Sam Black is a Strategic Business Partner with Profiles
International, a leader in testing and assessment products.
Her Associate, Joli Wilson, handles sales and customer service. Over the years, we have found that it was not just enough
to provide expert sales training, telemarketing training,
customer service training, and consulting services for
our clients. In many cases the raw resources, the
right employees, were not on board to participate
in the employee training programs.
As a result, we now help
our clients identify the qualities needed to perform
the sales, telemarketing, customer service, or management
positions within the organization, and then use state-of-the-art
tools to help recruit or identify those individuals
internally and then develop training and coaching to
support them. The result has been employee training
programs where employees benefit from the programs designed
and delivered by Sam Black Consulting because they are
the right employees to be trained.
Also, managers are able to provide effective
coaching and development programs
because they have specific information about each employee’s
development areas. Sam Black has an MBA in Management/Human
Resources.
What are assessments
and why they are critical for employee training?
Assessments, or tests,
are validated instruments that measure different qualities
of an applicant or employee. They may measure specific
skills, or may measure behaviors, attitudes and interests,
or may measure overall personality. The best tests for
business recruitment and development on the market are
those that have been validated with a working population,
and those that can create internally validated benchmarks
or patterns of performance. The best sales rep to sell
a “widget” in Omaha may not have the same
characteristics as the one who works the East Coast.
(And that has been proven!) Tools that allow fine-tuned
benchmark development are more accurate and valid than
those offering a “cookie cutter” pattern
or benchmark that is meant to apply to all employees
in that position at any company around the country.
Assessments can be administered
“paper and pencil” and self-scored, or can
be delivered electronically via the Internet and scored
by an algorithm that is impartial and validated. Sam
Black Consulting uses the Profiles International suite
of assessment tools. They are Internet delivered and
scored, and provide an array of instruments that can
be used for both pre-hire selection and post-hire coaching,
employee training programs, and ongoing
employee development as part of a coaching and performance
evaluation program.
