TDECU Embraces Rise Performance Group Assessment Tools to Enhance Hiring, Job Moves

DALLAS, July 29, 2013 – TDECU, one of Texas’ largest credit unions, is now using powerful job candidate assessment tools from Rise Performance Group in its insurance and investment divisions, to optimize its hiring and internal promotion and transfer decisions.

TDECU, the largest credit union in the Houston area, serves 170,000 members through 32 branches and other service locations, and has more than $2 billion in assets. Beyond the standard credit union products and services for members, TDECU offers investment, insurance, and real estate services in and outside of its immediate service region.

What led TDECU to embrace the Rise Performance Group assessments was the difficult time the credit union was having finding qualified individuals who fit the organization’s culture. The assessments are designed to help TDECU determine the best qualities among its employees and then determine how well potential new hires or job transfer candidates fit with those qualities.

“Our strategy has been to identify up-and-coming agents in whom we can invest in terms of licensing,” explained Vandi Theriot, Vice President of Talent Services for TDECU. “It really helps to have the assessment information in what is otherwise a very subjective hiring process.”

The credit union, which anticipates hiring some 180 new employees this year, has been using the Rise assessment tools since January, and Theriot said they are working well not only for new hires but for assessing individuals for other positions in the credit union.

“What we are seeing is that this really helps us with providing information from an overall workforce planning perspective,” she noted. “It gives us additional support for transitions and placements. When you look at employee performance plus the assessment data, it helps when we transition people to other roles.”

Mark Fenner, President of Rise Performance Group, pointed out that as TDECU continues to leverage the various assessment tools, it will further improve employee performance and retention.

“Like other Rise clients, TDECU will see that by hiring to a validated performance model and then also using the assessments to coach existing employees, they will see a reduction in the time it takes for a new team member to become fully productive,”   Fenner said.

About TDECU

Founded in 1955, TDECU is a not-for-profit financial cooperative with 170,000 members and more than $2 billion in assets. TDECU currently has 32 service locations, including 25 branches, and offers a complete selection of convenient, innovative, and competitive products and services, including a full suite of deposit products as well as mortgage, auto and personal loan products, online and mobile banking. TDECU also offers, through its subsidiaries, retirement planning and wealth management, personal and business insurance products, and full title and realty services. Members can also access a nationwide network of more than 50,000 surcharge-free ATMs. For more information visit www.TDECU.org or call 800.839.1154.

About Rise Performance Group

Rise Performance Group, founded on the belief that the right people are an organization’s greatest asset, offers a unique approach to helping organizations elevate performance. Rise Performance Group provides the tools, services, and expertise that can be applied to the entire talent management spectrum, from acquiring the best candidate for the job, engaging new employees into the culture, and identifying and developing leaders who can take the organization to the next level. For more information about the company, visit www.riseperformancegroup.com.

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Contact:
Kevin Tanzillo
Dux Public Relations
kevin@duxpr.com
903-865-1078

It’s Time for a People Inventory

By Mark Fenner

It’s Time for a People Inventory

Taking inventory is something a lot of businesses do monthly, or at least annually. They log

what’s on the shelves, what’s in the warehouse, which items are hot sellers, and which ones are not. But what most businesses need to do – and they don’t – is to do inventory on their people.

Sure, everyone knows how many employees they have. But an inventory of people is much more than just counting heads. Done correctly, an inventory can identify the strong performers, the underperformers, and the people with great potential. It can also identify gaps in skills that indicate it’s time to hire some new people to fill those cracks.

An essential part of an inventory process like this is objective data. Before you start categorizing people as underperformers, for instance, you want to be sure you understand why they aren’t living up to what you see as their potential. Part of an effective employee inventory involves moving poor performers out to make room for top performers.  But you want to be sure that termination action is well justified, and documented, before you take it.

Conducting personality, abilities, and interests testing will shed a lot of light not only on the suspected underperformers, but everyone else as well. You may find that an employee is simply not a good fit in one position, but may have strong potential in another available spot. Maybe this person’s strength is in front-line customer service,  but they ended up in a lonely back office somewhere, which would account for their poor performance.

Or you may find that for whatever reason, that person was a bad hire or a cultural mismatch who just won’t fit anywhere in your company, and has to be let go. The testing data will provide some objective insight to aid in your decision.

On the positive side, this process can also uncover hidden gems. You may find people in the middle levels of the organization who have the traits to rise to the top but just haven’t had the chance. You can better assess someone’s long-term value to the company and if you see a lot of potential, act on it. Give that person the chance to develop the skills and experience he or she needs to shine.

What any inventory should also tell you is that you can never really stop your hunt for high-quality outside hires. I guarantee that there will be gaps uncovered through your inventory, and while some of these gaps can be filled with existing staff, some can’t. That highlights the importance of always being on the lookout for good people.

Should You Hire a Superstar

By Mark Fenner

Every once in a while, an opportunity comes along for a company to hire someone who looks like a “superstar.” This person has a great reputation in the industry, a great track record, and for whatever reason, they’re on the market at the same time you’re looking to fill a key position.

Should you do it? Should you hire the star? The answer is … maybe.

It’s easy to get overeager – or starstruck, if you will – when it comes to the chance to add someone like this to your team. Our advice is to slow down, put your emotions aside, and look at this as analytically as you do any other major hire. We recommend the following steps:

First, do you have any internal stars or potential stars of your own who could move into that key position? Not only does it cost much less to hire internally, but external hires pose a greater risk of failure. And the higher the level of the position filled externally, the greater the risk.

Why? The outsider, who may have done a fantastic job in a similar role elsewhere, just may not fit into your company’s culture. And they come into their new position without the relationships that may have been a key to their previous success.

Second, do you really need that position filled by that person right now? Or are you just trying to find a way to get the superstar into your organization? If that’s the case, the superstar could end up being a square peg that won’t fit into your round hole, because as good as he or she may be, they just don’t work in that position.

Third, be realistic. Stellar performance isn’t always portable. For instance, star performers whose positions require consistent cooperation and collaboration with others have a hard time maintaining their high performance in a new organization. It may require a significant time investment and some mentoring for the new person to establish relationships and begin to replicate the conditions that fostered his or her original success.

Fourth, don’t be too eager. In your rush to get an available superstar on board, you might be tempted to shortcut your normal selection process. You need to treat this hire like any other, with all the background and  reference checks, thorough interviewing, and personality, abilities, and interests testing. Maintaining the integrity of your normal selection process will pay off, regardless of how much you may be chomping at the bit to land the superstar.

Finally, if you do hire the superstar, be careful in how you present this person to your company. Don’t build him or her up to the point that it creates jealousy or resentment among existing employees. Not only does it make it difficult for your new hire to live up to the hype, but some employees may consciously or unconsciously try to sabotage the new person’s performance. It is up to your superstar hire to build the credibility themselves, without you forcing it on your team.

Don’t Fire ‘Em – Fire ‘Em Up! 21 Days to a Winning Motivated Team

By Aoife Gorey

Will you give up ten minutes each day for the next 21 days to fire up your team like never before? The sooner you can launch a new employee into productivity, the better off you will be.

Employees want management they can look up to, not management that looks down on them. An honest respect for all, a genuine recognition that everyone has something to offer, is at the heart of a successful motivator. Without respect, so-called motivation becomes manipulation, and manipulation is never successful in the long term. Here are tips to get your team excited about work:

Take an interest in the career and personal goals, aspirations, interests, lives, and families of those who work for you.
“Motivation” is about giving your people a “Motive for action.” Understand what your people value, and you can easily formulate a way in which doing what you need them to do will help fulfill not just your goals, but theirs. Take an honest interest in every one of your people, and the means to motivate them will become readily apparent. Make it a goal to learn something new about at least one of your people every day.

The best way to knock a chip off a person’s shoulder is to let them take a bow.
Do you know anyone who complains about getting too much recognition or praise for a job well done? Do you? Yet, research consistently shows that people will go to extraordinary lengths for a leader who takes the time to catch them doing something right; and when they do, provides them with sincere praise and recognition in front of their colleagues. Praise and recognition are more motivating than money or any other single thing we can give to the people we lead.

Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain.
Dale Carnegie nailed it with this gem. When you must draw attention to poor performance, don’t criticize – coach! Don’t criticize what is being done wrong, but focus all of your attention on the new behavior or action that will put things right. Always finish with a positive comment to let them see that the reason you’ve raised the matter is that you have seen they are capable of so much more. Correct the errant action, provide some positive feedback, and then forget it. Act like you expect better performance next time, and you’ll get it.

Request – don’t order.
Real leaders lead from the front; they don’t need to push from the back. Everyone rebels to some extent against being “bossed around.” No one minds being asked for help.

Discuss – don’t argue.
Maturity is being able to disagree agreeably.

Be careful with humor.
Avoid any kind of demeaning humor. If there’s the slightest chance of being misunderstood, keep it to yourself. “If in doubt, leave it out!”

Listening is the greatest compliment you can pay anyone.
Our opinions are all sacred to us. Listen and hear the concerns of your people.

Most important of all…
Model the behaviors, attitudes, and morale level you expect others to display. Show them it works.

21- Day Action Plan

Why 21 days? Research shows that it takes 21 days to establish a habit. Take the topics discussed above and apply them for 21 days. You will discover that by the end of this period, you will be doing all of these things naturally. And, the level of motivation in your team in general, even in your “toughest cases,” will be at an all-time high.

Motivation is easy if you care enough to put in a little extra effort. Anyone can motivate, and anyone can be motivated. All it takes is the right person in the right place, managed by someone who cares. Invest a little time over the next 21 days and fire ‘em up like never before!

Content sourced from 40 Strategies for Winning in Business by Jim Sirbasku, Bud Haney with Deiric McCann.

How do you motivate your team? Let me know in the comment section below.

Get Proactive About Communication Failures

By Jason Ingram

“What we’ve got here is [a] failure to communicate.”

This famous line from the 1967 movie, “Cool Hand Luke,” is so simple, yet it conveys a powerful message that almost everyone can relate to, particularly in business settings. Effective communication, as a necessary and desired trait, rears its head in nearly every study, blog, and bulleted list that exists about leadership and management, yet research proves that one of the top five management derailers is poor communication skills.

Poor communication skills seem like they would be easy enough to detect, but some managers overcompensate for (and disguise) their lack of communication skills in oblivious, destructive ways. A manager may be failing the communication test if he:

• Always seems to be feuding with someone or some group in the organization
• Has a reputation for being authoritarian, cold, aloof, arrogant, or insensitive
• Acts as a polarizing force within an organization (employees either love or hate him)
• Avoids direct communication or contact with some or all co-workers
• Delivers bad news through email rather than through direct conversations
• Exhibits a hostile attitude toward co-workers who share interdependent goals
• Becomes the target of subtle or blatant sabotage efforts

What can you do to ensure that your managers are practicing effective communication and actively avoiding communications failures that hinder morale, productivity, and performance?

Fortunately, there are obvious – if difficult to implement, because of the often sticky nature of interpersonal relationships – solutions to the issue of poor or non-existent managerial communication. Below are four tactics that will help even the most non-communicative manager begin to turn the corner towards more effective communication, and thus more effective leadership.

1. Emphasize the importance of effective communication
This is a company-wide discussion, and one that should take place several times per year, if not several times per quarter. Simply put, what you focus on as the leader of your organization will become a primary focus for your managers, employees, and even your partners and clients. For better or for worse, your managers are viewed as an extension of you and your organization; if you want them to communicate effectively, you need to model it and talk about it often, and your managers should feel the positive pressure to meet that expectation daily.

2. Help the manager identify his motivation and desires
Some employees are exceptional individual contributors, but just aren’t cut out to be managers. Conversely, some people have what it takes to lead, but aren’t as skilled or experienced as their peers. And frankly, some people just don’t want to be managers! If your manager’s issue is skills and experience, it may be easier to help him develop his skills than it is to train someone who completely lacks the behaviors and interests that contribute to leadership success. If the issues aren’t skill and experience, but leadership potential, you may have to let down gently the determined individual contributor who wants “the big chair,” but doesn’t have the traits you need in a manager. This could actually come as a relief to some managers, especially if means a return to the sales or service responsibilities for which they are better suited.

3. Help the manager identify his communication style
Many managers simply don’t know what they don’t know. For example, if he comes across as insensitive or aloof, point out the behavior and help him improve. It is important for the manager to understand his natural communication style and how it impacts others, both positively and negatively. The manager can’t be expected to improve if he never receives concrete feedback.

4. Model an appropriate communication style, and hold your managers accountable
We touched on this in the first tactic, but it’s so important – and so rarely done – that it bears repeating. Many managers underestimate the value and importance of communicating with and relating to their staff. They don’t view it as real work, but rather as touchy-feely nonsense. Even if your managers know what they’re supposed to do, it’s not enough to lead by the numbers from your office behind a closed door. Get out and make it a point to interact with each of your managers regularly — talk to them about the effectiveness of their communication, and either praise them when they’re communicating well or offer constructive feedback to improve their effectiveness. Either way, maintain an open dialogue. Your managers will see your investment in them, and will positively mimic your communicative approach.

Just because managers are in leadership positions does not always mean they are good leaders. Enable your managers by identifying their development needs and keep them from derailing themselves and their employees.