PLATO Learning Re-Engineers Sales Force Using a Comprehensive Sales Assessment Solution to Identify Top Performers
PLATO Learning is PLATO Learning, Inc. a publicly held Company traded as TUTR on the NASDAQ. For more than 40 years, PLATO’s educational technology products have been taking students through a lifetime of learning. They offer innovative, standards-based elementary, secondary, and post-secondary teaching and learning solutions covering the entire spectrum of academic needs—from remediation and credit recovery to teacher-centric solutions for the mainstream classroom, to career preparation, to trend-forward distance learning options.
In 2005, chairman of the board, Dave Smith, was tasked with re-engineering the sales force and challenged with seeking talent outside of their industry while reducing reliance on outside recruiters. Mr. Smith was looking for a solution that would be easily replicated and not require their historic 15 interviews for each new hire.
Employee Continuum's Candidate Evaluation System not only provided a consistent and repeatable process emulating their "best recruiter on their best day" but also incorporated a clear job-specific branding message delivered by incumbent sales reps. The job analysis identified the competencies and behavioral characteristics PLATO needed as an account manager in order for them to be successful in their sales environment, regardless of their industry background and experience. The evaluation system was configured with customized pre-screening questions where the answers did not contain one specific right answer but each answer was given a value. This prevented potential top performers from being eliminated. The video job simulation module of the solution gave candidates insight into the actual job role while judging them on their ability to handle a particular situation. The job simulation scenarios were generic enough to evaluate candidates who did not have PLATO's industry background. The final component in Employee Continuum's multi-dimensional approach is to validate that the candidate has the natural sales motivations to succeed.
Using the Candidate Evaluation System, PLATO attained their initial goals in addition to:
- Hiring over 60 new salespeople in the first year with no turnover.
- Attaining new hire sales goals equal to or greater than tenured reps.
- Reducing recruiting costs by $200k in the first quarter and $1m in the first year.
- Reducing interview to hire ratio from 15:1 to 4:1.
- Presenting realistic job brand message.
Reduced Reliance upon Third Party Recruiters
The team at PLATO needed to re-engineer their sales force. Because they were a relatively new HR team they relied heavily upon third party recruiters in order to fill their sales positions. According to Jill Lytle, “Some recruiters understand our situation and our environment, but most of them don’t.” Because they did not have a process to measure the quality of the candidates they received from their recruiters they needed to utilize a large number of firms in order to receive the quantity that they needed.
After two months of implementing the Candidate Evaluation System, the HR team was able to determine which recruiting firms were able to provide them with the type of high quality candidates they needed to present to their hiring managers. Armed with data to back up their decisions, they were able to eliminate those firms that were not producing quality candidates. Ultimately, they were able to eliminate their dependence on outside recruiters and realize a savings of nearly $1,000,000 within the first year.
Reduced Interview-to-Hire Ratio from 15:1 to 4:1
Dave Smith, Chairman of PLATO, knew that in order to create real change he needed to re-engineer his sales force. Due to the importance he placed upon this role within the company, he personally interviewed every candidate that his human resources team sent before his hiring managers. Before implementing the Candidate Evaluation System, he was spending at least an hour with 15 candidates in order to make a single hire. This was not a sustainable process and did not provide his hiring managers the ability to operate efficiently on their own.
After a year, the interview-to-hire ratio at PLATO decreased to less than 4:1. Now that they have a standard tool to help predict whether or not a candidate is likely to be successful within their sales environment, the hiring managers at PLATO no longer need to rely upon the expertise of their Chairman in order to make a good hiring decision. Not only has this reduced interview-to-hire ratio, it’s reduced the amount of valuable time executives spend interviewing as well as the administrative and travel costs associated with bringing candidates in for interviews.
Leveraged PLATO's employment brand to attract the best candidates
In order to build a world class sales force, PLATO had to attract a new type of sales candidate. Previously candidates were required to have experience in the educational software industry. PLATO realized they were “recycling the problems of their competition.” They opted instead to measure candidates’ skills and motivations to sell and their ability learn a new industry.
The team at Employee Continuum worked with PLATO executives to articulate what was required for success in sales within PLATO. After determining the competencies required, the Employee Continuum team created a video highlighting how these competencies are demonstrated at PLATO. This video highlighted the overall importance of this sales role within PLATO and clearly articulated why someone would be compelled to apply to this position. By convincing candidates there was a higher cause associated with the sales position; PLATO was able to attract a more diverse pool of candidates that may not have otherwise considered this role.
Improved Quality of Hire
At the beginning of the project, Mr. Smith expressed his desire to create a system that would produce a “consistent turbine of quality candidates.” In order to achieve success, Employee Continuum needed to demonstrate that the Candidate Evaluation System could increase the efficiency of the recruiting process plus the quality of the candidate. The Employee Continuum project team relied upon two very important measurements to determine the effectiveness of the evaluation system – hiring manager satisfaction and the productivity of the new salespeople hired.
Hiring Manager Satisfaction
Before implementing the Candidate Evaluation System the hiring process was completely random and the hiring managers had a great deal of latitude in deciding who would become a member of their team. At best, HR would be able to interview their potential candidates. At worst, they would receive notification that a new hire was starting that day and the employee needed to receive a paycheck in two weeks. Management knew they needed to reign in these random practices. However, they were reluctant to introduce such a disciplined process fearing resistance from the hiring managers. The fear was how hiring managers would accept loss of control over hiring their own candidates.
After two months of using the disciplined approach, the hiring managers commented upon the quality of the candidates that had been brought through the system. Numerous hiring managers expressed that the candidates they would have hired using their previous methods could not compete with the caliber of the candidates that were presented after going through the evaluation system. Similarly, after two months, hiring managers were thrilled with the new hires' ability to get up to speed quickly at PLATO Learning and all associated this improvement with the more rigorous recruiting standards.
Productivity
In order to quantitatively demonstrate the quality of the new sales hires made at PLATO, Employee Continuum conducted an analysis of the relationship between candidate's results from the Candidate Evaluation System to their sales performance. The results of this study clearly indicated that those employees who scored very low on the evaluation system tended to meet smaller percentages of their sales quotas. Those with moderate to high results were clearly able to meet higher percentages of their quotas. Furthermore, this study supported Employee Continuum's whole person approach towards selection and assessment by demonstrating that those employees who had higher scores on at least two components of the evaluation system were much more likely to achieve their sales quotas than those employees who only scored high on one of the components. Finally, the results of this analysis demonstrated that even though the candidates had a significantly shorter tenure at PLATO Learning, they were just as likely as their more experienced peers to achieve their quotas. Taken as a whole, this research validated the effectiveness of the evaluation system as a predictor of success at PLATO Learning.
Continuous Improvement
Based upon the metrics obtained by utilizing the Candidate Evaluation System, the HR team is now able to predictably improve their methods. They are able to make the necessary changes required to continually exceed the hiring managers’ expectations and hire reps that are predictably able to learn their role and achieve their quota more quickly. By analyzing the source of their best quality employees, PLATO is able to target their recruiting resources and refine their message in order to attract the best candidates. By systematically adjusting their assessment standards, PLATO is able to consistently hire those sales people who are more likely to succeed. By utilizing the evaluation system, the HR team at PLATO is able to qualitatively and quantitatively demonstrate their sustained value to the organization.
