Case Studies and Success Stories

SELECT Case Studies: Administrative Support

Success Story: How Select for Administrative Support Improved the Bottom Line

Issue: A large convenience store operating company was having difficulty with turnover in corporate administrative support functions.  Through our research with the company we determined that some of this turnover was caused by their selection process. They were hiring people who did not have the personal characteristics that fit with the job and the company environment.

For example, it was very important to the company for their administrative support staff to have good internal customer service skills. It was found that a majority of the people who left these jobs (or were fired), did so because they did not enjoy providing customer service to others, were not accommodating, or did not get on well with other people. Although they had the necessary technical skills, they had personalities that were not a good "fit" with the job.

Solution: To help the company evaluate a person’s fit for the job, we recommended the development of a comprehensive assessment process. The process included a skills evaluation (typing and computer efficiency), a personality measure (Select for Administrative Support), and a structured interview. To develop this process we conducted a job analysis to determine skills and personality requirements, selected a test battery, designed a structured interview and validated the new process to ensure that it was predicting job success.

Results: The validation research clearly showed that Select for Administrative Support identified candidates who had a positive attitude, good internal customer service skills, were attentive to detail, could multi-task effectively and were self reliant in their work.

The Bottom Line: From an economic point of view, Select for Administrative Support helped the company avoid recruiting about half (46%) of the candidates who would have been poor performers. Using a conservative "cost-of-a- recruitment-mistake" estimate (hourly wage x 400), this saved the organisation £4,000 (£10 hourly wage x 400) per unsuitable employee avoided.  At the time of the study, 21 current administrative employees were considered to have been "recruitment mistakes". Avoiding 46% or 10 of these would have saved the organisation £40,000.
 

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