The DBR Online Issue 3 - Hiring the best of the best

ISSUE 3/2018 

The Drake 

Business 

Review Online 

we found a rock star! 

hiring the best of the best 

six compelling reasons why 

you should outsource your 

hr functions 

top five metrics for 

workforce analytics 

a drake case study 

tst overland express reduces 

turnover and improves productivity 

thanks to drake edmonton 

Photo: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 

People | Productivity | Performance

people 

productivity 

performance 

54% 52% 

READ 

EMPLOYEES’ 

REVIEWS 

LOOK UP 

SALARY 

INFORMATION 

According to the Undercover Recruiter blog, employers 

are losing a lot of opportunities by forgetting to create 

a mobile-friendly experience for jobseekers. 

• 45% of job seekers search for jobs daily on 

their mobile device 

• 59% say it’s important to save a job from 

their mobile device and later apply to the 

job on a desktop 

• 89% of job seekers think mobile devices play 

a critical role in the job hunting process 

Going hand in hand with optimizing your website for 

mobile viewing is the ease in which applicants can 

apply to your job postings. 

ACCORDING TO THE HR NEWS WEBSITE 

ERE MEDIA, THE “APPLICATION RATES 

(OF MOBILE JOB SEEKERS) DROP BY 

A STAGGERING 365 PERCENT IF AN 

APPLICATION TAKES MORE THAN 15 

MINUTES TO COMPLETE.” 

Furthermore, the data found that simply halving 

the question count on an application from 50 to 25 

questions nearly doubles the applicant to candidate 

conversion rate from 5.6% to 10.6%. With today’s 

competitive candidate-driven talent market, top talent 

only stays on the market for 10 days on average. An 

increased applicant flow means that you can’t afford 

to get bogged down with your screening, interviewing 

and hiring processes if you want to hire the best. 

Contact your local Drake office and ask how we 

can assist you at any stage of the recruiting process. 

Choose from a full suite of Talent Acquisition 

Solutions to augment or outsource your current 

recruitment process. 

2 The Drake Business Review Online | Issue 3 / 2018 | drakeintl.com

people 

We Found a Rock Star! 

Hiring the Best of the Best 

Scenario #1: You’ve got a critical position that needs 

to be quickly filled by a qualified candidate. For 

every day the position doesn’t get filled, your inbox 

fills up a bit more with work to be done because 

your unfilled position hasn’t been staffed. You see 

tons of resumes and have interviewed scores of 

candidates, but the rock star you’re looking for isn’t 

emerging. You refuse to “settle” for a mediocre 

candidate, but the work is piling up and you’ve got 

to do something. 

Scenario #2: Three months ago, you thought you 

had the perfect candidate for a job and decided to 

hire him. You negotiated a compensation package, 

relocated the candidate, and did some internal public 

relations work with the team. Two months after the 

candidate hit the job, you realized that your candidate 

was a PURE (previously undetected recruiting error). 

The candidate had a major issue with responding to 

pressure and would become rude and angry with 

peers, employees, and customers whenever the heat 

was turned up. 

You’re now faced with either making a massive 

investment in the person or making a job change. 

Not a pretty picture. 

Finding the right candidate for a job can be highly 

frustrating for both managers and recruiters. If you 

wait too long, the work will keep piling up and your 

management may start thinking you can get along 

without the position. Pull the trigger too soon and 

you risk hiring a candidate that is a PURE. There 

are legitimate situations where it simply takes a 

long time to find a suitable candidate. You need to 

minimize the situations where you either hire the 

wrong candidate or take forever to find the right 

one. Here are some simple techniques to help you 

find that rock star for your organization: 

Know what you are looking for: Sounds basic, but 

it is amazing how frequently managers dust off a 

job description that hasn’t been changed in years to 

use as the basis for hiring a new employee. Hiring to 

an out-dated job description can lead to ineffective 

resume screening and poor-fit candidates. Give the 

job description a good working over and ensure the 

skills documented in the job description accurately 

reflect what you’re looking for. 

3

Use multiple interviewers who can focus on different 

skills: Based on the job description, your candidate 

may need a combination of functional, technical, 

leadership, and people skills. A candidate who may 

be a technical wiz may also have the people skills of 

a head of lettuce. Use trusted interviewers who have 

expertise in each area of focus and ask them to drill 

the candidate for their respective area to ensure the 

total skills package is there. 

Look beyond the obvious: One of my best hires 

several years back didn’t meet the stereotypical 

requirements of the job but had some outstanding 

core skills that were easily translatable to the new 

job. Had I stuck with my mental image of what I 

was looking for, I would have rejected the candidate 

during the resume screening process. If your job for 

a procurement analyst requires strong analytical 

skills, consider looking at candidates from other 

functional disciplines, i.e. finance, to fill the role. 

I’ve continually been amazed the number of times 

“out-of-the-box” candidates have become rock stars. 

Don’t limit yourself to candidates with stereotypical 

requirements. 

Get a glimpse into critical thinking skills: You’ve 

probably heard about the “why manhole-covers are 

round” type of questions and may be chuckling at the 

prospect of asking a candidate such an off-the-wall 

question. The truth is, critical-thinking questions are 

a great way to understand how a candidate thinks 

through problems, how they respond to pressure, 

and how ‘quick-on-their-feet’ they can be. I’ve 

changed my hiring decision (both ways) based upon 

the critical question I asked during the interview. A 

great approach to this is to think about your own 

business and create some hypothetical questions, 

i.e. if you’re an automobile manufacturer ask the 

candidate how they would design a car that gets 200 

miles per gallon. Think about the “tough questions” 

you can ask and observe your candidate as they 

wrestle with their response. 

Get a hundred-day plan from the candidate: 

Wondering what a candidate would do when they 

land on your doorstep? Ask them! During your final 

selection process, ask each of your candidates to 

put together a hundred-day plan of what they are 

going to get accomplished during their first hundred 

days on the job. This technique is very effective 

in assessing how a candidate will take the ideals 

discussed during the interview process and put them 

to action if they were to be hired. 

Give peers and candidate’s prospective employees 

a voice: A key aspect of a candidate’s fit potential 

is how they will get along with peers and, if the 

candidate will be managing people, his or her 

prospective employees. You may have a functional 

and technical maestro but if he doesn’t have the 

teaming or collaboration skills, you might be creating 

a mess for yourself and the team. Just be cautious 

and get a cross-section of opinions; you don’t want 

to base team chemistry decisions on just one person’s 

viewpoint. 

The rock stars are out there and can be delivering 

value in your organization. Just make sure you keep 

the focus on some of these basic hiring strategies 

and you’ll get the best of the best driving results 

for you. 

Personality assessments 

drake p3® 

Better hiring should be a top 

priority for all employers to 

reduce the financial impact and 

stress associated with turnover. 

The Drake P3® online assessment solution 

provides employers with objective, sciencebased, 

behavioural and personality profiles. 

It is a powerful web-based tool that provides 

you with a more objective and consistent 

means of evaluation for better hires. 

To find out more, contact your local 

Drake office. 

Reprinted with the permission of Lonnie Pacelli, an internationally recognized author of Why Don’t They Follow Me? and Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers and 

other books. He is also president of Leading on the Edge International. His practical, no-nonsense, experience-based approach to solving tough problems has helped 

leaders, project managers and teams consistently deliver results. www.projectmanagementadvisor.com 


a drake case study 

TST Overland Express 

reduces turnover and 

improves productivity 

thanks to 

Drake Edmonton 

Corporate profile 

• Industry - Shipping 

• Countries where they operate - Canada, US 

• Number of locations - 14 across Canada 

• Number of employees – 2000 nationwide 

• 45 in Edmonton 

About: 

TST Overland Express is one of Canada's leading 

providers of time sensitive, less than truckload (LTL) 

North American transportation services. Since 1928, 

they have offered unparalleled quality service and 

customer support, while utilizing the most current 

technology available to the industry. 

Executive Summary: 

TST Overland Express is one of the leading companies 

in Canada providing specialty and bulk trucking 

services across the country and into the US. Their 

branch in Edmonton provides coordinated services 

throughout the province, with links into Northern 

Alberta communities as well as key linkages to other 

Western Canadian locations. Due to the circumstances 

of their business and operational structure, the branch 

faced significant challenges in filling roles, including 

irregular and evening shifts. 

Drake’s understanding of the market, as well as our 

scope of recruitment experience, allowed Drake to 

tap into candidates who were aligned to fill evening 

shifts and irregular shift assignments. Due to Drake’s 

testing regimen, Drake was able to reduce turnover and 

improve the productivity on the regular shift workers 

as well as provide a reliable stable of part-time staff 

in order to fill irregular requests. 

The Challenge: 

TST’s Edmonton’s office was faced with multiple 

issues. The head office had instituted a hiring policy 

that was focused on recruiting part time personnel 

which limited budgets for advertising and sourcing 

candidates at the local level. While the positions did 

not require many skilled labour positions, the irregular 

hours and the evening shifts presented a significant 

challenge in recruiting reliable candidates to fill the 

roles on a long-term basis. Turn-over and understaffing 

were a regular challenge faced by the branch which 

created a level of instability on meeting quotas and 

goals on a wider scale for their business. 

5

How Drake helped: 

When Drake first met with TST, there were two 

focuses in creating a long term solution for their 

issues. The first was to develop and execute a 

sourcing strategy that identified candidates who 

were suited to evening shifts and irregular hours. 

By targeting those factors first, Drake was able to 

start building a pool of candidates who, even if they 

required slightly more testing and training to start, 

would strongly reduce turnover and offer higher 

productivity in the long term with the client. In 

addition to that, Drake’s recruitment policy helped 

continually refresh the available candidates in the 

temporary pool for irregular hours, ensuring that 

short term requirements and ramp-ups could be 

met on a consistent basis. 

As Drake grew better acquainted with TST’s 

business needs and corporate environment, it was 

better able to anticipate needs and proactively add 

candidates for positions that were sure to be needed 

on a part time basis, such as admin candidates, 

lumpers and swampers. Over time, Drake developed 

a highly targeted recruitment process which not 

only aligned with TST’s needs, but also evolved with 

the company as a whole as it changed and adapted 

with their market. 

“WORKING WITH DRAKE IS LIKE 

WORKING WITH AN EXTENDED 

FAMILY. IT DOESN’T ALWAYS FEEL 

LIKE A BUSINESS TRANSACTION. IT’S 

A GOOD RELATIONSHIP THAT KEEPS 

GOING AND KEEPS GROWING. I DON’T 

NEED TO BABYSIT THE ACCOUNT OR 

WORRY THAT THEY WON’T DELIVER. 

DRAKE’S TEAM PROVIDES AN EASE 

OF RELATIONSHIP, A PLEASANT AND 

FRIENDLY CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP, 

AND MAKE IT EFFORTLESS TO GET 

WHAT I NEED.” – TIFFANY MELNYK, 

OFFICE SUPERVISOR. 

Results: 

TST has been a Drake client 

for well over a decade and we 

continue to provide a consistent 

stream of high-quality, wellsuited 

candidates to meet TST’s 

needs. We have developed a 

strong working relationship 

with TST based on solid lines 

of communication, including 

regular updates and reviews. We 

continue to refine the process 

and align our sourcing to meet 

the developing needs of TST. 

Drake provides an easy process 

to use to source candidates, and 

as a reliable partner, we can 

meet TST’s business needs on a 

consistent, worry-free basis. 

Drake’s ability to create and deploy a 

targeted recruitment process capable of 

identifying candidates who fit the unique 

shifts and hours TST needed was a key 

point in reducing churn and ensuring that 

shifts were fully staffed. 

By regularly evaluating the client’s needs 

and the fluctuations in the market, 

Drake is able to keep enough candidates 

in the system to ensure that needs 

can be swiftly met, building a trusted 

relationship as the partner who could 

deliver on-time and as needed. 

To find out how Drake can help you 

address your recruitment challenges, 

contact your local Drake office. 


-24 

-13 

Dominance 

Extroversion 

+12 

Patience 

+15 

Conformity 

90% of Executives say 

New Hire Retention is 

an issue 

The Futurestep division of Korn Ferry conducted 

a survey in 2017 on the retention of new hires and 

received 1,817 executive responses. In addition to 90 

percent of executives saying that new hire retention is 

an issue, they also said that between 10 percent to 25 

percent of new hires leave within the first 6 months. 

The top reason new recruits leave, according to 

the survey, is their role is different from what they 

expected it would be during the hiring process. Nearly 

all the respondents (98 percent) said that onboarding 

programs are a key factor in retention efforts. 

Using Drake P3's® ‘Manager to 

Subordinate’ communication 

profile will teach both individuals 

how to communicate clearly 

and effectively. This will remove 

barriers, enabling team integration 

to be faster while improving upon 

the productivity and performance 

of your new hire. 

Contact your local Drake Office and find out how 

Drake P3® can be used to more easily and effectively 

integrate your new hires. 

7

productivity 

Six Compelling Reasons 

Why You Should Outsource 

Your HR Functions 

The Society for Human Resources 

Management (SHRM) in the 

USA conducted a survey of 

hundreds of companies about 

their outsourcing habits. 

Here are the six compelling reasons 

companies outsource: 

1) 26% of companies outsource to save money. 

This isn’t terribly surprising. What company doesn’t 

want to pinch pennies where they can? 

2) 23% of companies outsource to focus on strategy. 

Spreading yourself too thin with administrative 

tasks doesn’t leave a lot of time for planning, so 

this makes sense. 

3) 22% of companies outsource to improve compliance. 

It is increasingly challenging to stay in compliance 

and increasingly risky to not meet requirements so 

outsourcing this risk is beyond smart. 


4) 18% of companies outsource to improve accuracy. 

If you’ve got too much on your plate (and who 

doesn’t?) accuracy may fall by the wayside, so this 

also makes sense. 

5) 18% of companies outsource due to a lack of 

experience in-house. Knowing your weaknesses is 

as important as knowing your strengths, so handing 

off a task you know you can’t handle properly to 

someone with expertise is a great business decision. 

6) 18% of companies outsource to take advantage 

of technological advances. With big data worth 

tapping into, but costly technology needed to really 

delve into strategic analytics, outsourcing can offer 

solutions without a significant investment. 

SHRM followed up with another question: what 

HR functions are companies most often choosing 

to outsource? Of those who outsource, here’s a 

quick rundown of the 10 tasks most commonly 

outsourced: 

• Temporary staffing 

• Background checks 

• Executive development/coaching 

• Pension administration 

• Administration 

• Employee assistance/counselling 

• Employee benefit administration 

• Payroll 

• Retirement planning 

• Training/management development 

programs 

unbundled recruitment 

Every day a position remains 

unfilled costs your company. 

You need high-quality job 

candidates and measurable 

results. You also want to 

ensure that your hiring 

process is efficient and in 

full regulatory compliance 

at every stage of the hiring 

process. 

Drake can assist you at any stage of the 

recruiting process. Choose from a full 

suite of recruiting solutions to augment or 

outsource your current process. Solutions 

such as resume screening, behavioural 

interviewing; background checks; reference 

checking, skills testing, and more. 

Our unbundled recruitment solutions 

enable you to focus your time, talent and 

energy on growing your company. 

To find out more, contact your 

local Drake office. 

Human resources outsourcing is an excellent way 

for smaller companies to transform and get the 

expertise they need without hiring additional 

employees at high salaries. It also enables them 

to focus on current staff and such critical issues as 

engagement and retention. 

For larger companies, compliance can be a huge risk as 

can legal liability, so outsourcing grants extra layers 

of protection. From reducing operating expenses, 

controlling legal risks, streamlining HR functions 

to focusing on the core business, outsourcing HR 

functions works for organizations of all shapes and 

sizes to help them save time and money. 

9

performance 

Top Five Metrics for Workforce Analytics 

Excerpt of a White Paper by Human 

Capital Management Institute and 

Human Concepts 

Over the past few years, organizations have 

done an unprecedented amount of restructuring, 

retrenchment, and downsizing. Much of this has 

been very reactionary, without time to think or take 

into consideration the optimal workforce size and 

structure. Most companies either lack metrics to 

measure the workforce, or measure everything and 

don’t know which numbers really matter. 

The following five key human capital metrics 

provide visibility to understand and analyze the 

workforce and enable data driven decision making 

for the workforce. In addition, these metrics help 

organizations to not inadvertently cut skills that 

would be critical to future success. 

The most advanced organizations in the world 

use human capital metrics and analytic tools to 

manage their workforce. With a defined human 

capital strategy and the following five key metrics, 

organizations will be better prepared to outperform 

competitors when opportunities surface: 

First Metric: Total Cost of Workforce 

The Total Cost of Workforce metric can be used 

at a macro level to measure alignment of the 

workforce, (usually the largest single cost) with 

business objectives. 

CEO’s and top line management continually ask, 

“How do we know we have the right staff?” Or, “Do 

we have the right number of people to achieve our 

objectives?” These questions will always be critical 

in linking workforce and business strategy. All these 

questions are directed at HR; however, HR rarely 

has the tools to adequately answer these questions. 

Total Cost of Workforce is the sum of all workforce 

related costs, including all compensation, benefits, 

and other employee costs. Total cost of employees 

includes all employee related costs for the 

organization for a given period. The workforce is 

defined as employees plus contingent (contract and 

temporary) workers. 

Measuring Total Cost of Workforce allows 

organizations to get a true picture of their 

workforce spend and make better workforce 

strategy decisions. Organizations that only track 

employee costs are inaccurately representing their 

true workforce costs. 


Embedding workforce cost information and metrics 

into advanced tools builds a workforce analytic 

capability and focus that allows users to more 

effectively manage the size and shape of the 

workforce. 

Second Metric: Management Span of Control 

Management Span of Control is the best tool to 

address cost and structure of the management 

staff. When organizations are looking to optimize 

productivity and efficiency, this metric can be 

used to evaluate the overall organization as well as 

particular regions or business units. It is calculated 

by dividing the total population (including 

management) by the total management population. 

By understanding this metric and tracking it over 

time, organizations will gain insight into workforce 

trends and mix; for example, if the workforce is 

top heavy or if management is stretched too thin. 

Management Span of Control can be used to 

identify pockets of the workforce where a specific 

structure can work better than others. The 

organization can adjust and optimize by increasing 

span of control where workers performer better 

with less management intervention or decrease 

span of control with entry level workers who need 

more guidance. 

Using span of control, especially in large organizations, 

can uncover significant opportunities for cost savings, 

increased efficiency and productivity improvements 

over time. 

Third Metric: High Performance Turnover Rate 

The real key to turnover rates, in good times or bad, is 

how many high-performing employees are leaving 

the company. This can be calculated by dividing the 

total number of high-performing employees that 

terminated in a given period by the average high 

performer population at the organization over 

the same period. Without accurate calculations to 

identify the true cost of turnover, and how it varies 

between performance levels across segments of 

the workforce, organizations don’t have the right 

information for data driven decision making and 

launching intervention strategies. 

The key questions to ask yourself are: “What is 

our high-performer turnover rate?” and, “What 

percentage of our best people are we losing?” 

The key is to track a metric that not only tells you 

about your organization, but that is also predictive. 

Turnover alone only tells you how many employees 

you’ve lost. High Turnover Rate indicates the value 

of that loss; it’s predictive of pure talent loss. If your 

overall turnover rate is only 4%, but your highperformer 

turnover rate is 8%, you’re bleeding talent. 

Fourth Metric: Career Path Ratio 

Career Path Ratio shows the rate of upward 

movement versus lateral movement in an 

organization. If you think of organizations as a 

pyramid, there is a limited amount of up, but there’s 

an almost unlimited amount of over. There is a 

great deal of transfer capability for many different 

professional and executive roles. This is a very lowcost 

way to enhance and build workforce capability 

over time and stretch and challenge workers with 

a minimal increase to workforce costs. 

Career Path Ratio is calculated by dividing total 

promotions by total movement at the organization. 

This metric combines two important measures that 

reflect mobility together into one metric that is more 

meaningful: total promotions and total transfers. 

If the ratio is close to 1, then it means the 

organization is either doing too many promotions, 

or it’s not doing enough transfers. Career Path Ratio 

can be calculated at an aggregate level for the 

entire company, business unit, or by position group. 

Analyzing Career Path Ratio in combination with 

employee retention and performance enables 

companies to identify linkages between mobility 

and drivers of critical workforce issues. Identifying 

true drivers of engagement, performance, and 

retention allow organizations to use mobility to 

shape results and improve workforce productivity 

and business performance, while effectively 

managing workforce costs. 

11

Fifth Metric: Talent Management Index 

Talent Management Index is a combination of 

metrics that work together holistically across the 

entire employee lifecycle. It allows organizations to 

evaluate and analyze talent management practices 

for recruiting, mobility, performance management, 

training and development, and turnover and 

retention. Tracking Talent Management Index 

also enables organizations to hold all levels of 

management accountable for management 

practices and quality by measuring effectiveness 

of hiring practices, success of training and 

development efforts, and cost efficiency. 

While many metrics could potentially be included in 

an organization’s Talent Management Index, below 

are five recommended metrics, several of which are 

also included in our top five metrics for workforce 

analytics: 

1. New Hire High Performer Rate. It’s calculated by 

the percentage of new hires, rated by individual 

organization standards, as high-quality, high 

potential or high-performing employees. 

2. Percent of High Performers. It measures the 

percent of the population that is rated as high 

performing. The best use of this metric, when 

calculated as part of Talent Management Index, is 

on an individual manager basis to hold management 

accountable for nurturing and developing the 

organization’s most promising talent. 

3. Career Path Ratio. It measures relative upward 

and lateral mobility at the organizations. For 

optimal use, it should be calculated by individual 

manager. 

This metric should also be calculated on an individual 

manager basis. For effective talent management 

at any organization, the focus should always be on 

identifying, grooming, managing and retaining top 

talent. The power of the Talent Management Index 

lies in evaluating individual managers and making 

targeted improvements for overall organizational 

performance and productivity through effective 

talent management practices. 

Summary: 

The potential of these top five metrics is significant, 

and the greatest value can be achieved when they 

are linked to financial metrics, such as revenue 

or profit for FTE, for example. By leveraging key 

metrics to predict future outcomes, organizations 

have the ability to identify potential issues before 

they become too problematic, calculate the financial 

impact, and formulate a strategy for intervention. 

Reprinted with the permission of Human Capital Management Institute (HCMI) 

and Human Concepts. Co-authored by Jeff Higgins, Grant Cooperstein and Moun 

Peterson of HCMI, and Katy Colletto of Human Concepts. For more information, 

visit www.hcminst.com and www.humanconcepts.com. 

drake analytics 

Drake Analytics helps 

organizations accelerate 

their understanding of 

HR data and use this 

knowledge strategically 

to drive business impact. 

Read the complete White Paper 

4. Total Cost of Workforce. It may be hard to see how 

cost of workforce relates to talent management; 

however, the best managers are able to achieve 

better results while reducing overall workforce 

costs. They build, rather than buy, the best talent. 

5. High Performer Turnover Rate. This metric 

allows organizations to measure management 

effectiveness in retaining top talent at the 

organization. 


Since 1951, Drake International has been helping companies around the world increase their productivity 

and performance by hiring the right people and using the right Talent Management Solutions. 

Visit our website to learn how we can help you with your People, Productivity, and Performance issues. 

Website (Canada) 

Website (South Africa) 

Website (New Zealand) 

Website (Australia) 

Website (United States) 

Website (Singapore) 

Website (United Kingdom) 

Website (Hong Kong) 

Website (Philippines) 

People | Productivity | Performance 

13

The DBR Online Issue 3 - Hiring the best of the best

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?