Tools for independent audit of personnel management system

The very word "Assessment" causes the most conflicting emotions in many. All childhood, adolescence and youth evaluated us, starting from kindergarten and ending with institute. And although diaries and credits are long past, an assessment of knowledge, skills and potential inevitably makes one wary. What to hide, the procedure is not simple for those who evaluate, and for the participants in the assessment. Because it is not known what the results will be and what is the percentage of those who “fail” the certification. And the quality of staff is nothing more than an indicator of the quality of work of a manager.

But it’s still worth evaluating the staff, because it is the assessment (or audit) that will allow you to track and maintain the proper level of expertise of your people, which means that it will allow you to achieve your business goals.

Kristina Morozova (Wojciechowska) - Certified business coach, Fashion retail expert, general manager of KEDDO in America (New York, USA).

So, it is necessary to conduct an audit, certification and re-certification, testing (the name by and large does not matter), the audit system should work clearly and smoothly. From time to time, it is necessary to check the knowledge and professional competencies of your employees in order to identify problems in time and have time to resolve them.

Preconditions for staff assessment:

• business change;

• low level of qualification of employees "at the entrance";

• staff turnover;

• lack of managerial skills among administrators and managers who “grow out” of sellers;

• the need to check the availability of knowledge in the field of sales and / or product;

• drop in sales / conversion / repeat purchases;

• apathetic attitude of the staff to work;

• poor climate in the team, including at different levels of interaction;

•  negative customer reviews, mystery shoppers;

• conflicts within the team;

• low loyalty to the store and goods from the staff;

• doubts about staff qualifications;

• and finally, when you realize that "something is not right."

From alpha to gamma

There are four known states of human perception of what is happening:

alpha state - when everything is clear to you, the events that are taking place fully satisfy you, you feel calm and happy. “Alpha” is a very pleasant state and there is no need to change anything at this stage of life;

Beta state - when you are still comfortable and quite happy with your life, but sometimes you feel that "something is not right." Most often, in the Beta state, you cannot even plainly explain what exactly is “wrong,” but you definitely feel it. On the good side, it is during this period of time that it is worthwhile to evaluate the existing results, find problem areas and take measures to resolve them. But more often than not, nobody changes anything, you take a wait-and-see attitude, look what will happen next;

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Gamma state - that state when you already precisely understand what excites you and it becomes obvious what your "something wrong" lies in. There is no trace of complete satisfaction with life and tranquility, and your mind more and more occupies the object of irritation. You think over ways to solve the “something wrong” that has arisen, and at the same time analyze how this “wrong” happened to you, who is to blame and what to do. At this stage, you should make a stop, take a breath and soberly assess the situation. This condition is the extreme relatively comfortable point from which it is time to start your new Alpha. At this stage, most people understand the need for analysis and quick changes, but either out of fear of confirming their careless conclusions with undeniable facts, or hoping for a Russian "maybe", they still do not take the necessary measures.

To wait at this stage, randomly using the peered tools for optimizing business processes, is fraught with a fall into the final state;

Delta condition - this is a crisis. In its most unsightly images - from the crisis of creative and financial to the crisis of values, the collapse of business, rash actions, personal and corporate depression. Obviously, one does not have to expect anything good from this state, especially since getting out of it is several orders of magnitude more difficult than from the previous two.  

Therefore, it is strongly recommended not to delay and not to wait for things to change on their own, but to arm themselves with assessment tools and honestly look at the available results. Finding the right business tools after is much easier, understanding what SPECIFIC problem you are solving.

One clever man said: "Each chain is as strong as its weakest link." The purpose of the assessment is just to find this weak link and strengthen it, instead of rushing blindly and randomly to improve one or the other link in your business chain.

Evaluation Tools
Audit of labor resources - a system of consulting support, analytical assessment and independent examination of the personnel potential of the organization.

If you want to conduct a comprehensive diagnosis of your business as a whole or your workforce in particular, the best way is to invite experts who will conduct the audit. This is not an easy task, but you will get a complete and honest evaluation result by third-party (which is important), not interested experts. As a rule, after an audit, clients are offered a performance improvement program with a detailed description of the tools, timing of implementation and ways to control and maintain the desired result. If necessary, the changes can be implemented by invited experts, outsourcing the project. In this case, the likelihood of achieving your goals and optimizing the business of 99 from 100. True, pleasure is not cheap. But very, very high quality.

Mystery shopper - a time-tested way to assess the level of service.

In a good way, it is better to invite mystery shoppers from organizations specializing in this service. In this case, you can be sure of the quality and impartial assessment. It is permissible to do everything yourself, by aleatherg, say, your friends to play the role of a mystery shopper. What is important to consider in this case? Provide your fake client with a list of questions that the seller needs to ask, say, ask about the materials, production, doubt the quality, clarify the benefits, etc. And a list of components that you should pay attention to: the presence of rugs in the places of fitting, the appearance of sellers, a badge, hair taken, shape (if your standards require it), cleanliness of equipment, mirrors and others. You can provide a secret buyer with a hidden recording audio device, which will help to analyze the quality of the seller’s work in more detail.
Tests, certifications - an effective way to understand what knowledge your employees have.

You can check the knowledge of the staff: the assortment of the store, product categories, the characteristics of a particular brand. It is important to check the availability of professional knowledge and skills, sales skills and work with customers, the implementation of service standards. I recommend using several methods for analysis in order to obtain an objective result. For example, testing with a choice of the correct answer from several suggested ones, questionnaires with free fields for an answer, writing assignments, individual interviews, demonstration of knowledge and skills, answers to control questions, etc.

Business games, cases - quite a popular and effective tool for practicing in game mode (I am a client, you are a seller) of different sales techniques.

It is better if the sellers initiate case situations, analyzing together with you in a group, say, in the morning meeting, the situations with clients that have arisen in the hall. It is important for the manager to convey to the employees that to come and admit that something did not work in working with the client is not an indicator of low qualification, but, on the contrary, a desire to develop and improve professionally.
KPI (Key Performance indicators) - key performance indicators.

KPI in sales - these are numerical indicators by which you can evaluate the work of staff. The four main components of the retail performance indicator are traffic, number of sales, conversion, average check / repeat sale.

a) Traffic - the number of potential customers who learned about the product, went to the store or visited the website themselves. The more traffic, the better. Attracting traffic, for the most part, is an indirect task for sellers. Here marketing, advertising, window dressing work. The exception is word of mouth; it is usually created by the seller himself.

b) Number of sales - the numerical number of customers making a purchase in the considered period of time (week, month, quarter, year). Analyze the relationship of sales and various external and internal factors: weather, employees in a shift, the availability of a new assortment, stocks, events in the city, etc. This will help to get a more complete cut.

c) Conversion - the percentage of sales to traffic. The higher the conversion, the better the sellers work. For example, 1 000 people entered the store, an order was made by 100 people. It turns out that the conversion = 100 / 1000 = 0.1, that is, 10% of those who entered were “converted” into buyers. In those sales where the sale is carried out not in one stage, but in several, they form a more complex scheme - a sales funnel.

d) The average check or profit per client is a very important indicator and it can be increased in two ways: by selling a more expensive product or service; increasing the amount of goods in the check. The increase in the average check is mainly accounted for by skills in sales technique. Feedback is a simple way to evaluate what is happening within the team, but, unfortunately, rarely used.

If you want to know something, just ask your people about it. Every day they work with customers and assortment, objections and grateful reviews, they most likely have ideas on how to make your store better, and they will be happy to tell you this if you ask. If you are afraid that employees will be afraid to tell the truth - create an anonymous box of questions and suggestions.

A well-developed and clearly organized personnel assessment procedure brings mutual benefit to both the manager and employees, it not only helps to understand the organization’s personnel potential, improves the overall performance, but also allows each certified employee to take a fresh look at himself, to understand what he needs improve and adjust in yourself.

This article was published in the 136 issue of the print version of the magazine.