish what they start.   Often they can get bogged down in the details.  Greatest fear is Criticism.   Motivate your “C” by being correct in your facts!

Some great tips from Mary Lorenz at Career Builder about communicating with the C-Suite.  Mary cites 7 points made by author Beverly Flaxington.  These are some great tips for anyone in selling to the C-Suite.  Both myself and my partner are both certified professional behavioral analyst and we couldn’t agree more with Beverly’s insights.

Do This: Show the Business Impact Not That: Assume They Already Know

Do This: Be Direct Not That: Give TMI

Do This: Be a Confidante Not That: Forget that C-Levels are Employees, Too

Do This: Leverage Your Insider Info Not That: Keep Your Opinions to Yourself

Do This: Cater Your Approach Not That: Go In Blind

Do This: Focus on Need-to-Know’s Not That: Focus on Want-to-Know’s

Do This: Stay Objective Not That: Take Things Personally

To get the most use out of these tips you really need to understand who you are and how you communicate first. Understanding yourself allows you to understand others.  We would recommend doing some reading on DISC.  There are multiple source out there on the internet but just in case you don’t want to stray too far, click the video below to watch a short video that explains DISC as a language.

Here’s a blog article by Amanda Lewis of the Human Capital Institute discussing the need and merits of a skills gap analysis. Amanda brings up some very good points on why the analysis is necessary and what some of the potential shortcomings are. She also notes that most HR / Talent functions do not possess this type of 360 view of their employees and organizations. If yo’re an HR professional or manager this is a great short read. (more…)

Coaching, is it reactive or proactive?  If the word coaching is in your organization’s vocabulary then you need to answer this question.  An article by Aubrey K. Wiete for the Human Capital Institute discusses coaching, how and why it is typically used.  Aubrey points out that there is a general lack of clarity around organizational coaching and how it measured or assessed.

We agree with Aubrey’s comments.  Coaching is a loose term that sometimes mimics “managing”, other times mimics “training”, and often times mimics “teaching”.  In our world coaching means “leading”.  Leading the horse to water (you know the rest of this), leading the employee to a set of values, or leading the team to a goal.

Let’s use an example of hiring a new employee and let’s for a moment consider that no employee is a perfect match for the job, ok except maybe Michael Jordan.  The first question you have to ask yourself is “what do I need to coach my new employee on”?  Hard skills or job specific tasks would be more like training so let’s eliminate those from the question.  Now the question becomes harder to answer and this is where coaching starts to unravel.  What do you coach your employees on?

How about understanding the employee’s behavior style and the behavioral style of the team as a whole?  Maybe the new employee has been hired for a technical outside sales position that requires frequent interaction with people yet the employee seems a bit reserved in front of strangers. He / she got the job because of their technical expertise but not because of their outgoing personality.  This would be a good example of a trait that is coachable.  We’re not saying that you try to make the employee go from introvert to extrovert but rather coach your new sales person on how to identify and properly interact with other personalities, or put another way, differences in communication styles.

In order to best accomplish this, a set of job standards or benchmark as we call it, needs to be defined.  The benchmark creates a way to assess a would-be employee to see if he or she is a poor, good, or great fit for the requirements of the job.  After hiring these same standards now becomes the basis for a coaching plan and yes,,, a way to measure the results of the coaching.

Two things are a given with coaching, it needs to be proactive and it needs to be measured.

Use Anti-DISC to Become a Better Person and Make Better Assessments

This article by Lou Adler published on ERE.net is something that get’s me fired up about assessments.  There are a great number of people out there using assessments without a clue about what they are, how they work or even if the ones they use are validated.  If you work with a reputable company for your assessment needs they should be able to provide you with the validity study for their tools.  How many HR departments ask this critical and legal question?  Almost none based on our experience.   (more…)

Coffee with Connie Disc Profile “S” – YouTube.

Here is another in the series of DISC personality video’s.  This video is focused on the “S” personality type.  They are steady, reliable and excellent listeners.  Sometime they can be very poker faced in dealing with others.  S personalities comprises the majority of the population.  They like to be accepted and work in a team.  Greatest fear is change.  Check back for the final video next week

Coffee with Connie – DISC Profile “I” – YouTube.

Another good video describing the behavioral traits of the “I’ personality.  How do you identify them?  What do they want?  How do you communicate with them and what are their potential weaknesses.  Put these to work for you in your selling career so you can better understand yourself and your clients.