Case Studies Gallagher Bassett Optimizes Hiring with Assessments
Challenge
Gallagher Bassett is a leading insurance provider that wanted to optimize their hiring process. As a global organization, Gallagher Bassett hires around 350 new employees per year, the majority of whom are Insurance Claims Specialists who work closely with customers to resolve claims. Gallagher Bassett’s goal was to efficiently identify and hire candidates who would be able to deliver a high level of service and perform successfully in their roles.
Solution
Gallagher Bassett partnered with Criteria to deliver predictive assessments to job candidates for every role across the business. For their highest volume role, the Insurance Claim Specialists, they used three assessments: Cognify, Emotify, and the EPP.
Cognify is a game-based cognitive ability assessment that measures problem-solving, critical thinking, numerical reasoning, and verbal knowledge. It provides a predictive indication of how well someone can pick up on training, learn, and grow.
Emotify is an interactive emotional intelligence assessment that assesses someone’s ability to perceive, understand, and manage emotions. It is particularly helpful for client-facing roles that involve emotional labor.
The EPP, or Employee Personality Profile, is a general personality assessment that measures a wide range of behavioral traits associated with particular roles. It helps to predict someone’s comfort in a particular type of role, and provides feedback for long-term development and collaboration.
Criteria then conducted several benchmarking studies with the organization to identify the relationship between the assessments and a couple of important performance outcomes for Insurance Claims Specialists.
Results
Gallagher Bassett not only found that the assessments helped to predict job performance, but that it also led to improved efficiency for the talent acquisition team along with greater insights for hiring managers.
Better Job Performance
High performing Insurance Claims Specialists were more likely to score better on average on both Cognify and Emotify when compared to other employees.
For Emotify specifically, high performers were more likely to achieve a high score on Emotify. High performers also scored higher in all aspects of emotional intelligence as measured by Emotify, including perceiving and understanding emotions.
Gallagher Bassett was able to apply these early benchmarking results to their ongoing hiring process, enabling them to increase the number of high performers joining the company.
Ease of Use for Talent Acquisition Team
The Talent Acquisition team at Gallagher Bassett found that Criteria’s assessment solution was a success in helping them recruit and hire great candidates. Here’s what a few of them had to say:
“The reporting is fabulous!”
“It has been a positive experience using the platform. The reports generated are brilliant, and the feedback is concise and clear for hiring managers. The technical training specialists also use the results for training, which is not only expanding our use of the platform and delivering greater insight for us into our staff, but also delivering a more personal training experience for new hires.”
“The EI results are useful for claims jobs which have a greater need for claimant empathy.”
“The recommended interview questions are very helpful!”
“Immediately insightful results.”
Greater Insights for Hiring Managers
Hiring managers enjoyed greater insights from the score reports, enabling them to make more confident hiring decisions. They used the results from the EPP to improve their ability to coach and develop existing employees. Here’s what a few of them had to say:
“It gave me more insight into the candidate’s personality and skills prior to the interview and assisted in determining whether they would be a good fit for the role.”
“The assessments support a decision; they are a factor in the decision making.”
“I believe that the outcome of the assessments are really handy to guide the onboarding and capability uplift of the individual as it provides quite relevant insights into what may or may not work best for that individual.”
“I have found the information to be insightful to how the candidate may interpret or tackle a situation or react under pressure. It provides insights to their strengths and areas for growth.”
A Positive Candidate Experience
Gallagher Bassett’s candidates have also benefited from the candidate-friendly assessments. One candidate said:
“My experience with the testing criteria was good. It is the first time I have had to do something like this in my employment history, so it was interesting. I feel like I had learnt things about myself during it.”