Articles & White Papers

The July 2009 Supreme Court decision in the New Haven Firefighters case, Ricci v. DeStefano, has underscored the importance of careful design and implementation of employment tests, as well as acting properly upon their results. This memorandum provides an analysis of four methods for evaluating test scores, their respective advantages and disadvantages, and summarizes court decisions interpreting the different approaches. This special memorandum was distributed by the Equal Employment Advisory Council and is reprinted with permission. It was written with assistance from Nancy T. Tippins, Senior VP and Managing Principal at Valtera.

How do I get more employees to work the graveyard shift? What would make my workforce more engaged in their jobs? How do I improve retention in a high turnover industry? And, what will it cost me to achieve these goals? Knowing what people value and understanding the trade-offs people make about where to offer their time and talent can lead to better decisions about what alternatives to offer them.

This white paper discusses the proven strategy of using “choice surveys” and “choice modeling” to address issues like these. Realistic Choice Modeling is an innovative approach to understanding employee preferences and how those preferences play out in decision-making, combining a powerful survey method and statistical modeling to allow you to not only understand preferences, but also to test your assumptions about ideas and evaluate their relative impact.

Most HR professionals understand that tests and other selection instruments are subject to the requirements of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures. However, many do not realize that structured interviews are also subject to these guidelines. This special memorandum on structured interviews was distributed by the Equal Employment Advisory Council and is reprinted with permission. It was written with assistance from Nancy T. Tippins, Senior VP and Managing Principal at Valtera.

Employment interviews are a common feature of most hiring processes. Their effectiveness as a tool for predicting success on the job is greater when the process is a structured one. This brief paper outlines frequently-asked questions about structured interviews and how they may be used to select more capable candidates.

There are many unanswered questions in the study of job satisfaction, person-environment fit, and personality that kindle curiosity in the minds of HR professionals. This article explores the past, present, and future of personality research and practice in work organizations. Written by Ben Schneider, Valtera’s Senior Research Fellow, it appeared in Human Resource Management and is reprinted with permission.

Organizations use multi-rater surveys for a wide variety of purposes. Long recognized as tool for individual development, 360 feedback surveys can also be used to enhance team effectiveness, promote large scale culture change, increase individual accountability, and provide evidence for human resource actions.

This white paper discusses at a high level the set of overall decisions that must be made as part of the planning and implementation process for a 360 feedback effort. These myriad decisions are interrelated and involve multiple stakeholders and organizational players. As such, 360 process decisions do not lend themselves to a simple step-by-step 'check-off' process. This paper includes guidelines to clarify goals, define participant groups, prepare survey content, administer the survey, deliver reports, and support action planning. These guidelines will help to navigate through the 360 decision-making process while keeping the big picture in focus, thereby setting the stage for a successful 360 effort.

Surveys are valuable tools for collecting vital information for your business. A well-constructed survey uncovers quantitative and qualitative data that, when combined with good judgment, lead to effective decision making and business improvements.

This white paper focuses on critical aspects of developing survey content. It covers controlling the length of the survey, writing effective survey items, choosing appropriate response scales, and using open-ended questions.

This chapter presents a summary and extension of the book, Winning the Service Game, published in 1995 by Harvard Business School Press (Schneider & Bowen, 1995). The authors summarize the “rules of the game” presented there concerning the production and delivery primarily of consumer services and note several advances in thinking since the book was originally published.

Written by Benjamin Schneider, Valtera Senior Research Fellow, and David E. Bowen, The G. Robert & Katherine Herberger Chair in Global Management at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, this book chapter is reprinted with permission.

Research shows that when employees work in a positive service climate, with the right tools to do their job, the result is more satisfied customers, with increased competitive financial performance for the company, often including a stronger market value. HR has a key role to play by creating and sustaining a workplace culture with people management practices and initiatives that encourage, reward and support behavior focused on quality service. This article presents data highlighting the link between service climate, customer satisfaction and human resource management.

Employee engagement should be all about corporate competitive advantage. It is probably nice to know which employees are more engaged and it is also probably nice to know which teams or units are more engaged. However, to obtain a competitive advantage, your workforce as a whole must be more highly engaged than your competitors’ workforce. This is essential because being superior to your competitors on an attribute that is difficult to achieve and difficult to imitate is the key to competitive advantage. As such, it is really the engagement of your entire workforce that counts.

This white paper will tell you:
1. What an engaged work force feels and looks like
2. How an engaged work force is different from a satisfied workforce
3. The financial consequences of an engaged work force compared to a satisfied workforce
4. The drivers of an engaged workforce—the things you can do to improve your level of workforce engagement —compared to the drivers of a satisfied workforce