Develop Employees

"The Survey’s tremendous value has been in selection and team building. The Survey was used not so much to eliminate a person from the hire, but to enable us to put together a development plan for them. From the Survey, we could tell his training manager 'These are the things you’re going to see in their work. This is how you can help them grow.' The trainee and his supervisor were then working together towards the same goals.

Developing better managers meant they stayed longer, were more effective and felt better about their jobs. The bottom line was: We not only lowered our expenses by reducing turnover, we also increased sales with better trained managers.

The results of a six month pilot study completely validated the importance of using the Survey for Team Building. After six months, stores using the Simmons Survey for team building had improved significantly more than the other stores in all three areas tracked: 1.) Sales Increase up 10%; 2.) Quality Service And Cleanliness Inspection improved a full grade level; 3.) Crew Turnover Rate reduced. Overall profitability had improved as well.

The Survey really helped the supervisor build team work, with everyone drawing off each others strengths and supporting them in the areas they need to work on. As an employer, we saw we had to have it."

CSR/American Aggregates, a subsidiary of Australian based Consolidated Sugar Refineries, with 1100 employees, has been using the Survey to help their leaders make the personal changes necessary to successfully practice the new team management style that the company has put in place.

"We are using the Simmons as a tool for both individual and company success. Serious paradigm shifts are necessary to make TQM successful. We feel the Simmons Personal Survey is the tool that can help us do that."

"We promoted the best candidate using the Survey, but the benefits of the Survey went far beyond that. Each candidate had the opportunity to discuss their Survey with us. Often those who had not been promoted would say, “I really want to move up into management. What is it that’s holding me back?” We would go over their Survey, showing them specific areas that they could work on. Providing this assistance in their development proved to be extremely cost effective. Before long we were promoting entirely from within.

Each year the Department Managers took the Simmons Survey and compared it to their results from the previous year. In a meeting with the Store Manager, they would review and acknowledge the improvements they had made. The employee had the opportunity to make suggestions about what they thought needed improvement. Then the Store Manager made his suggestions. Together they developed specific goals for the next year. This development process has double benefits of reducing turnover and increasing effectiveness.

Within 18 months, the Survey was the key to reducing turnover, from a crippling 172% to a manageable 70%."

“When we bought an existing [Wendy's] franchise, the previous owner strongly recommended that we fire or demote the current area supervisor. ‘She’s not going to be able to handle it,’ they said. ‘she’s got a negative attitude, not a team player.’

The Survey showed a very high Self Esteem score, a somewhat low commitment to work and low tolerance. But it also showed good people skills and a positive attitude. They had misidentified the problem. While sharing the Survey results with her we learned that she had experienced a deep hurt in her life. She wasn’t aware how much it was affecting her on the job until she saw her Survey. We sat down with her and put together a development plan. Within weeks there was a marked improvement and she is still doing an excellent job with the company.

Talk about cutting turnover costs! It would have been very expensive to loose her 10 years of training and experience. We would have lost an excellent manager with a lot of great strengths if we had fired her on their recommendation. We were able to work with her on the problems she did have, and it not only turned out super, but it added a lot of validity to the Survey.”

[The employee mentioned in this quote was a struggling assistant manager at a grocery store.] "About a year after coaching him with the Survey, I began to get feedback that Matt had made a terrific turnabout, had become a dynamic force in his store, often surpassing and outperforming his store manager. The results were shocking and undeniable. Matt had shown significant personal growth in all areas of character that would be associated with an effective leader. Matt said that when he saw his original Survey results, he was not happy with the individual I had identified him to be and he wanted to make a change. He took charge of his own personal growth, made a conscious decision to accept the risks associated with leadership and grow as a person. Matt continues to be one of the top managers in the group at this writing."

"I have used the Simmons Survey for years now. I have come to put a great degree of trust in the Survey findings. Over and over again, I have seen Surveys that are consistent with my interview findings. When I review the Surveys with the participant’s own managers, they, too, confirm the Survey’s validity."

"Mike and I reviewed the results of his Survey to discover what his results might tell us about how his character was contributing to the problem. The Survey was absolutely consistent with my interview findings. I gave Mike one week to think about our conversation and arrive at some decisions about what he wanted to do about some of the concerns expressed by his staff and the character traits suggested by his Survey report.

His first words to me a week later were, 'I want you to know that I was stunned by our conversation. I have thought about nothing else for the last week. I had already planned to take some time off and I found that whatever I was doing, I was thinking about our conversation. My wife and I had a long talk and she finally opened up to me and confirmed a lot of your findings. I really had no idea that things had gotten so bad... Let’s get to work. I want to turn this around.'

He made a list of people he felt he needed to apologize to individually. He also called a staff meeting to talk about what he had learned and to express his commitment to being the best manager they had ever had.

Its been two years now and, while he is still prone to slip back into some of the old behaviors when under extreme pressure, his boss and his staff have been grateful to see a genuine commitment to improve his relationships at work and have seen some substantial changes in his approach to them.

Mike is still in his position, accomplishing more than he ever has before, and, more importantly, his level of esteem has risen throughout the company as he becomes more and more skillful at dealing with people appropriately. A prediction: Within ten years, he will be the President of the company because he has had the courage and the commitment to deal with the flaws in his character."