Client Highlight

3M Trainer Finds Solutions with Profiles Tools

   A bid for help from managers who wanted to coach their sales people more effectively led Gene Nichols, a 3M trainer in St. Paul, Minn., to reassess the Profiles tools his company used. He found assessments that could give managers specific information and that could be changed to fit his company’s needs.

   An experienced sales veteran, Nichols is education and development manager for the medical division of 3M, a diversified technology company with worldwide presence. When he assumed his role four years ago, the previous manager was already using Profiles tools. “We’d been using Profiles for seven or eight years. We wanted to give field managers the tools to coach salespeople,” he said. “We needed to see how successful reps were doing it and how we could coach along those same skill sets.” Nichols uses the ProfileXT and the Sales Indicator to ensure they hire the right people and to benchmark sales reps.

   “Both are very important,” Nichols said. “Our sales people must be able to speak well and do calculations and contracts. We look at these skills and whether they are enterprising and want to serve others. We look at financial/admin skills, technical and mechanical skills and creativity.” Managers also look at the PXT’s behavior scales. All sales people go through the process, and the company uses benchmarks for each. “If we are looking at someone to become a manager, we see how closely they match other managers and what coaching they need,” Nichols said. “We ensure new managers resemble ones who are doing superbly.”

   The company  benchmarks its sales reps across the country. “When we first started, upper management and regional leaders asked our sales managers to identify those who excelled in their jobs,” he said.

   Profiles strategic partner Nancy Ness helped Nichols understand the power of Profiles tools. He now has three key groups of people and rebalances the benchmarks against those groups. “Nancy has been very helpful in getting the program set as it is today,” he said.

   Ness admires his enthusiasm. “He spends time and energy on understanding the information and sees the value in it.” Owner of Profiles, Inc., in Eden Prairie, Minn., she has been affiliated with Profiles International since 1991. “We’ve really evolved technologically,” she said. “With everything online, it’s easy to deliver the product. It’s exciting!”

November 2006             Volume 1, Issue 1                       Annual Subscription Rate: $36.00

This newsletter is courtesy of

 

Robert A. Cameron & Associates

Strategic Business Partner of Profiles international

 

Phone 954-385-8701

Email Robert@racameron.com

www.racameron.com

Employer’s Advantage

is published monthly.

 

Edited by Barbara Elmore

© 2006 Profiles International

 

Profiles International

Profiles Office Park

5205 Lake Shore Dr

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www.profilesinternational.com

CORNER

technical

   Technical Corner, a new column this month, will examine Department of Labor guidelines on occupational assessment tools, starting with the first one. It states that assessment tools must be used in a purposeful manner.

  

This means that managers using the tools need to understand how they work. Profiles International’s assessment tests meet or exceed Department of Labor guidelines, and we work with our clients to help them understand our tools and use them correctly.

  

For example, the Profile XT helps determine which candidate will best perform a particular job. How can it tell that? The employer, using appropriate measures, identifies top performers, or those employees working at the highest level. The employer shares the ranking with us. We then build a job match pattern that will identify top performers over those challenged by the position. To keep the assessment fresh and relevant, this benchmark is updated as more information becomes available.

  

The Profile XT assesses an employee’s behavioral traits, interests and thinking style to reflect the person within. Answers to these measures in part determine work fit. Think of the analogy of the square peg in the round hole. To make the square peg fit in a round slot, we have to shave the corners. If the peg is more curved than square, perhaps we have to shave off less to make it fit in the round shape. However, if the peg is already round, it fits perfectly in the hole with no shaving or honing needed.

  

Our assessments seek this kind of fit. It is common sense that employees who fit well into their jobs exhibit a higher level of job satisfaction. They come to work more often, change jobs less frequently and perform superbly overall. They are able to be successful doing what comes naturally to them. 

  

Managers using assessment tools correctly already know the shape of the holes they need to fill. They only need a peg to fit it well. Profiles helps clients understand how to do that.

 

Using assessment tools in a purposeful manner

Department of Labor

Guidelines Checklist

 

aAssessment tools must be used in a purposeful manner

   Robert, the top boss at a large manufacturing company, mostly managed his pe