BUILDING
STRONGER RETAILERS BY FOCUSING ON TALENT
A sampling of DDI’s work
with retail organizations.
Never has the focus on creating an exceptional
customer experience been more important.
Higher payroll taxes, increased fuel costs, and
a slow-to-improve U.S. employment picture
have consumer confidence at its lowest point
in years. Yet, economists and retail executives
alike see the coming years as an opportunity
for growth.
How are retail organizations navigating this
environment? Many are choosing to strategically
focus on their talent, by bolstering the following:
BUILDING STRONGER RETAILERS BY FOCUSING ON TALENT
• EMPLOYEE RETENTION
Research has shown that employee retention
results in significant improvements in engagement, customer satisfaction, and sales. Better
screening and hiring practices have helped
organizations improve retention by identifying
the right candidates who will succeed in retail
positions, enjoy what they do, and ultimately
stay with the organization.
• CREATING A DEVELOPMENT CULTURE
Career growth, learning, and development
are all among the top reasons retail employees
remain with an organization. Many organizations are creating development programs that
provide a mix of traditional learning (classroom
and web-based) and on-the-job learning/
application such as mobile content, simulations, coaching, and peer sharing, to manage
time away from the job and keep their
employees engaged in learning.
• LEADERSHIP STRENGTH
Leaders capable of consistently providing
support to employees by managing change,
communicating expectations, providing exceptional customer service, and offering feedback
and coaching are much more successful in
continually achieving strong business results.
However, according to our recent employee
study, Lessons for Leaders from the People
Who Matter, one in three workers does not
consider their boss to be effective.
Certainly advances in technology and market
innovation play key roles in the future of retailers to remain competitive and achieve growth.
But the emphasis on their greatest asset—
their people–cannot be underestimated. The
following success stories demonstrate the
impact improvements in talent systems can
have in achieving your desired business
results.
A FRESH SOLUTION TO PRODUCE RESULTS
When this grocery retailer met with DDI, it
was looking for improved efficiency, accuracy,
and fairness in its selection process for identifying candidates with the potential for higher
employee performance and ensuring customer
satisfaction.
DDI designed a selection process featuring a
customized, short-form (20-minute) version of
the Customer Service Career Battery, a multifaceted inventory designed for use in selecting
employees for a wide range of customer-facing
work roles.
BETTER TALENT
MAKES RETAILERS
MORE COMPETITIVE
The results were fantastic. Test scores were
strongly related to overall performance and
the company’s top performers were 3.9 times
more likely to score highly on the test.
“PRODUCTIVITY HAS
JUMPED QUITE A BIT
...That’s a direct result of
the training.”
The organization was able to quickly identify
employees capable of rapid and sustained
contribution toward the company’s strategic
objectives and get them up to speed with
greater efficiency.
A CONVENIENT SOLUTION FOR AN
INCONVENIENT PROBLEM
DDI partnered with this international convenience retailer after it completed a needs analysis of its seven accounting centers in one of
their divisions. One of the recommendations
was for “basic solid supervisory skills training
across the board.” The analysis also identified
opportunities for improving interview skills as
part of creating consistent talent management
best practices across the centers.
The organization worked with DDI to design
a six-day training program consisting of a
selection component and a leadership development component. The program involved
sessions teaching DDI’s Targeted Selection®
behavioral interviewing system and courses
from the DDI Interaction Management® leadership development system.
Overall reactions to the training program were
extremely positive. All leaders (100 percent)
agreed that the program increased their confidence and gave them personal motivation to
apply the skills. On average, 93 percent of
leaders and 82 percent of observers (those
who work with and for the leaders) saw
improvement in critical skill areas.
On the selection side, leaders noted the greatest improvements in system efficiency, objectivity, and ability to evaluate past performance.
PUTTING THE BRAKES ON BAD HIRING
In the auto parts sales industry, maintaining a
competitive advantage requires a combination
of operational efficiency, excellent service, and
strong leadership and teamwork. One of the
nation’s largest auto parts retailers recognized
that its ability to select and retain talented
store managers is a key factor in its ongoing
success.
This retailer partnered with DDI to design
a selection process featuring the Leader
Career Battery. The test is a multifaceted
inventory used in selecting employees for a
wide range of leadership and management
work settings. It integrates three complementary content sets—Work-Related Judgment,
Work Style and Disposition, and Background
Experience—to accurately predict a candidate’s effectiveness in a leadership work role.
In terms of results, the retailer was able to
identify candidates who would be the best
fit for interviews.
An analysis also revealed that assessmentscreened hires were 20 percent less likely
to leave the organization within the first six
months of employment. High scorers were
also much more productive. Stores run by
high-scoring managers increased average
sales per customer by 1.4 percent over the
previous year.
Furthermore, across all six measures the
retailer uses to track store performance,
store managers with higher test bands were
associated with higher-performing stores.
OUTFITTING LEADERS FOR SUCCESS
One of the world’s largest apparel companies,
whose merchandise is sold in over 150 countries and nearly 50,000 retailers, had seen
tremendous sales success. To keep share-
holders happy, the company aimed to add
another $5 billion in organic revenue growth
and $5 billion in earnings per share over the
next five years while also increasing its international revenues by 15 percent annually.
The organization recognized one key to
successfully driving this vision: providing its
leaders with the tools and abilities to effectively
manage the performance of its more than
47,000 company employees.
“THE ONLINE TESTS
HAVE BROUGHT
MORE EFFICIENCY
to the process...That was
virtually impossible before.”
The company partnered with DDI to design
a training curriculum for its team leaders that
would provide the necessary skills to achieve
its business objectives. The courses in this
training curriculum were based on DDI’s
Interaction Management® leadership
development system.
A few months after the training, a survey was
used to determine the extent to which leaders
changed their behaviors after the program
and the impact on the organization. Observers
reported that only 59 percent of leaders frequently displayed effective leadership behaviors before training. The figure jumped to 81
percent of leaders using the behaviors of effective leadership after the training. Additionally,
the leaders reported that their training was
important and highly relevant to their jobs.
The leadership program was able to transform
a group of leaders with moderate skills into
one with excellent skills, a feat which will have
a tremendous impact on the organization.
A WINNING PROCESS FOR HIRING THE
RIGHT SALES LEADERS
A leading cosmetics company saw an opportunity to increase the earning potential of its
five million sales representatives worldwide.
This new strategy opened the door for successful representatives to build themselves
ever-more-lucrative businesses by recruiting
and mentoring teams of new representatives
—and earning commissions based on the
revenue generated by those teams.
While the new strategy required representatives
with a different skill set—individuals who could
recruit, motivate, and manage others, in addition to their own ability to sell products—it also
demanded new skills of sales management,
including district managers who could oversee
and support the individual representatives.
The organization addressed the changing job
requirements of these positions by bringing
together online assessment best practices and
best-in-class interviewing tools to revamp its
hiring process. This process needed to be
applied globally, primarily in the 10 countries
that account for 80 percent of the company’s
sales, as well as in two key emerging markets.
Having developed a competency model that
effectively captured the skills required of its
sales managers to help drive the new sales
strategy, they next engaged DDI to help in
the redesign of its selection process.
Among the most significant changes, a burdensome and costly phone-based assessment
was replaced by two online tests, both developed by DDI. The organization also implemented DDI’s Targeted Selection® behavioral
interviewing system.
“The online tests have brought more efficiency
to the process,” says one company recruiter.
“That was virtually impossible before.”
The online screening also has delivered cost
savings, as the cost per candidate has been
slashed by more than 80 percent—a significant
reduction as more than 3,000 candidates have
been screened, with more being assessed all
the time.
WHAT CAN DDI DO FOR YOUR
RETAIL ORGANIZATION?
Find out more about our full array of talent
solutions for transforming your culture—
and your business. Visit www.ddiworld.com
or call our Client Relations Group at
1-800-933-4463.
ABOUT DEVELOPMENT DIMENSIONS INTERNATIONAL:
For over 40 years, DDI has helped the most successful companies around the world close
the gap between where their businesses need to go and the talent required to take them there.
Our areas of expertise span every level, from individual contributors to the executive suite:
• Success Profile Management
• Selection & Assessment
• Leadership & Workforce Development
• Succession Management
• Performance Management
DDI’s comprehensive, yet practical approach to talent management starts by ensuring a close connection
of our solutions to your business strategies, and ends only when we produce the results you require.
You’ll find that DDI is an essential partner wherever you are on your journey to building extraordinary talent.
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