12. The challenge
• Sort & deliver 58 million items in the UK every day
• Operational roles to fill include postmen/women,
drivers and processing roles
• Identify what ‘good’ looks like and provide the best
possible service to customers
• 170,000 applicants for 10,000 roles annually
• Rejecting 160,000 applicants - provide a positive
candidate experience for successful & unsuccessful
applicants
• Seasonal variations
• Ensure buy-in with all stakeholders
13. Aspects Styles Competency Framework
Adaptability Influencing and Selling
Commercial Orientation Interpersonal Skills
Complex Thinking Planning and Organising
Creativity Resilience
Customer Orientation Resourcefulness
Decisiveness Stress Tolerance
Drive and Motivation Teamwork
Efficiency and Reliability Working with Data
Your mission: Identify what good looks like
14. Card sort exercise
Identify what good looks like
• In tables review the postman/woman
specification
• Use the cards provided to identify the
competencies you think are required for the role
• Your aim is to identify six competencies critical to
success in the role
17. Business impact
Findings – high scoring delivery employees
• Produce better quality work
• Work with speed and accuracy
• Are more resilient against stress
• Work well under pressure
• Adapt comfortably to change
• Focuses on providing a good service to customers
• Have a lower absence rate
19. Common pitfalls
• Not enough stages
• Too many stages
• Too many people at expensive stages
• Process is too long
• ‘Good’ people not coming out the end
• Applicants being treated badly
20. Funnel exercise
Design a high volume process
• Create your own funnel (170,000 > 10,000)
• Use the cards & white boards provided
• Think about the benefits
• Keep in mind the objectives required by Speedy Mail
• No right or wrong!
21. The postman/woman process
Assessment Number of people assessed
annually
Killer questions 170,000 (30% sift)
CV sift 119,000 (30% sift)
Ability assessment 83,300 (30% sift)
Aspects Styles competency sift 58,310 (30% sift)
Telephone interview using Interview Guide 40,817 (50% sift)
Face-to-face interview 20,408 (50% sift)
Offer 10,204
22. Benefits of this process
• Efficient and streamlined process
• Fair
• Great candidate experience
• Robust, reliable and valid
assessments using cutting-edge
technology
• Interviews supported by
competency-based interview guide
• Good candidates hired, increased
tenure and appeased line
managers
Example Aspects Ability question
To investigate the realities and challenges faced by recruiters, Talent Q conducted a survey of some of the UK’s largest organizations who employ front line staff. The research included more than 100 senior volume recruiters. The results paint an alarming picture demonstrating that inadequate recruitment processes have created a ‘vicious circle’ for recruiters, in which the wrong people are being appointed in to front line roles just to fill a role quickly. And because the expectations of the job do not match the reality of the role, candidate soon leave, creating frighteningly high staff turnover rates. And so the circle starts over again.
So all of these applicants – we have a big pool to chose from but we can’t actually find the right ones. There are often too many!!
Data from the Talent Q Volume survey – over 100 senior recruiters in front line rolesData around customer service / sales is from Talent Q Data Can also add that 37% are knowingly hiring the wrong people. But we can help – identify what good looks like for each role,
How on earth do you provide a positive candidate experience when there are just so many people? It’s a real challenge… and it’s getting more important and worse! The web / social media has meant that a bad candidate experience doesn’t just get shared with a few family members and friends… it gets shared with 1000’s of people… More than likely these are your customers!
Most recruiters will reject between 80 & 99% of applicants – yet we don’t focus on this, the largest aspect of the role.
Talk around these challenges: What good looks like – very different opinions within the organisation, did ‘good’ look the same across these roles? Customer service at low level – not something traditionally recruited for, but these are the face of RMG. Very large volumes and had to sift quickly and ensure that the process was fair, enjoyable and valid Majority of candidates would be unsuccessful, how could they ensure that even unsuccessful candidates still had a positive perception of Royal Mail? Find the best – related to ‘what good looks like’ – need to know that the people coming out the other end are actually the right candidatesLine managers and HR had to buy in to the process and see it as something that is there to help not hinder the them.
Whilst we conducted a full validation study for the Royal Mail using performance data as well as psychometric data, we’ll conduct a simple job analysis exercise to identify the factors that we believe are important. Advantages – quick and cost effective. Gets buy in. Often used as an initial step in the process. Required: Aspects Competency Cards & Job description
Explain that we did validation studies to identify key characteristics for Royal Mail. However, you could also do some work with line managers to create an ‘expert driven’ approach to identifying what ‘good’ looks like. This is a quicker and cheaper way to identify a profile of what good looks like and gets line managers on board ‘kill two birds with one stone’. However, obviously this is not data driven. Can always do a validation study once you have started using the assessments to validate. For this exercise we would need: specification of a Postman / woman job (can we use the actual RMG one?). Aspects card sorting with instructions
Whilst we conducted a full validation study for the Royal Mail using performance data as well as psychometric data, we’ll conduct a simple job analysis exercise to identify the factors that we believe are important. Advantages – quick and cost effective. Gets buy in. Often used as an initial step in the process. Required: Aspects Competency Cards & Job description
This was based on a validation study
Compared high and low scoring employees on a single suitability score Works with speed and accuracy10% Produces high quality work with speed and accuracy9% Absent from work 9% (less) Works well under pressure8% Is able to handle stress8% Adapts comfortably to changing circumstances8% Focuses on providing a good service to customers6% Demonstrates strong attention to detail6%