| |
As organizations place more and more strategic importance on selecting the right people, they are learning that the old ways of finding the right people for the job no longer works. Succeeding in the new workplace not only demands employees with higher skill levels, but increasingly relies on new competencies: team work, problem solving, initiative and flexibility. Selecting and correctly placing contingent workers creates its own set of challenges. Kingwood can help you install job-related, practical to administer, and legally defensible selection systems that can effectively identify employees who will respond to the demands of today's — and tomorrow's — workplace. Techniques used by the Kingwood Group include:
Job-focused interviews
Work samples and job simulations
Computerized and pencil-based testing
Here are some examples:
A computer-administered agent selection test developed for a leading insurance company. Field trials showed a 48% increase in the percentage of high performers, and a 73% decrease in the percentage of low performers.
A test of "fit" between the job candidate and the company to reduce turnover of flight crews in a global air freight company. Results showed a 45% decrease in turnover rate.
A family of job-related patterned interviews for technical and sales jobs in a major telecommunications company.
A telephone-administered work simulation for a major telecommunications company.
Staffing a new plant of a major recreational equipment manufacturer, using Kingwood's New Workforce Inventory.
An executive assessment program for selecting candidates for senior management positions in a large airline company.
A computer-based selection training program customized for a nation-wide telecommunications company.
Kingwood offers several areas of support for implementing and maintaining already developed selection systems:
Computer-base Interviewer training (InterviewRight™) and test administrator training
Test scoring, data-basing and report services
EEO impact analyses for women and minorities
Evaluation of current selection programs for legal defensibility
It was once said "gold is where you find it." Ways to improve employee performance are the same - they'll be found in different places in different organizations. Here are some examples of how Kingwood consultants can help improve employee performance:
Design performance appraisal/performance management systems covering jobs up through the vice president level.
Develop employee competency certification programs.
Develop computer-based training programs permitting cost-effective, just-in-time training.
Designd 360° feedback programs to aid in the development of managers, supervisors and professionals.
Yes, "quality" is alive and well. In the past, much more attention has been given to the quality of tangible processes like manufacturing than to less tangible areas like customer service or human resources. But, those "neglected" areas are no less in need of first-class quality processes. The process of providing quality service to customers involves virtually every aspect of organizational life:
The selection, placement and development of human resources based on the skills, knowledge, abilities and personal characteristics that will best support customer service.
The development of Management behaviors and approaches that provide the leadership necessary to implement and maintain a quality-oriented environment.
Organizational assessment and development keyed to practices that enable effectiveness processes, programs and practices that facilitate service delivery and disable the obstacles and barrier to quality service.
Lead by practice leader Jack E. Smith, Ph.D., the Kingwood Group will help your organization by:
Identifying the "breakdown" points in the quality of your service delivery systems.
Finding innovative ways to improve customer service quality and responsiveness in increasingly competitive markets.
Improving front-line customer service training and selection.
Finding out what your customers (both internal and external) think of your products and services through customer surveys.
Leadership is probably the largest single factor upon which the success and failure of today’s organizations turns. Led by practice leader John N. Turner, Ph.D., co-founder and chief of program design for Ford Motor Company’s pioneering Executive Development Center, Kingwood will help your organization by:
Working with your senior management to help them align the organization with its strategic objectives.
Helping you select and develop middle- and senior-level leaders through Kingwood’s Executive Assessment program.
Helping you assess the developmental needs of your leaders and construct systematic, practical developmental plans around those needs.
Provide just-in-time leadership skills training, including the Leadership Web series, authored by The Kingwood Group.
- Providing 360° developmental feedback to leaders from peers, subordinates, customers, bosses – virtually any source of valid information on how a leader performs. Most consulting firms provide 360° feedback services these days, but usually as an isolated, stand-alone program. Our feedback programs include linkage to developmental plans and activities as well as the 360° feedback assessment itself.
Organizations adjust and adapt based upon feedback from key systems such as financial reporting or manufacturing results. Yet, feedback from the human resource system is often neglected. Otherwise sophisticated companies operate in the dark when it comes to their most valuable asset, their people. We measure the performance of organizations from customer satisfaction to employee opinions – information the organization can use to improve itself, using the entire range of tools available — questionnaires, surveys (paper, telephone, web-based), focus groups, interviews, etc. — choosing the method that best fits your organization’s needs. Whatever the method used, we provide useful, actionable management information in user-friendly formats.
Here are some examples:
An online exit interview — a web-based exit interview that can be conveniently and securely completed on any computer with Internet access. Objective: to help solve employee retention problems by providing clear, concise and actionable management information on why people are leaving the company.
A focus group-based study of short-service financial MBAs in a major company. Objective: to develop information to improve career management processes and reduce attrition.
A questionnaire-based study of work – personal life balance issues of employees of an international oil and gas exploration company. Objective: to identify the highest priorities for reducing work – personal life conflict.
A questionnaire-based study of customers of a major bank. Objective: to learn the major drivers of customer loyalty/retention, customer defections, and other quality service management issues. (This project was conducted jointly with an affiliated consulting firm. Kingwood has several strategic alliances to allow broader, seamless service to our clients.)
A telephone-based interview study of highly-performing professionals who had resigned from a major energy company. Objective: to isolate the major causes of resignation, enabling turnover reduction initiatives to be planned.
Managing - leading - change is a basic survival skill for today's organizations. Yet, it remains an elusive skill for many organizations. They hope that the need for change will pass. Or, in handling change they needlessly alienate and de-motivate their employees. They "manage" change aimlessly: not knowing where they're going, but getting there fast!
Kingwood’s change leadership practice area is led by John N. Turner, Ph.D., who played key design and implementation roles in Ford Motor Company’s global Ford 2000 strategic change initiative. Under John’s guidance, Kingwood’s staff will:
Improve your organization’s performance by understanding and using the "4 Ps" – People, Purpose, Process, and Personal (the leader himself/herself).
Work with your senior management to help align the organization with its strategic objectives.
Help your organization’s leaders learn how to effect focused, productive change, while minimizing "casualties."
Teach leaders the principles of getting change accomplished through the efforts of others
Conduct web-based surveys to assess the issues impacting forward progress change initiatives.