iWAM Model of Excellence

Attraction, Recruitment and Selection of High Performing People

Identifying the difference that makes the difference

The Model of Excellence

Applications

Unlawful Discrimination

The Modelling Process

Continuous Improvement Approach

As you probably know, it is now a major challenge for businesses to attract and retain high performers who remain motivated and willing to stay their job. At Inspired Working we understand that other organisations have had this issue and what some of them have done is develop a Model of Excellence using the online profiling tool called the ‘inventory of Work Attitude and Motivation’ (iWAM). How have you solved this problem?

How effectively are you currently attracting and recruiting High Performers? How well are the results satisfying your needs?

You may wish to consider using the iWAM Questionnaire. It identifies thinking preferences and patterns of motivation which are normally below conscious awareness.

Would you like to write advertisements that will attract the type of Licensees who will demonstrate the same behaviours and attitude as your best performers? Are you interested in having a tool that will make short-listing and selection easier? Would it be useful to have a tool that will give you vital clues about how to manage your best performers so they stay and grow your business?

iWAM is very sophisticated in what it can reveal, yet simple to use and administer. It has grown out of the field of applied psychology called NLP which identifies a number of thinking patterns that have a massive influence on our behaviour. These patterns are called Meta Programmes because they govern how we perceive the world; what we notice and need in order to be motivated to act in a given context.

The Model of Excellence

With your experience and knowledge of your business you can provide the Knowledge and Skills required by high performing people. Our role is to develop a ‘Model of Excellence’ using iWAM to identify very specific patterns of behaviour that are consistently demonstrated by high performers. These can then be developed into a Model which will enable screening of candidates to identify those with the best match to the high performers. The Model can also be used to screen employees who show an interest in the role.

By developing a Model of Excellence it will be possible to identify the key motivational characteristics of your top performers. This information can be used to answer the question: “What is the difference between a top performer and a low performer?”

The Model can then be used to recruit the right person for the job, to train or coach them to be more like the model, and to manage them in a way that maximises the chances of retention.

The predictive power of the model is calculated (r², based on the correlation r). Once the predictive power of the model is high enough, the modelling process is ready to use. If the predictive power is too low, one needs to go back to one of the previous steps.

All we need in order to develop a Model is a number of your top performers in a particular role and a number of your lowest performers in that role to complete the iWAM Questionnaire.

Applications

The application of a Model of Excellence for recruitment consists of first writing the job advertisement so that it is congruent with attitude, and thinking preferences found in the model, and secondly testing whether the candidates correspond to the Model. A good advertisement will decrease the number of “low potential” candidates and increase the number of “high potential” candidates. The Model will also rank the candidates based on their fit with the Model (from “best fit” to “worst fit”). As a result you end up with a better funnel though which you can approach the job applicants.

Avoiding unlawful Discrimination

A common challenge when applying testing for recruiting is that one has to prove the relevance of the testing towards the job and prove that these tests do not unlawfully discriminate. Our tools solve these issues by objectively testing within the specific context of work.

Only you can decide if taking an innovative approach to attraction, recruitment and selection will make the difference you are looking for.

The Modelling Process

The process to create a model will include the following steps.

1. Selecting the Exemplars
   
   The Modelling process starts by identifying high and low performers and being able to rank them according to objective performance criteria. Next to the persons being modelled, ideally some performance data is also available on a control group of additional persons doing the same job.
2. Making a first draft of the model
   
   Based on the exemplars, the modeller creates a first candidate model. Patterns are selected to be included in the model, because they clearly discriminate between high performers and low performers or because they are typical for the organisational culture.
3. Model Refinement Process
   
   Once the model is made, the modeller runs the ranking software over the people included in the model. The modeller checks the model’s ranking VS the performance data. The Modeller will prepare questions to ask the organisation concerning patterns where “outliers”* are noticed (a high performer who seems to be outside the area of excellence for a pattern).
4. Model validation
   
   The Model is now being tested against a larger group of persons.  (Next to the exemplars, include some other persons doing the same job who have also been evaluated by the organisation’s performance criteria.) The predictive power of the model is calculated (r², based on the correlation r). Once the predictive power of the model is high enough, the modelling process is ready to use. If the predictive power is too low, go back to one of the previous steps.

Continuous Improvement Approach

Below is an outline of the longer term approach for continuous improvement.

1. Recruit: Question:
   • Are you attracting the right candidates?
     • If not, your advertising might need to be adapted to hire the people motivated by the patterns of the model
2. Select: Questions:
   • How do the people you select correspond to the model?
   • Do you see candidates that you would like to hire, even if this seems against the model?
   • Does the model give you too many candidates?
     • Test the model by also inviting in some candidates in the lower ranges of the ranking
3. Hire: Questions:
   • Can you motivate the right candidates to join?
     • If not, what seems to be the problem?
4. Train:
   • If you hire for attitude, be sure to train for competence!
5. Coach:
   • Coaching for performance means that the coaches should help the people hired to use the patterns detected from the high potentials.
   • Check where a person differs from the model, and coach them to learn at least coping behaviour to fit better with the model.
6. Evaluate:
   • On a yearly basis (or more frequently), check how your cycle is doing.
   • Validate the model.  (Do the people who were hired perform as expected? If not, what are the reasons?)
     • If the ranking seems wrong, adjust the model.
     • If needed, do extra training to improve the selection and coaching phases of the cycle.

* - Outliers might be due to high performers having developed “coping strategies”, meaning they are able to overcome their weaknesses in terms of attitude and motivation. It might also be an indication that the performance criteria used isn’t fully consistent.