How To Attract and Retain Sales and Customer Service People Using In-depth Work Style & Personality Testing – Part 1

How do you build up your sales and customer service force in a down economy? The quick answer is don’t be a dodo bird.

While researching our book, Cracking the Personality Code, we examined the essentials of what managers and business owners need to know about hiring and managing sales/customer service people with the help of in-depth work style & personality testing.

An interesting sales management guru we discovered along the way is Lee B. Salz. In June 2007, his widely acclaimed book “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager” was published. In it, he deals with one of the biggest problems companies face, the chasm between managers and sales and customer service people.

He uses the metaphor of the dodo to show what happens when one fails to adapt. Those who adapt, thrive. Those who don’t, become extinct like the dodo bird of ages ago. Some laugh at the use of the word ‘dodo’, but there is nothing funny about a business losing its competitive edge due to unmanaged change.

To hire the best sales and customer service people, and keep them on the team, your sales or customer service manager needs to know what makes them tick. We believe the sales and customer service personality code can be cracked. If that sounds like a bold declaration, consider this:  Studies show that personality tests are a far more reliable predictor of performance than interviews and resumes.

A proper test should reach beyond simple profiles and decipher a sales or customer service person’s underlying needs. This is key for employee development, team building, conflict resolution and succession planning.  If you want to retain the best, you need to treat them the way they want to be treated.

Below are some ways to use personality testing in the workplace to help attract and retain sales and customer service people:

1. Get the real picture.  Of course, every sales and customer service candidate wants to put their best foot forward during an interview.  However, through a personality test, you uncover a great deal about their ability to work well with other personalities, their problem solving abilities, their thought processes, and their ability to tolerate stress. Personality testing gives you objective information that can help you make an informed decision about if this person is a good fit for the job and for the team. If you decided to hire the person, the questions you ask during the hiring process will reduce your learning curve as a manager on how best to manage this person from day one.

2. Help them be all that they can be. Every sales and customer service person has strengths and weaknesses. Find out the real truth with an objective measure. Once you pinpoint the good and the bad, then you place them in the right position and coach them on where to improve.

3. Take me to your leaders. Personality testing gives the manager and sales or customer service team a common language about how they like to interact.  The assessments can help you train future managers on how to get the best out of the team.

4. Know how to manage difficult people. Face it, there will always be difficult people and flare ups on the job. Use objective personality assessments to diagnose potential sources of workplace conflict. The best way to deal with a problem is to prevent it in the first place.

We will have additional ways to attract and retain your sales and customer service people next week. While in-depth work style & personality testing can be a valuable resource before you hire sales and customer service people, perhaps the true value of any assessment comes in using the insights it provides along the entire spectrum of employment. Personality assessments lend objectivity to decisions that may otherwise be largely subjective.

Remember, it is not how many great people you hire. The true measure is how many great people you keep! For more information, please visit our Web site, www.lighthouseconsulting.com to sign up for our Open Line webinars and monthly articles.

Join our Linkedin Hiring and Retaining Top Talent group for more discussions and articles on this topic. CLICK HERE to join.

Our best selling book with over 10,000 in circulation, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, A CEOs Guide to Hiring Top Talent, is available as a resource to help your company improve its hiring of top talent. CLICK HERE for more information.

Author’s Bio

Dana Borowka, MA, CEO of Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC has over 25 years of experience in the area of business consulting and helping organizations both nationally and internationally in raising the hiring bar through using in-depth work style assessments. Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires & staff development, team building, interpersonal & communication training, career guidance & transition, conflict management, workshops, and executive & employee coaching.  To order the book, “Cracking the Personality Code” please go to www.crackingthepersonalitycode.com

Optimize Your Staffing Decisions by Using In-depth Work Style and Personality Assessment Tools

The wrong hiring decision can cost your company well over two to three times the individual’s salary according to Barry Deutsch, IMPACT Hiring Solutions. This figure may be a conservative estimate because of factors like training, evaluation, termination, re-initiating the hiring process, and lost opportunity costs. There is also an emotional factor involved in a bad hire situation. Not only can it cause stress and anxiety for both management and employees, but it also takes away focus from your company’s primary goals. Essentially, a bad hire can have a negative impact on your company’s bottom line and that won’t benefit you or your workforce.

These circumstances can be minimized during the initial hiring process by using several techniques including effective recruitment programs, skilled interviewing, and in-depth work style and personality assessment tests. A personality assessment is a highly effective tool and an efficient use of company resources at this crucial point of the decision making process.

In-depth Work Style & Personality Assessment Testing – A Standard in Recruiting

As with any business decision, having the right information is critical. Work style and personality assessment testing can provide insight into potential hires, as well as your current workforce, in several ways:

• Identify potential red flags: A personality assessment can discover issues that are sometimes overlooked during the interviewing process and can quantify an intuition or feeling the interviewer may have about a particular candidate. It can be used to identify potential red flags concerning behavioral issues, help to understand how to manage individuals for greater work performance and compare interpersonal dynamics of teams, departments and candidates.

• Learn how to optimize employee work performance: A personality assessment can provide extensive information on an individual’s ability to work with their job responsibilities, team dynamics and company culture. Additionally, the assessment can show effective strategies to gain optimal performance from that individual within their particular work environment. It can also be employed to quickly identify the most effective management style for a new employee or predict how team members are likely to interact.

• Ensure you have the right people in the right positions: Additionally, personality assessments can be utilized in rehires, or situations which call for employees to re-apply for their current jobs, as in the case of a corporate merger or restructuring. A personality assessment test can also ensure that your company continues to have the right people in the right positions and distributes assets & talents effectively.

Frequently Asked Questions

A frequent question from companies and organizations concerns the legal guidelines in administering assessments to potential employees. Industry regulations can vary, and the best option is to consult with your company’s trade association or legal department. As a general rule, if your company uses an assessment, any test or set of hiring questions must be administered to all of the final candidates in order to assure that discrimination is not present. Additional information can be found online at the EEOC Web site, in the Disability-Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees section: http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/guidance-inquiries.html#2.

Conclusion

A personality assessment is only one component needed for a successful recruitment and hiring program. It can provide valuable information for critical personnel decisions. Combined with an effective recruitment program and skilled interview techniques, it can benefit your company as a whole, in addition to your individual employees. Armed with accurate and quantifiable data from an in-depth personality assessment, the interview process becomes much more reliable. Ultimately, this only adds to your organization’s bottom line, allowing more effective management of your existing workforce and limiting the potential for wrong hiring decisions. For more information, please visit our Web site at, www.lighthouseconsulting.com to sign up for our Open Line webinars and monthly articles.

Ellen and Dana Borowka

Join our Linkedin Hiring and Retaining Top  Talent Group for more articles and discussions. CLICK HERE to join.

Download a FREE chapter on Sourcing Top Talent from our best selling book, “You’re NOT The Person I Hired” over 10,000 sold. CLICK HERE to get your free chapter.

Author Bio:

Dana Borowka, MA, CEO of Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC has over 25 years experience in the area of business consulting and helping organizations both nationally and internationally in raising the hiring bar through using in-depth work style assessments.  Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires & staff development, team building, interpersonal & communication training, career guidance & transition, conflict management, workshops, and executive & employee coaching.  To order the book, “Cracking the Personality Code” please go to www.crackingthepersonalitycode.com.