Maximise the likelihood of selecting and retaining the right people

Situation

A Perth-based financial services company were rapidly growing, whilst experiencing a high turnover rate in the ‘Solutions Specialist’ role. The company purchase outstanding accounts from banks and other financial institutions and work with their customers to help them repay their debt.

The Solutions Specialist role is a key role, which involves two parts. Firstly, researching and finding the customer and secondly, contacting the customer and working with the customer to help them re-pay their debt.

The previous recruitment methods were not consistent and included a telephone or face-to-face interview only. Those who performed well in the Solutions Specialist role were noted to display strong levels of empathy, tenacity, resilience as well as a good capacity to problem solve.

The financial services provider saw the need to hire select candidates based on the criteria of successful, current employees. They engaged a recruitment consultancy (Adaptive Resourcing) to restructure and refine their recruitment process. Adaptive Resourcing engaged People Solutions to create, implement and run Assessment Centres for the Solutions Specialist role including the provision of psychometric assessments as a part of the recruitment process.

Objectives

• To maximise the likelihood of selecting and retaining the right people for Pioneer Credit Solutions Specialist role.
• An opportunity to promote the organisation and role, ensuring candidates have a positive and engaging experience through the assessment centre as well as gaining insight into the future career opportunities at Pioneer Credit.
• To engage key stakeholders in the selection process and to ensure they take responsibility for recruitment outcomes.
• A cost-effective selection process while ensuring desired outcomes are achieved.
• A return on investment, investing in selecting candidates based on competencies that are evident in long-term, high performing employees, should decrease turnover rates and in turn, additional hiring costs.

Challenges

The key challenges in the assessment centre process for the financial provider included:

• Time and people resources needed for volume recruitment
• Engaging line managers in the assessment centre process
• Ensuring candidates are engaged in the assessment centre process and have a positive experience regardless of the outcome.
• Ensuring candidates gain a good understanding of the role and organisation

Solution

People Solutions were able to facilitate and run the provision of online psychometric assessments. We were also able to train the line managers and internal staff in best practice assessing of prospective candidates. In order to aid the internal teams, we put together custom designed activities, interview and rating sheets that assessed behavioural criteria for the role.

Assessment Centres were recommended as the primary solution and were rolled out over a period of 8 days. We were able to provide two assessors for the centres to ensure fairness and objectivity of the process.

Result

The assessment centre process saw approximately 150 candidates spanned over 5 months of recruitment. Positive feedback was provided by both the candidates and assessors regarding their experience in the assessment. There was also positive feedback provided by the client regarding both the assessment centre process, and the calibre of candidates who were employed through this process. Further results were recorded:

• Further analyses post assessment centre showed a correlation between candidates scores on the psychometric assessment and the behavioural criteria measured on assessment centre day, particularly regarding problem solving, an area that was highlighted as very important for the solutions specialist role. Suggesting that those who scored high on the psychometric assessment, tended to score high on assessment centre day on the behavioural measures. Indicated a valid approach to recruitment.
• Of candidates that were successful from the assessment centre 100% passed the induction training – which was noted to be an outstanding result from the Pioneer Credit hiring managers and internal staff.

Based on Feedback forms provided over the course of the assessment centres:

• 92% of candidates said the assessment centre influenced their perceptions of the financial service company positively.
• 91% of candidates said the assessment centre helped them decide whether they would fit with the company culture.
• “Due (to) being able to meet different assessors who work with the company you got to see their own values and the values of the company itself”
• “The Assessment Centre allows candidates to showcase their skills and allows the assessors to see how candidates would perform”
• “It’s my first time to attend/experience an assessment centre and I can say it’s a good way of selecting people fit for the job”
• “The Assessment was done in a friendly and fun way and we had interactions with almost all our peers in different group activities”