Article

How Candidate Assessment Tools Can Increase New Hire Performance and Reduce Turnover

A computer scientist is expected to possess a certain level of education, knowledge and skills to be successful. He or she likely has to be organized and a good project manager. A firefighter must be well-suited for performing well under physically and psychologically challenging and stressful conditions.

With a tight job market and many restaurant positions left unfilled, operators are prone to random hiring, which can be disastrous. In this article, we explore approaches and tools that provide affordable and efficient candidate assessment.

While restaurant work might not be as demanding or exclusive as these jobs, certain attributes separate the best from the disappointing hires. For many organizations -- including those in the restaurant industry -- job candidate assessment is a critical step in staffing. If you are launching your first or 10th unit, making good hiring decisions can be the difference between success and failure.

The process begins with a review of applications to determine if the candidates possess the requisite education, experience and training. In some cases, it progresses into a battery of behavioral, cognitive or physical tests followed by numerous interviews.

Job candidate assessment ensures that new hires have the requisite knowledge, skills and ability to perform well. It also can ensure their personalities and values are a good fit, for not only the job, but also for the team and organization with whom they will be working.

Successful assessment increases the chances new hires will be high performers and less prone to turnover. While the process is typically more rigorous for external hires, organizations use the same process to determine if internal candidates are right for lateral assignments or promotions. Many hiring systems have what human resources pros call "multiple hurdles." A hurdle is simply one step in the hiring process. The job application is a hurdle. You need to get past that hurdle for an interview.

Companies that have long lines of applicants for jobs use multiple hurdles to narrow the candidate pool down to a few top contenders. These hurdles include a written test, interview, work sample, anything. In a multiple hurdle system, each hurdle eliminates some of the applicants that would not make great employees.

And if this is as far as you have decided to read this article, we understand. Like many restaurant operators, you might be struggling to fill positions. If job candidate assessment sounds expensive and time-consuming, in many cases it is. In fact, firms spend much more time and money in the assessment process for critical positions that attract numerous applications. When jobs need to be filled quickly in a tight labor market, firms try to accelerate the process to make employment offers before their competitors.

Yet no business, under any circumstances, wants to hire randomly; that is, make job offers after a cursory review of an application and a short interview. Fortune 500 companies can be driven out of business by low-performing workers and high turnover.

Moreover, employers must be ready to defend their hiring practices as non-discriminatory. With a tight labor market, employees have an upper hand and the confidence to call out hiring practices that exclude certain candidates, even unconsciously. Among the risks of random hiring is a preference to select candidates who act, look and talk like us.

In this article, we review some approaches and tools independent operators might use to assess candidates efficiently and effectively.

Tell Me About Yourself

RestaurantOwner.com member Michael Passalacqua, owner of Angelo's Restaurant in Washington, Pennsylvania became interested in the art and science of candidate assessment. He discovered a tool to streamline the process. And he enjoys the benefits of good hiring decisions.

Among the upsides of developing friendships with a variety of businesspeople in the community is learning the best practices they apply in their work. Passalacqua first heard about the employee assessment tool, The Predictive Index, from a friend who worked for a large lumber company.

He called the local sales rep "on a whim," and the guy came out to do an assessment on Passalacqua's team of 33 employees. Predictive Index uses a multiple-choice assessment in which employees are asked to select qualities that other people feel they have, then assess their true self on the same characteristics. These qualities are words like conservative, creative, friendly, quiet and so on.

That was 14 years ago, and he's been using the tool ever since. Whenever anyone applies for a job, they're asked to take the assessment.

"It's not a test," says Passalacqua, adding, "There's no right or wrong answer." Moreover, the process doesn't take long, which is important as a problem with assessment methods is they can discourage candidates if they drag on or seem too onerous. This is particularly a disadvantage for restaurants, which often need to make hiring decisions quickly in a competitive market. If your hiring process is difficult or slow, candidates will remove themselves from the running or fail to complete their application.

The Predictive Index process asks the candidates to assess themselves in terms of their attitudes and preferences. A software program analyzes the responses and assigns a behavioral pattern that measures four qualities: personal drive or ambition, social needs (like extroversion or introversion), preference for routine or multitasking, and formality, a measure of how much instruction you need.

Passalacqua learned to use the assessment tool to let him confidently select candidates he believes will be well-suited for the demands of a particular role. He illustrates with two examples.

"If you come in and apply for a server job, and you have moderate self-motivation, your social needs are high, you can multitask, and you can follow instructions to a degree but might wing it a little, that's the perfect profile for a server. [It shows they are] adaptable, on the fly, friendly, warm," he says. Someone who struggles to multitask, in his experience, doesn't last long in a server role.

PERSONALITY ASSESSMENTS LET YOU IDENTIFY SOMEONE WHO HAS THE RIGHT TRAITS FOR A ROLE, EVEN IF THEY'VE NEVER BEFORE BEEN A SERVER.
This can be a competitive advantage over restaurants that are screening for fit based on resume experience alone. You might have encountered workers with the right experience, but the wrong attitude and personality for the job in your restaurant.

Passalacqua goes on to explain that an ideal prep cook is one who is satisfied working "behind the scenes" and getting things done efficiently and well. The job is often repetitive, as they often prepare the same recipes day after day.

Personalities that do well in this role tend to have low social needs. They might be more introverted and reserved. "The best prep cooks follow instructions precisely, without reminder, thrive in routine, and "do one job at a time, do it perfectly, and move to the next," he explains. By designing a benchmark around these traits, Passalacqua can evaluate new hires based on their assessment results. He can see who is "wired" to find satisfaction in the role.

He also found the tool continues to be useful after hiring. The behavior profiles can be used for coaching, problem solving, or dealing with conflict. If you have greater insight into what motivates employees, you can more easily help them overcome obstacles or direct them into positions that are the best fit for their personalities. And this can help them be more likely to succeed and, in turn, enjoy their work.

Passalacqua's application of The Predictive Index helped him put "happy people in jobs they're wired to do. If you match the wiring to the job, you're halfway there with keeping an employee happy." For staff members with high social needs, he adds, this might include looking for opportunities to give them attention and interaction.

Passalacqua believes this tool has increased the economic value of his hires. Bear in mind, the first rule of economics is there is no free lunch, and Passalacqua cautions operators they need to be prepared to make a commitment to the process. "This is not something you do halfway. You do it all the way and you do it all the time," he says.

As you might expect, there is a learning curve to successfully adopt PI as part of your operations. Passalacqua continues, "you have to buy into it, believe in it, and make it a priority." He bought into it, and he's noticed less turnover since then.

Getting Personal

Depending on the job, candidate evaluative assessments can include cognitive, physical, psychomotor and sensory tests. Again, consider the demands of firefighting. Other jobs, such as those in which security is critical might require candidates to undergo integrity or, even, polygraph tests.

Passalacqua found a personality test most effective for his hiring. According to J. Bruce Tracey, a management professor at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, these approaches can be "extremely effective". Assessing knowledge and skill might be critical for your head chef or general management position.

Yet, for many other positions, ability and aptitude are more important. Hiring for attitude and training for skill can be effective for a range of restaurant jobs, particularly with tools such as the RestaurantOwner.com Learning System. You likely can appreciate that attention to detail and "trainability", i.e., the ability to learn new information, are valuable traits for restaurant workers. Behavioral and personality tests can identify these.

Not all personality assessments are optimal. Liz Palmieri is a talent optimization consultant at MVP-Results, a human resource consulting firm, with prior experience at The Predictive Index. She explains that personality tests like MyersBriggs, CliftonStrengths (formerly Strengths-Finder) or DISC, which measures Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness aren't "legally defensible hiring tools."

When she says "legally defensible", she is referring to methods that stand up to claims of discrimination. Even if an employer is not consciously avoiding hiring candidates from protected classes, such as age, nationality, race, religion, or sex, if a selection method has a disparate impact.

Disparate impact is often referred to as unintentional discrimination, whereas disparate treatment is intentional. As defined by the Society of Human Resources Professionals, "disparate impact occurs when policies, practices, rules or other systems that appear to be neutral result in a disproportionate impact on a protected group." Even if you do not intentionally discriminate in your hiring practices, they can come under scrutiny if they are unintentionally discriminatory.

Among the reasons Palmieri likes The Predictive Index is because she considers it legally defensible. It provides an objective and "scientific way of defining what a good candidate looks like," explains Palmieri. "When we align a candidate to the job and take a look at the behaviors, it's a very objective process," she explains. Predictive Index has "over 400 validity studies proving we measure what we say we measure," Palmieri says.

Regardless of the tool you use, Palmieri believes that formal assessment tools have a place in the current environment, particularly when you are considering hires who are new to the industry. Rather than write off someone without significant restaurant experience, these tools let you see where they might be a natural fit.

And regardless of the industry, very few candidates are "unicorns" with the exact knowledge and skills needed for the job. Nevertheless, identifying a candidate's ability might indicate their success with proper training.

Personality assessments let you identify someone who has the right traits for a role, even if they've never before been a server. This can be a competitive advantage over restaurants that are screening for fit based on resume experience alone. You might have encountered workers with the right experience, but the wrong attitude and personality for the job in your restaurant.

Clearly, this article focuses on The Predictive Index and its value. It is not the only tool, and Cornell University's Tracey recommends several other options restaurant operators might consider (see "Restaurant Job Candidate Assessment Tools" below).

Tools are just tools. As Tracey cautions, there are larger philosophical issues operators and the restaurant industry at large must consider in the quest to source and recruit works. He remarks on a recent industry conference he attended to address the current labor environment.

"Who wants to go back and work in an industry that is perceived as low wage and low skill?" says Tracey. "You can't just recruit for the job. You must recruit for the industry," he says, questioning if any operator can ensure that even quality staff will have job security, in light of the pandemic. In other words, he continues, you might have more pressing concerns when trying to hire for open positions than adding another step in the application process for an hourly role.

For an entry-level, part-time role, Tracey says it's probably best "not put too many hurdles in front of them in the hiring process. Those are very difficult to fill these days and it will be a continuing challenge." A role with more responsibilities might attract candidates that are intrinsically motivated. By matching the fit to the role, you can enjoy lower turnover and higher satisfaction.

Reducing Turnover is the Bottom Line

With all the effort required to find good employees, the last thing you want is to lose them after six months. Under the best circumstances, employee turnover is disruptive to operations and expensive. The primary benefit of investing in an employee assessment tool is to reduce turnover. "That's a lot of operational cost not even accounting for productivity losses when someone is departing and the learning curves when learning a new role," Tracey says.

Palmieri estimates that it costs restaurants anywhere from half to double an employee's yearly salary. When these investments reduce turnover, they pay for themselves. Palmieri provided case studies from Subway and Chick-fil-A to show how these tools helped major chains save money and solve staffing issues.

A Subway franchisor in Ohio reduced turnover from 70 percent to 32 percent using The Predictive Index. This saved the franchisor $15,000 annually on training costs. It helped managers better understand the training styles individual employees would respond to for nuanced leadership. It also boosted customer satisfaction and encouraged repeat visits since employees that customers interacted with were in the right roles.

Chick-fil-A used the tool to determine which of their current employees had leadership potential, so they could be nurtured. Digging into the behavioral metrics allowed the quick-service concept to identify employees who displayed high collaboration skills so they could place the right people in training roles.

It also indicated which employees were not a good fit for their role or, in some cases, for the company at all. The Predictive Index helped Chick-fil-A get the right people in the right spots while helping those who weren't aligned find opportunities elsewhere that were better fits. After making changes based on behavioral data, Chick-fil-A's customer service scores increased. Their business capacity went up by 30 percent.

Many restaurant operators know what it's like to be operating below capacity, with demand outstripping what your team can supply. Chick-fil-A's case study shows the potential to increase capacity simply by aligning people to roles they're qualified for. The Subway case study proves that this is one cost that can actually put money back in your pocket.

Restaurant Job Candidate ASSESSMENT TOOLS

We focus on the benefits of The Predictive Index for candidate assessment. J. Bruce Tracey, a management professor at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration suggests operators consider these tools:

2020 SKILLS
https://2020assess.com

Tracey calls 2020 Skills the "best for hospitality," going on to say, "it measures a wide array of capabilities and individualizing characteristics that have been shown to be generalizable reliably for a wide array of hospitality jobs and settings, not just hotels and restaurants but cruises and gaming," he adds.

Developed by James Houran, a principal with global hospitality advisory firm Aethos Consulting Group, 2020 Skills is more than a screening tool. It allows operators to benchmark employees and roles, identify performance challenges, implement coaching or training, and document job performance for evaluation. This assessment tool measures 10 criteria:

• Leadership, including goal setting and big-picture thinking
• Team building, including affinity for teamwork and collaboration
• Creativity and curiosity
• Sensitivity to diversity
• Ethical awareness, including fairness and integrity
• Problem-solving abilities, like thinking strategically and finding solutions to challenges
• Customer service orientation
• Motivation and self-efficacy, including independent, stress management, and level of self-direction
• Loyalty
• Sense of humor, which is useful to build rapport and resolve conflict

Reports summarize an individual's score on every competency measured. There's a verbal summary and a graph for visual thinkers. The tool can even suggest questions to ask candidates or their references, so you can drill down into fit.

For instance, a candidate might have a higher-than-average affinity for taking on extra responsibility. That sounds great in theory, especially if you're short-staffed. But the trait could lead a new server to take on more tables than they can handle and deliver poor service as a result. It could mean the candidate was a poor judge of the amount of time tasks required and would not be able to complete everything in a timely manner.

This could also mean someone struggles with work-life balance, such as the server who never leaves the restaurant when their shift is over and thinks they're helping their colleagues by hanging out off the clock. By asking follow-up questions suggested by 2020 Skills, you can dig into the behavior to better understand whether the candidate is right for you.

2020 Skills is multilingual. It can be customized to specific geographic regions, job roles, and levels of responsibility. The cost structure is flexible: employers can purchase a single instance, license the software for unlimited annual use, or buy packages, such as 50 or 100 assessments.

LOGI-SERVE
https://logi-serve.com

Logi-Serve is "based on a situational judgment approach. They put you as the test taker into context and present you with a scenario. What do you do? How strongly do you feel about things in respect to questions and prompts?" Tracey explains.

The situational aspect of it makes it feel like an online game. "It's very engaging from the applicant standpoint, they stick around," Tracey says. That's important because candidates may lose interest in completing a lengthy assessment. Candidates are ranked on qualities like trainability, reactivity, charisma and engagement. The tool generates reports that use a three-tier ranking system of bronze, silver, and gold.

Logiserv also provides data that can put candidates in perspective. From the dashboard, a hiring manager can benchmark candidates to one another or to current employees. They can look at national average data to see how candidates present in this context. They can get a profile of strengths and weaknesses, which can help hiring managers build balanced teams.

The tool can be branded to look like your restaurant brand, which enforces brand consistency. Logi-Serve was ranked a 2019 Next Gen Talent Assessment by Gartner. Sales reps were unavailable for comment.

HARRI
https://harri.com

Tracey compares Harri to "a dating concept for job seekers and employers." The cloud-based software offers hospitality recruiting, applicant tracking, and assessment.

Says Tracey, "this would be a good solution for an operator who's looking for all-in-one software that can handle everything from assessment and hiring to scheduling, employee relations, and team communication." On the employee side, employees can use Harri to trade shifts or message managers if they're running late. (Note: Harri is only offered for restaurants with five or more locations.)

"Harri's end-to-end hiring platform integrates assessments, screening and background checks. These are highly customizable by brand, job, and even store location," says Michelle LaGrutta, editorial and enablement manager at Harri.

For compliance and safety, says LaGrutta, Harri integrates with background checks like SureCheck or Outmatch. Operators can give the assessment tools a "fully branded" look to keep things consistent, LaGrutta says.

They can use Harri to check whether job candidates have credentials, whether that's a desired number of years of experience or a current alcohol license for a bartender candidate. The tool lets you deliver questions to see if candidates are likely to fit the culture or to check behaviors, like "how someone might handle difficult customers," LaGrutta explains.

The assessment can be delivered conversationally and in real-time, through an intelligent chatbot, Carri. Applicants who appear to be good fits can then be directed to a self-service portal, where they can set up an interview. Candidates can access the assessment in a number of ways, including QR code, text message, or Facebook Messenger. LaGrutta says the accessibility makes it "perfect for hospitality assessments which need to be low friction."