Spring 2008

Spotlight on New Products:

Test Finds Safety-Conscious Workers

Hogan Assessment Systems recently introduced the Hogan Safety Report, an easy to use, intuitive and high-performing measure of safe work behavior. The Hogan Safety Report is based on 28 years of research and is designed to help companies improve productivity, reduce turnover, lower accident rates and increase team and customer satisfaction. Applicable to a wide range of industries, the report determines a candidate's work style and overall safety orientation. Employers can maximize selection procedures for hiring safer employees, as well as determine the extent to which their current workforce is comprised of safe workers. View a sample Hogan Safety Report.

Note: If you wish to detect inclinations towards violence or inability to control anger, the Hogan Development Survey is an excellent tool. You can learn to use this and all the Hogan tests and reports at a Hogan Certification Workshop.

Women Execs: Entrepreneurial or Corporate?

You’re a woman aiming for the executive suite. The question is: Are you best suited to a spot in the E-Suite or the C-Suite? Using first-of-its-kind research with high achieving women in business, The Suite Spot Report points women towards the “suite” where they show the greatest potential: Entrepreneurial or Corporate.

"The Suite Spot Report came about through my work as an executive coach,” says Wendy Alfus Rothman, Ph.D., the study’s lead author, who has tested and delivered feedback to hundreds of women and men during her career as president of Wenroth Consulting. “There is a great deal known about the characteristics that differentiate high performers in many fields. But little or no research has been done on the differences among high achieving women themselves.” She adds, "Over the years, I saw there was a difference among women who thrived in entreprenuership and others who moved up in corporations. It seemed like a difference well worth understanding."

She initiated an investigation that resulted in the new Suite Spot report. Study participants took three validated personality tests from Hogan Assessment Systems. The 72 study participants were recruited from the Committee of 200 (C200), an organization for pre-eminent women presidents, CEOs, and senior executives, and from the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO).

Corporate high achievers in this study manage a P&L of $250 million or more. Entrepreneurial achievers have driven businesses to at least $5 million in revenue, or, if they inherited, changed focus or direction significantly. “These definitions of achievement do not pertain to job or career satisfaction,” Alfus-Rothman says, “but it is unlikely a person can sustain the energy needed to achieve so much outward success without experiencing a high degree of personal satisfaction.”

See a sample Suite Spot Report.

Nonprofit Employers Get Insight on Candidate's Potential in Fundraising

Who is most likely to have the "edge" as a fundraising executive in the nonprofit world?

The NPEdge assessments were created under special arrangement with Hogan Assessment Systems and are based on the Hogan Personality Inventory. NPEdge online tools give reliable, validated assessments of this question. NPEdge reports are available for two positions: Fundraising Generalist and Major Gifts Fundraiser. More than a dozen nonprofit organizations participated in the job analysis that helped us narrow the relevant success factors. This groundbreaking research resulted in easy-to-use, secure online tools that are useful to those who are doing the hiring as well as those who are looking for a position. The proprietary research was carried out by Paul Connolly, president of Performance Programs, and David Edell, president of Development Resource Group, Inc., a specialist in executive recruitment for the nonprofit industry.

The NPEdge report can be used by individuals or employers:

Individuals can purchase the tests online for $55. They receive an interpretive guide, test ID, password, and, after completion, a custom report.

Employers can purchase the tests for screening their job candidates for $85, including a custom interview guide based on the candidate's responses. Employers should call 1-800-565-4223 to set up testing for their candidates or contact us.

Fast Track to Interpretation of Hogan Personality Tests

Get the fast track to interpreting Hogan personality reports with the "Dyad" Training Tool. This unique tool allows users to easily pair scales in test results and click through to a suggested interpretation. For example:

• Question: What do you get when you mix high ambition and high adjustment in the same personality profile?

• Answer: Likelihood of finding a person who is calm, poised, self-confident, and eager to be in charge.

The new tool is based on PowerPoint and is available free of charge to individuals who have attended the Hogan Certifications Workshop. Get your free copy by contacting us and putting DYAD Training Tool in the subject line. We'll send the PowerPoint file as an attachment.

Everything You Need to Know about Hogan Personality Tests . . .

The Hogan Guide by Robert Hogan, Joyce Hogan, and Rodney Warrenfelz

This 334-page guide provides an in-depth look into Hogan’s comprehensive suite of personality assessments which help companies select employees, develop leaders, and identify talent. New users of Hogan assessments will find this a valuable reference to the core concepts for each of the inventories—Hogan Personality Inventory, Hogan Development Survey, and Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory. Advanced users will also appreciate its breadth, as every conceivable aspect of the tools is covered in one concise document. Learn more about contents .

Personality and the Fate of Organizations by Robert Hogan, Ph.D.,

This small book carries a big message: a leader's personality is a key factor in the outcome of his or her leadership. Hogan is the author of the Hogan Personality Inventory, one of the few personality tests written and validated for the workplace. Written in Dr. Hogan's passionate style, this book "connects the dots" across disparate areas of leadership studies and personality research. In seven chapters, Hogan examines the nature of leadership talent, its antithesis, and the inescapable impact of a leader's personality on organizations. He defines personality, gives a history of personality psychology, examines leadership, team performance, organizational theory, managerial incompetence, and how to fix the latter. Highly recommended.

Table of Contents

Hogan Certification Seminars

The use of this seal is not an endorsement by HRCI of the quality of the program. It means that this program has met HRCI’s criteria to be pre-approved for recertification credit.

We will offer certification on the Hogan assessments again on May 7, June 27, and September 12, 2008, at the Water's Edge Resort in Westbrook, CT. For more information, visit the Hogan certification page on our web site.

Clark Wilson Group 360 Certification Seminars

We will offer the Task Cycle® Survey Certification Workshop on September 11 in CT. There is a special session on Oct 27 in NYC. For more information, visit the Task Cycle certification page on our web site.

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What's "Normal" in Employee Surveys?

Is there such a thing as a "normal" workplace? We were going to ask Dilbert cartoon author Scott Adams, but we think we know what he'd say.

Dilbert aside, the hundreds of employee surveys we've done have shown there are average or predictable responses to certain questions or groups of questions. Most companies, for instance, have a hard time getting high ratings for internal communications or for training.

Performance Programs recently updated its norm database, which was started in 1997 and has more than 85,000 responses for most of the 84 questionnaire items we track. The data can be reported as a general business norm or provided for one of 11 industries, including nonprofits. We will soon offer norms by company size. We charge $100 per norm, but users can save 50% if they share their data with us after completion of their survey. Norms are available whether we perform the survey or not. There is no minimum purchase.

You can purchase a preview of PPI's norm data in our book and CD combination, Employee Opionion Questionnaires: 20 Ready to Use Surveys that Work. The book provides 30 of the most frequently asked questions, along with their norms.

Nonprofit Leaders More Skilled than Corporate Counterparts

Never assume anything.

It’s an old warning—and one that proved true again when we studied leaders of nonprofit organizations in partnership with Community Resource Exchange during 2007. CRE, a 27-year-old New York City consulting organization, provides high-value capacity building services to nonprofit leaders and organizations.

“Leadership in for-profit endeavors is widely studied,” says our associate Jean Lobell, a Managing Director at CRE. “The same is not necessarily true for nonprofits, but the lack of data never stopped people from assuming that nonprofit leaders are less skilled than their for-profit counterparts.

“Imagine our delight and surprise,” she says, “when our study showed that nonprofit leaders, as seen by their managers, direct reports and peers significantly (alpha > 0.05) outscored for-profit leaders on 14 out of 17 skills.” The study is based on Clark Wilson Group’s validated Survey of Leadership Practices™, a competency-based 360-degree feedback instrument. The strength of the findings was a surprise to both CRE and PPI, as well as to a group of nonprofit leaders who had participated in the study. While it is premature to declare that nonprofit leaders are clearly more effective, this study challenges the assumption.

Want full details? We were pleased to have the study featured in the Nonprofit Quarterly, a highly respected magazine that focuses on themes of critical importance to leaders in the nonprofit sector.