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The Pattern® is the theory and practice that underpins the structural support tool STARF®.
Why did we develop the Pattern®?
The real costs of staff leaving
How we arrived at the Pattern®
Making it happen
How the Pattern® Works
A proven technique
Benefits of the Pattern® to your organisation
STARF®
Where to from here?
Why did we develop the Pattern®? (back to top)
We identified a number of economic and risk management reasons for creating a standard theory and practice for managers. We needed to improve the validity of assessment processes for both selection and performance management to protect our clients' core business with a distinctive competitive advantage.
Prior to implementing our new systems, a best practice employment agency that used behavioural approaches was using our techniques and was experiencing a fall off rate of placements made in their clients' organisation of approximately 9%. This represented a level of client dissatisfaction and a potential loss of business. It also meant a loss of productivity, as they had to honour service guarantees and find replacements at no extra cost for their clients.
From a measured period from 1992 to 1998 when they implemented the techniques now known as the Pattern®, their already excellent track record/fall off rate, reduced from the previous 9% to 1.5%. This much smaller figure represented those situations where particular positions have proved consistently difficult to retain staff in, not because of poor selection, but rather the dysfunctional management of that position and this gave light to the need for the application of the Pattern® for performance management purposes.
The real costs of staff leaving (back to top)
Salary paid during the tenure of employment is only one component of the overall cost when employees do not perform to expectations. Whether this is an existing employee promoted into a role that they later prove not to be entirely suited to, or to a new recruit, there is so much more involved in terms of real costs. These can involve any or all of the following:
| Loss of clients |
Reduction in staff morale and productivity |
| Redundancy payments |
Loss of Training Investment |
| Counselling Time |
Corrective action by senior management |
| Possible legal fees |
Adverse publicity from personal grievances |
Replacement can then involve:
| Advertising |
Recruitment consultants |
| Interviewing by management |
New salary and benefits |
| Training |
Induction |
| New business cards & letters |
Introductory visit travel & accommodation |
Only to name a few!
How we arrived at the Pattern® (back to top)
Research indicated information on the validities associated with a variety of selection methods varied. The following examples offer a prediction of the likelihood of a person remaining and being productive in a role 12 months after appointment using each of these selection processes:
| Astrology - 5% |
Curriculum Vitae - 5% |
| Gut Feeling - 15% |
Unstructured Interview - 18% |
| Verbal Reference - 30% |
Structured Interview - 35% |
| Psychometrics - 35% |
Cognitive Testing - 60% |
| Behavioural Interviews with the above - 76% |
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While all have some validity, there was no pattern to them unless they could be applied in a structured way. Many who were doing so had developed this over some years of experience, where they found through trial and error, a method that worked for them.
Some 40 years ago, Texas University had provided a significant amount of research into relative validities. They established through scientific study that the behavioural past of a person is a valid indicator of their future behaviour. Some organisations took notice of this; these included NASA, Texas Instruments and the United States Armed Forces.
Many Western military organisations utilised behavioural processes into their already well-established recruitment and selection systems.
Meanwhile most Western organisations followed the technological path to performance improvement. The concepts of Total Quality Management, Just In Time and Information Technology improvements of systems were the main areas concentrated on. They appeared to be the areas that showed the greatest, tangible return in terms of performance improvement.
More recently however organisations have started to question the overall effectiveness of this focus. Concepts in Human Resource Management have now emerged whereby employees at all levels are seen as a strategic resource - one on which the success of the organisation depends.
Focusing on behavioural practices, we undertook studies over a period of several years to validate and improve the processes that are now called the Pattern® whilst working with some of New Zealand's top organisations.
Making it happen (back to top)
While confident that theoretically all this would assist us, there were two important practical issues that we had to address:
| a. |
How to gain a critical mass of managers applying these techniques so that the increase in validity could be effectively
measured, both for our clients and ourselves.
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| b. |
How to sustain these techniques in a systematic pattern that would be used consistently over time in order to
maximise their effectiveness. |
Addressing these issues, and then using the agreed solutions on a day by day basis over 4 years, gave us the elements of what is now the Pattern®.
We have now brought these elements together with STARF® in this single but adaptable product for use by our clients to enhance and compliment the work that they already do. We have formed mutually beneficial strategic alliances (rather than traditional provider/client relationships) in order to progress these and bring significant benefits that reduce costs for our clients, enhance their profitable revenue, reduce risks and improve their efficiencies.
How the Pattern® works (back to top)
So just what is the Management Development Pattern®?
It is a series of 3 workshops designed to provide participants with a comprehensive portfolio of techniques. It compliments intuition and creates uniform standards for all aspects of people management within an organisation.
Graduates of the Pattern® can:
- Use advanced behavioural interviewing techniques to accurately assess past behaviour and use this to predict future performance
- Identify the key behavioural traits and working skills demanded by any job
- Gather a complete picture of each individual candidate's performance in each of these key areas and establish a quantitative evaluation system
- Assess each individual's performance and objectively compare their performance with that of all other candidates to make an objective final selection
- Use a communication model to elicit feedback with mutual integrity
- Mutually agree future performance objectives and action plans with employees who report to them
- Review past performance against previously agreed objectives with employees
- Develop mutually agreeable specific action plans to resolve acknowledged performance deficiencies
- Give feedback on performance
- Counsel an employee in respect of adverse workplace behaviour
- Incorporate performance management tasks within present responsibilities
A proven technique (back to top)
Behavioural interviewing provides management with the highest validity possible for predicting future performance of employees. Our results are supported by and complimented by extensive research regarding behavioural interviewing internationally. The Pattern is unique and we contend its model is what gives us an edge over validity to traditional methods of Behavioural Interviewing type approaches we have researched.
Benefits of the Pattern® to your organisation (back to top)
The Pattern® is designed to give operational executives the skills to identify people who can learn and develop within today's changing environment. It provides techniques to:
- Improve the selection and subsequent performance and development of employees
- Implement a comprehensive mechanism for effective staff counselling
- Improve selection of individuals for promotion
- Develop people management skills
- Assure future performance
Most importantly, executives who undertake the Pattern® training will improve their own effectiveness and have proven to be better equipped to meet their own accountabilities for their staff's performance.
The Pattern® provides an effective means for an organisation to cascade human resource management responsibilities to line managers who are ultimately responsible for the performance of their operational area. It also provides consistent and agreed procedures for these processes that enable the easy out sourcing of tasks to suppliers.
The specific benefits are:
- An effective and comprehensive selection and performance management pattern
- Removes personal preferences, bias or favouritism
- Projects an image of professionalism
- Avoids problems of inconsistent criteria for similar jobs
- Processes are fair - irrelevant and subjective factors cease to interfere with the objective process, that is, factors like race, looks, favouritism, gender or age etc.
- Information gained is objective and accurate
- Management are confident with staff choice
- Staff are confident in Management
- Staff turnover is reduced
- Future proofs the organisation
- Identifies people who will immediately contribute to organisation performance
- Emphasis on individual growth and personal development
- Protects development investments
- Assures the future worth and value of the employees
- Develops synergy between employee goals and organisation objectives
- Ensures delivery of human resource management practices at the highest standards of professionalism
- Respects the individual's dignity
- Protects the organisation against personal grievance claims
- Provides the means to develop continuity of organisation culture
- Maintains relevance in a changing environment
- Maintains the focus of the organisation's employees
STARF® (back to top)
STARF® enables all information to be compiled into a database which is continually updated for the organisation's use. In the event of personnel changes no information is lost.
Valid data is created for organisations to use for decision support purposes.
This provides our client organisations with unparalleled and sustainable competitive advantages.
Where to from here? (back to top)
The Pattern® and STARF® can be likened to the Total Quality Management & Just In Time concepts adopted by the manufacturing industries. Not so many years ago there was a general acceptance of a 40% scrap or rework rate on finished goods. TQM and JIT took this from 60% to 90% quality rate in a space of say 2-3 years, and by making the same effort again then move this figure up to 94%, and again to 95% and so on!
For demonstration sake, assume that the average NZ organisation currently only taps a maximum of 30% of the potential of their human resources. It is our contention that the same dramatic improvements can be made on the human resources side of the organisation by the use of STARF® and the Pattern® training for theory and practice.
Following the training of your managers you will experience short-term measurable results that can take this figure to 60%. It can also improve validity of selections to up to 76% - 98.5% likelihood of success in a 6 month measured period, far greater than standard selection techniques. STARF® is designed to move the effectiveness of human resource management to up to 80% after three to four years.
For a presentation, click here.
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