BEI (Behavioral Event Interview) Training - Public Seminar Sept. 6, and Private training Sept. 22, 2011

On these two dates, I held Behavioral Event Interview training.

Interviewing has been around since 1911, or even well before then. However, from this date, it was the start of more structured interviews and then arose psychological studies about people to help develop more systematic interviews. Before and during WWII, psychology began to be used in many different applications, from production line layouts and employee encouragement, to actual theories about people. In the 1960's Theory X and then Theory Y were developed, culminating in Theory X&Y...the beginning of structured motivation in the workplace. Career ladders were more refined and developed during this time.

In the 1980's with advent of matrixed organizations and the rise of many more diversified conglomerates, the rise of Human Resource Departments had a need for more sophisticated methods, tools and employee training programs for advancement. By the 1990's it started becoming evident that people/employees could drastically affect the success of a corporation, and it was the start of a recognition that employees were truly a company asset and that there was need to better manage this portion of the company. Global management began to significantly emerge as a necessary component, within many companies. In selected instances, HR personnel held a position on the Board or in the C-Suite, at least they participated in ManCom and Strategic Planning meetings.

Behavior was identified as being a key to success and there was a need to better determine behavior in the workplace to predict success and to build more cooperative and effective teams. Therefore, BEI emerged to become the best interview method for pre-hire. Past behavior is a good indicator to present and future behavior and performance.

More recently, "Critical Incident" Interviewing, a sub-set of BEI, has significantly come to help in providing a win-win view of the candidate and for the candidate. It helps the candidate "experience" in one form or another, what the challenges she/he will face in the position, and for the interviewer to gain a much better understanding about the candidate in how they may perform in the position, based on similar past experiences the candidate may have had, or how they handle the simulated situation. This also helps in validating assessment data and predicting success.

As a result of BEI, turnover decreases, which reduces the cost of attrition which ranges from a minimum of 3 months of a new hired's salary and benefits, to as much as 2.5 years of longer employed individuals. These are good rules of thumb for Return On Investment (ROI) calculations.

Of course BEI can also be used for promotion selection and advancement, in certain cases. If your recruiting department or people do not use BEI, they should seriously consider taking training or learning the techniques, as this is a much more effective interview technique, compared to the traditional interview.

Please feel free to contact me for more information if interested.

Job Fit & Benchmarking and 360 Performance Reviews - Presentation at Strategic HR and Technology Summit - Sept. 21, 2011 -Diamond Hotel, Manila, Philippines

At the Strategic HR and Technology Summit (hosted by the All Events Group), I made a presentation entitled: "Technologically Advanced Assessments in Driving Sustainable Business Success Through Performance Modeling/Benchmarking and 360 Performance Reviews in the BPO Industry.

These two  issues are critical for success in companies. Why? Because Human Resource Management, and people in particular, is the driving difference for Sustainability:

1) Performance Modeling (also called Job Pattern or Benchmarking) helps to significantly reduce turnover (both for pre-hire and ongoing employment) and increase "Job Fit," which increases performance by individuals. This is accomplished by helping to "clone" top performers and having people in positions placed by "Job Fit" which leads to higher job satisfaction. The ability to generate online benchmarks and quickly revise top performer's Models, speeds the process in a dynamic market. This directly spills into Succession Planning and Coaching.

2) 360 Performance Reviews give metrics for Career Development and Leadership, leading to areas for training and development needs. Complete Online "assembled" and tabulated results ensures confidentiality of authorship for each rater, and the freedom from fear of retribution providing candid feedback, as well as speed in delivering reports and information. These are critical for promotion, coaching and leadership development. It has been well reported and documented that currently, and in the near future, there is a Leadership shortage/vacuum, so this tool is essential for any company who wants to be around in the coming years.

Technologically Advanced products included the discussion of the use of Avatars for multiple language guidance and instruction, and Artificial Intelligence in the use of ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) and HRIS systems. Since one of the major sponsors was the BPA/P association in the Philippines, we used as examples, speed of pre-hire evaluations and assessments, leading to job offers in a matter of hours rather than days and two different but similar applicant processes.

Whether for the BPO industry or other industries, the basics still apply. In BPO, because of the need for rapid scale-up and many times the large quantities of people needed, the BPO industry has refined the hiring process and is a good example of responding to needs and change in pre-hire and management.

If interested, the slides are available. Feel free to contact me at anytime for this information.

Analyze, Decide, Lead says Columbia's Business Dean

It is interesting that even Columbia's Business School is talking about "...weaving topics such as decision-making and ethics into classes across all disciplines." Assessments can help along these lines, and in pre-hire, ethics can be assessed, and of course a good background check will help validate the results.

Both good decision-making and ethics can help drive engagement  in an organization. The reverse can have detrimental effects on an organization's engagement from entry level, to Front-Line managers and to all management levels in an organization. This effects motivation, morale, and indirectly profitability and retention.It is the responsibility of HR and Senior Management to ensure that people with good ethics and with good common sense/decision-making abilities, are brought into the organization, as this helps to increase the asset value of the company, short and especially long term.

The question is, is your organization and HR focused on these issues, from Pre-Hire, On-Boarding, Training and Promotion? Don't you think that they should be? Shouldn't they be part of your Core Values? The decisions made today lead to the sustainability over time.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303365804576429974256934518.html