Case Study – Financial Organization

Situation

A financial services organization was faced with low employee productivity. Presented with this problem, a study was conducted to examine the relationship between employee performance and Performance Profile to the Total Person Assessment. Using the information from this study, a Total Person Assessment Performance Profile was then developed to better select productive employees.

Participants

Thirty-six Mortgage Bankers participated in the study. Each participant’s performance was evaluated by the financial organization on the basis of a sales goal ratio and a supervisor’s performance rating on a three point scale (1=Top Performer, 2=Average Performer, 3=Marginal Performer). Eleven participants were rated by the company as Top Performers, nine participants were rated as Average Performers, and sixteen participants were rated as Marginal Performers. The average Top Performer met 97.2% of his/her sales goal, while the average Marginal Performer met 32.7% or his/her sales goal.

Performance Profile

Using the Total Person Assessment, a performance profile was developed for the Mortgage Banker position utilizing a concurrent study format. The performance profile was developed with the Total Person Assessment scores of current Top Performing employees. This profile is now used as the benchmark to predict Mortgage Banker performance based on Total Person Assessment’s Performance Profile.

Performance Grouping

Based on the information gathered, a profile was built that described the attributes of the existing Top Performers. All thirty-six Mortgage Bankers were then matched to this profile. After a review of employee Total Person Assessment Performance Profile percents, an overall Performance profile percent of 87% best identified Top Performing employees and was selected as a breakpoint to represent a good match to the Total Person Assessment Performance Profile. This suggested that a match of 87% or greater should identify a Top Performer.

This study has demonstrated that the pattern efficiently identifies top performers:

Top Performers correctly identified as Top Performers by the

Total Person Assessment: 7 of 11

Top Performers incorrectly identified as Bottom Performers by the

Total Person Assessment: 4 of 11

Bottom Performers correctly identified as Bottom Performers by the

Total Person Assessment: 12 of 16

Bottom Performers incorrectly identified as Top Performers by the Total Person Assessment: 4 of 16 Of the eleven Top Performers, seven (7 of 11) met or exceeded the 87% Total Person Assessment Profile breakpoint. Of the combined twenty-five Average Performers and Marginal Performers, only five (5 of 25) met or exceeded the 87% Match breakpoint.

Details

1. 76.1% = the average sales goal ratio met for those who met or exceeded the

Performance percent breakpoint.

2. 48.9% = the average sales goal ratio met for those who did not meet or exceed the Performance percent benchmark.

Summary

Although this organization’s Top Performers comprised less than one third of the total sample of Mortgage Bankers, more Top Performers (7) who were matched met, or exceeded the Performance Percent benchmark than both the Average Performers and Marginal Performers combined (5). Thus, by selecting candidates based on the Overall Profile of the Total Person Assessment, organizations such as this one are better able to increase productivity by identifying those that are likely to succeed.