Robert P. Wohlfarth, vice president of business development for TD Madison and Associates, an executive search firm was the guest speaker at the CVG’s monthly breakfast program, speaking on the topic : Hire Smart or Manage Hard – Pick One: A Guide to Choosing a Management Team.

"Employee turnover ranks as one of the top concerns of management nationwide,” Wohlfarth said. According to Department of Labor statistics, 56 percent of employees will not last more than two years in a job. The associated cost of employee turnover nationwide is $5 trillion per year.

“Companies in every industry experience turnover due to hiring the wrong person for the job, “ Wohlfarth said. “The key to successful hiring is knowing how to structure the interview process to focus on those traits that will create a successful relationship and eliminate the ‘gut instinct’ decision that is typical of the interview process.”

Behavioral interviewing helps employers select the best person for the job by asking questions that elicit the most revealing answers from the applicant as contrasted with traditional interviews, which average only 19 percent predictive accuracy. (source?)

According to Wohlfarth, successful corporate leaders should possess a variety of attributes: intelligence, character, culture, vision, motivation and “emotional intelligence.” Of these, he said, emotional intelligence may be the best indicator of success in shepherding a company from start-up to a mature enterprise. “If you can hire on just one attribute, choose emotional intelligence,” Wohlfarth counseled. The job candidate possessing emotional intelligence exhibits specific traits that can be identified in TD Madison’s behavioral-based interview process: self awareness, managing emotions, self control, empathy and skill in handling relationships.

Four Phases of Corporate Evolution
Companies should also define where their organization is in the four phases of business inception, and select management leaders who have the ability to adapt to changing situations and remain effective as the company matures.

Wohlfarth described the start-up phase of a company as the “design development” phase, a time of euphoric beginnings that call for leaders who are creative, flexible self-starters with a wealth of ideas and energy. In the second, or “implementation phase,” the company becomes more operations focused. Management leaders in this phase need to possess tremendous drive, but they must also be conceptual and well-organized. Phase three – “market entry” – is characterized by what Wohlfarth called the “damn the torpedoes” mindset: a consumer and sales oriented, proactive, action-filled phase. The final phase, “the golden years,” characterize the mature enterprise, headed by a management that is strategic, diplomatic and collaborative in its approach to business.

By employing a behavior based interview model, Wohlfarth said, the interviewer can gain valuable insights into which applicants are likely to remain relevant as the company grows and changes. The process utilizes self-appraisal in asking a series of questions: What was the situation? What were your actions? What were the results?
While the TD Madison model is focused on helping companies hire the right person for the job, it also helps reduce the number of “bad hires, which cost companies millions of dollars annually in poor performance, lost revenue, training costs and benefits. Wohlfarth described the top reasons for employee failure as poor performance, dishonesty, unreliability, and poor people and technical skills.

Checking references is a critical part of the process, Wohlfarth said, because resumes often do not tell the truth. According to a survey of (insert source), 30 percent of job applicants altered dates on their resumes, 22 percent made false claims, 41 percent inflated salaries, 33 percent inflated previous job titles and responsibilities, 25 percent listed phony employers and 35 percent falsified educational records.