New service helps stores hire best workers

MRA has partnered with an innovative company, HRgems, to provide members with a sophisticated but affordable human resource tool designed to improve their hiring process.

The new service, called TraitSet™, is an online employee screening and assessment tool like those used by large businesses to identify the most promising candidates.

Employers use a number of methods to assist with finding and retaining good employees. The Society for Human Resource Management estimates that approximately 20 percent of its members use some kind of pre-employment testing. To date, however, this type of assessment has been prohibitively expensive and is used mostly by large firms for executive and sales positions.

TraitSet is an efficient and inexpensive alternative for MRA members. The ease and speed of implementation, along with significantly lower costs (approximately one-tenth the cost of other current methods) will substantially expand the number of businesses that can afford to use employment assessments.

TraitSet assessment questionnaires will be available for purchase through an Internet link from MRA’s website (www.retailers.com). Members may purchase a single assessment (an online questionnaire to be used one time to assess a potential employee) for $7.50, or a monthly subscription that provides unlimited access to the assessment tools, starting at $65 per month.

How TraitSet can help
Selecting the best candidate for the job is often a difficult and arduous task. Most managers interview for hard-skill sets, such as “Can this candidate work here?” or “Has he or she done similar work elsewhere?”

However, most employees are fired for problems with soft-skill sets, which focus on attitudes and behavior. Soft-skill sets might address questions such as “Will this person have a sense of integrity and work ethics?”

By identifying early those candidates with the soft-skill sets that are important to your business, you can save time, money and headaches.

Research suggests that turnover costs—the money spent on recruiting, hiring time, lost productivity, orientation and training—are around 150 percent of an employee’s annual salary.

Beyond these direct costs is the significant negative impact of failed employees due to such things as lost revenue opportunity and dissatisfied customers.

Working with psychologist Dr. Ed Murray, Ann Arbor-based HRgems has compiled online assessments designed for pre-screening the general worker. Available pre-employment assessments include:

• Readiness to work: Is the candidate ready to assume mature work responsibility or does he/she have readiness issues that will hurt your business?

• Work Ethic: When you hire the candidate, will he/she show up, do a good job and be as concerned about the job as you are?

• Sales Potential: Does the candidate have what it takes to sell your product or services, identify customer needs and deal with objections?

• Customer Service: Does the candidate have the social skills and interest to treat your customers with respect and resolve their problems?

• Leadership: Does the person have the skills and confidence for dealing with problems in a proactive way and positively influencing others?

• Working with Numbers: Does the person have fundamental numerical ability?

• Antagonistic Behavior: Where is this candidate on the spectrum from passive to aggressive and hostile?

Recent U. S. Bureau of Labor statistics indicate that two out of three new hires will disappoint within the first year and that over 90 percent of thefts reported by businesses are perpetrated by employees.

When you take into consideration these figures, it only makes sense to evaluate your prospective employees before hiring. Spending time and a small sum up front will pay for itself and then some in the long run.