Staffing Firm Reduces Workers’ Comp. Incident Rate 28.5% with Integrity Testing from Insight Worldwide.

SOS Staffing implemented Insight Worldwide integrity testing in all 119 offices across the United States. A review of comp. claim frequency a year later revealed a 28.5% decline in their incident rate.

John Morrison of SOS stated, “Reducing Workers’ Compensation claims by even a small margin can have a significant bottom-line impact on a company of our size.” He went on to say, “By implementing Insight’s integrity testing, we believe we have improved the quality of our workforce and are seeing a reduction in Workers’ Compensation claims.”

Read the case study and download the entire report here 

  “[JELD-WEN] contracts with Insight Worldwide to provide pre-hire integrity testing, which is intended to screen out job candidates likely to exhibit undesirable behavior, such as theft, workers’ compensation fraud, violence or deception in the workplace. … The integrity testing alone results in hiring cautions for 22 percent of the firm’s job applicants. And the company has seen how accurate the hiring cautions are. “When we go against the recommendation,” said Woody Sine, JELD-WEN’s director of risk management technology services, “when there’s a caution issued and we hire anyway, those people don’t stay hired.”

This rigorous pre-hire process eliminates about half of all job applicants from consideration. This level of scrutiny may seem excessive to some. And Beegle acknowledges that in a tight economy, the team has had to question whether the results justify the cost of such diligence. So far, the answer is still yes. New hires once accounted for at least 40 percent of JELD-WEN’s workers’ comp injury claims in a year. Today, that number is 12.3 percent.”

Excerpt from the November 2011 edition of Risk & Insurance Magazine article: Opening the Door to Risk Reduction, by Michelle Kerr. To read the article in its entirety go to:

www.riskandinsurance.com/story.jsp?storyId=533342677

JELD-WEN is a worldwide manufacturer of doors and windows.

 Read more

As professionals charged with addressing the underlying causes of employee theft, we should recognize that this situation creates the perfect environment for encouraging minority retail associates to take informal action on their own to correct perceived workplace inequity. In other words, gender…or racial and ethnic…wage inequity creates a social climate that encourages pilferage, theft, dishonesty, and counterproductive behavior to be rationalized as a justified response in the mind of these employees. This means that the seeds of employee dishonesty may still be present in many companies and workplaces all across the land. I hope that most readers of this column will agree that this is not a healthy situation. Click here to read more

Prepare to Hire the Right People – It can cost between three and six times the person’s annual salary to hire someone who doesn’t work out. Take the time and effort to get the right people on the bus.

Read more> Click here 

Make sure that you are selecting from the right people – make sure that the people you interview have integrity.

Read more>  Click here

Comp price hikes reflect unusual economic environment, expert says

First quarter 2011 data for workers’ comp shows a change. For the first time in nearly six years, pricing levels outside California showed an overall increase, according to a report by Towers Watson. Source: Risk and Insurance Magazine.

To read more about rising workers’ comp pricing changes click here:

http://www.riskandinsurance.com/story.jsp?storyId=533339595

To read more about reducing workers’ comp claims click here:

http://insightww.com/index.php/products-and-services/integrity-assessments/

Insight Worldwide announced that they reached a testing milestone in the first week of May, 2011. The company, with help from their 200+ clients, recorded the administration of the three-millionth pre-employment assessment under the Insight brand names of QuikStaff, Integrity Plus, iServ, CSI (Corrections Selection Inventory) as well as job specific, client customized assessments.

“We owe a debt of gratitude to our many, valued clients who made this accomplishment possible,” stated company founder and president, Bill Johnston. “We are fortunate to be able to do business with great companies in a vast array of industries.” Johnston continued, “And we see a strong future in our focus of helping our clients reduce their risk and protect their businesses with our pre-employment assessments.”

The primary benefits realized by Insight clients are reductions in workers’ compensation expenses and turnover along with improved safety and quality of hires. A recent review of testing effectiveness showed that the Insight tests were able to identify more than one-in-five applicants as a high risk for potential employers using the assessment. The test results have helped Insight clients recognize and avoid nearly 700,000 high risk candidates before they are hired.

For more information contact the business development department at 888-314-8908.

Hiring the Right Individual for Your

Corrections Staff

By Marcia Morgan and Jack E. Smith

 Warden Downey sat at his desk staring at the budget numbers. The latest financial crisis has hit the department of corrections hard and employee issues — hiring, terminating and turnover — are some of the biggest expenses. Finding an employee who is the right “fit” is needed more than ever. Additionally, federal legislation like the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) has raised awareness about zero tolerance for staff-inmate sexual relations; but how do you identify and avoid hiring staff with this propensity? Today’s economic and political climate demands that Warden Downey screenin high-performing individuals who stay with the organization while screening out potentially manipulative, dishonest, violent or predatory individuals. So, how can these difficult objectives be accomplished? 

The Problem

The world of corrections work is rapidly changing. The first-line employee of the past was hired and trained to perform “a” job. He was to be physically strong and a disciplinarian. But to be effective in the prison or jail of today, employees must possess a higher degree of integrity and problem-solving skills and be able to work well in a more team-oriented environment. He wider variety of duties, provide reliable service, be a good communicator, solve problems and adhere to many more rules/policies/procedures than in the past. Finally, the correctional officer of today must be prepared to continually develop and update his or her skills.

To read the full article please click here

“Placing unknown employees in a client’s workplace where the workers may have access to merchandise, cash and other company property could generate crime claims and errors and omissions losses”, Mr. Powell said.’

“Before applicants can work for Select Staffing, they must complete a behavioral testing survey developed by Salem, Ore.-based Insight WorldWide, Inc.”

To read the full article click here 

West Virginia Corrections Streamlines Hiring Process and Saves Money

 Wayne Armstrong, Director of Human Resources for the West Virginia Division of Corrections, shared the frustration of others in his agency. It took too long to hire someone… just getting through the hiring list from the West Virginia Division of Personnel that oversees the state’s civil service system took time. Then there was disseminating the candidate information to all the departments, conducting background checks and drug screens, etc. “It could take upward of three months to get to the interview stage and many of the good applicants had gotten jobs elsewhere in that time,” stated Armstrong. “Something had to change with the hiring timeframe without compromising public safety.”

 So the correctional services in West Virginia, under Secretary of Military Affairs and Public Safety James W. Spears, tackled this issue head-on. They reviewed their hiring process, identified a tool to streamline the application procedures and coordinated their efforts with the sister agencies – Division of Corrections, Juvenile Services, Regional Jails and Correctional Facility Authority. The agencies had the same vested interest since they hire from one pool of applicants provided through the West Virginia Division of Personnel.

 West Virginia selected the Corrections Selection Inventory (CSI) employee hiring tool from Insight Worldwide, Inc.  It is now offered in 20 Workforce West Virginia (a one-stop state agency for employment-related issues) locations throughout the state plus all correctional facilities, regional jails and juvenile centers.  They started using the CSI in October 2009 and the early results are significant.  Where it took over three months to get to the interview phase, it now takes two to four weeks. The applicant information and profile from the CSI immediately goes out to the three agencies where before it could take up to six weeks.  The West Virginia Division of Personnel simultaneously receives the same information and can create a certified listing of names in a much more accelerated manner that complies with state code.

 “In the past, we often had to go into an interview ‘cold’ without all the information about the candidate. Now, we have a good profile in front of us so we can ask better questions and make better, faster decisions. It is more expedient and we are much more informed. The speed and information prior to the interview are the two best parts,” said Armstrong. Their hope is to get better quality employees as well.

 The instrument allows them to look at more of the applicant’s profile domains than before. One correctional psychologist in West Virginia has found the “principle behavior” section to be particularly useful. Identifying one’s propensity to file claims, exhibit violence, test ethical and sexual boundaries can reduce the number of problem employees, lawsuits and administrative staff hours in dealing with the “bad apples.”

The pressures of not filling a position fast enough can also have a fiscal impact. West Virginia correctional facilities are staffed tightly. They need to fill positions so that they don’t have to require staff to do mandatory over-time which can reduce morale and employee retention. Keeping staff on board saves an agency money in several ways. One significant way is by reducing training costs. West Virginia estimates it costs over $20,000 to train one officer in their first year of employment.

“We are always looking for a better way to do business,” stated Missy Hayes, Human Resources for the Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority. Insight Worldwide’s Corrections Selection Inventory proved to be the answer.