SmartMoves! Client Case Studies

Here are a few case studies illustrating the effects of the services we offer at SmartMoves!:

Aegis Lending

Leading Mortgage Banking Company

Aegis Lending is a diversified mortgage banking company with 101 branches located across the country, $5 billion dollars in annual business and over 2700 employees.

But something was wrong. The company was experiencing a severe productivity problem and in the year 2000-- this huge mortgage banker actually lost $2.5 million.

The company brought a new president on board and the first thing he did was focus on the company's manpower. He discovered that too many of the company's sales employees were not producing - even though they had apparently done well at previous employers.

It was decided that the best way to proceed was to take a look at the company's top producers and assess their cognitive skills, behavioral traits, and occupational interests to find a profile of success.

The company began to use Profile XT to create their database and then set about identifying candidates both from inside and outside the company who shared similar profiles.

Aegis found that the key to greater productivity was the ability to find people who matched the success profile which had been carefully benchmarked using Profile XT. The more closely the company was able to match the right individual to the right job, the more they prospered. From a losing year in 2000, Aegis posted profits of $9.3 million in 2001, $23 million in 2002, and $42 million in 2003. Aegis' management has credited this turnaround to the company's ever increasing use of Profiles assessments to facilitate job matching.
 

Deluxe Corporation

Check Printing Leader

Deluxe Corporation, founded in 1915 is the nation's leading check printer. The company generates about $1.3 billion in annual revenues and has 6,400 employees. The company is headquartered in Shoreview Minnesota.

Deluxe is a company that has made an ongoing commitment to employee assessments because they believe in the results. Here is what Executive Director of Human Resources, Julie Loosbrock says about the importance of job fit, "when employees fit into the culture, they become engaged, they become motivated and they delight the customer."

Deluxe uses a comprehensive suite of assessments from Step One Survey II for initial hires to Profile XT for job match accuracy to more specialized assessments for sale and customer support employees. While they began by administering assessments manually, they quickly moved to computer based and online tools. For example, the company is currently making excellent use of the new Internet-based Virtual Assessment Center that delivers immediate assessment results to management.
 

John H. Harland Company

Financial Services Printer

John H. Harland Company is a leading provider of software and printed products (NYSE:JH) to the financial services and educational market. This case study concerns the Dallas facilities of Harland Financial Solutions, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of J H Harland.

A major challenge presented itself to this company because of the implementation of new digital technology. Digital technology in the printing industry drastically changed the process used to print checks, direct marketing materials and financial forms. The company had hundreds of loyal employees who had to be assigned to new - and different jobs.

"The skills needed to work in print production under the old analog methods are completely different from what we need today," says David Cline, production manager of this company's main plant. " We needed a way to figure out which employees should be placed in which new jobs."

To deal with the challenge the company administered Profile XT to all production employees. The results not only showed which employees were better suited for retraining on digital systems, but also measured the attitudes of candidates to be retrained to learn new skills. Employees who were not assessed highly for production jobs were moved to customer service or other administrative areas of the company. In fact, two employees who worked for years in production are now successfully working at inside sales, their aptitude having been discovered by additional assessments.

J H Harland has now integrated the new digital methods and its productivity is higher than ever. Even though this challenge completely changed the way in which this company produces its products, not a single employee was terminated in the transition.
 

Simon Properties Group

Commercial Real Estate Management

Simon Properties Group is a nation-wide owner, developer and manager of commercial real estate. The company owns and manages properties in 36 states including the famed "Mall of America", the nation's largest mall, in Bloomington , Minnesota.

In a company with such wide reaching activities, quality management is essential. Simon Property Group uses employee assessments to both select and place employees and as an ongoing source of coaching information for management to use. The two most frequently used assessments at the company are Profile XT for job fit and CheckPoint 360.