Words from Hezel CultureSmart clients
I’ve had the opportunity to work with Mary Martin and the Hezel team for well over ten years – with two separate companies. I view the relationship with Mary truly as a partnership and an extension of my team. Mary’s services for our team include everything from management assessments, to individualized coaching and development plans, to in house training.
Early on in the relationship, Mary made a concerted effort to get to know our organization and the Sr. management team well. Mary excels at her assessments of individuals by conducting extremely thorough behavioral based interviews. She has an innate ability to ask probing and thought provoking questions to understand the crux of what makes an employee behave the way they do. Mary’s guidance and expertise to CRST has taught us how to ensure we are hiring and promoting individuals into roles that will ensure they are as successful as possible – identifying both strengths, as well as ‘red flags’ that may not be a good fit for us culturally.
Our management team regularly call on Mary for guidance or advice on management related issues and she is incredibly flexible – working evenings and weekends to accommodate our needs.
I’m a firm believer that the services Mary provides has had a significant impact on several of our measured key indicators, including turnover, promotion rates and management satisfaction levels. I would highly recommend her services to anyone!
~Brooke Willey
Vice President
Human Resources, CRST International, Inc.
I have been very happy with the HCS program. Its accuracy in “profiling” a candidate is uncanny. Where we have used it in actually helping inform hiring decisions it is invaluable. I rely on it quite a bit for helping assess cultural fit and to assess the qualitative requirements for specific positions. It has also been very good at helping me “connect the dots” – where there are gaps of understanding that come from the interview process. I’ve never tried to put supportable numbers on it, but in the past I have been about 70% comfortable just relying on the interview process. With HCS, I am at 90%+. In other words, since starting with HCS, I have not made a bad hire. Here’s a funny anecdote. I offered a position to an individual who was relocating to SA from the oil patch. After I offered, I said to the supervising manager that HCS indicates that she will likely decide to stay where she is even though she says she is unhappy. And that’s what happened.
Pretty much every time we have recommended against hiring someone because their testing indicates a cultural mismatch and the person was hired anyway, that person hasn’t worked out.
~Neil T. Kellen
CFO
Aspen Beverage Group
Mary Martin, her team at Hezel CultureSmart and their assessment tools have been the core of revolutionizing our recruiting and hiring process. Mary’s vast knowledge, experience and intimate understanding of our culture combined with the information we receive from the assessments has become an invaluable part of our recruiting, hiring and team development processes. We are now making significantly better hiring and coaching decisions. Our turnover rate has been reduced and we get a running start with our new team members because we understand their talents much better when they walk in the door. We also have a much better sense of the areas where our new team members need development. Finally and most importantly, Mary and her team operate with the utmost integrity and confidentiality.
~James L. Hayne Jr.
Chief Executive Officer
Catto & Catto
Advancial has incorporated the Hezel CultureSmart assessment throughout our hiring and development processes. The reporting and interview questions provides a tool for us to further explore with potential employees and an additional resource that helps us ensure we are choosing great talent that will fit within our organization. The team at Hezel CultureSmart are a wealth of knowledge and always willing to help explain reports and profiles.
~Tara Weaver
Advancial Federal Credit Union
Assessments can be a very useful tool when used properly. Not only is the ability to select valid tools important, but HCS offers the ability to consult with Mary Martin, an industrial psychologist who can offer insights helpful when considering candidates, always respecting the client’s process for selecting talent.
~Barbara Bentley
Catto & Catto
During the course of my career, I have used several pre-hire assessments to support my organization in making good, solid hiring decisions. HCS is the tool that I have used for the past 10 years and have the most confidence in.
We use the assessment in the hiring process for all managerial positions. This tool provides us a concise assessment of three key indicators of success, including personality fit, cognitive capability and leadership style. As a business leader of human resources, I want to ensure we are adding talent capable of doing three basic things. First, they need to be a culture fit, and the sixteen individual traits provide us good insight. Next, they need to be able to solve business problems. The battery of cognitive ability tests provide us that answer. Lastly, for leadership positions, they need to be able to adjust their style to lead a diverse workforce. The Styles of Management assessment gives us good insight as to what kind of leader they are.
While no assessment, in and of itself, should be used as the sole factor in making a hiring decision, HCS provides me and my organization the roadmap to success in the talent acquisition process.
~John Runge
Director of Human Resources
C.H. Guenther & Son, Inc.
From my perspective:
- Hezel CultureSmart is a valuable resource in our selection process. It provides insight and data that helps us determine how successful a potential candidate will be at CHG.
- For current associates, it helps to determine what areas we should focus on in their development.
- The system is easy to use and results are available quickly.
- The customer service provided is top notch.
- We value the individualized attention and report review that is available to our associates.
~Stacey DeCrescenzo
C.H. Guenther & Son, Inc.
The HCS Assessment is an excellent tool used to identify specific competencies needed for a candidate to be successful in a position and how well the candidate fits with the position and culture of the company. The assessments are highly personalized and administered efficiently. The consultation and coaching provided by the team when reviewing assessment results is invaluable.
The assessment has allowed our team the opportunity to improve the interview process. Suggested interview questions are included in the assessment feedback, which provide hiring managers the opportunity to explore specific competency areas required for success. The questions are behavior-based and yield excellent information for the decision-making process.
The most valuable aspect of the report is the summary information provided for each competency. An explanation is provided to define each competency, followed by a personalized summary based on how the candidate answered the questions.
At our company, we use the assessment as an additional data point to consider when making a hiring decision. The report is very comprehensive and has been critical in our efforts to select candidates who have the competency to be successful and are a good fit for our culture.
~Tammy Kinnon
Manager, Talent Acquisition & Development
FBD Partnership, LP
When recruiting technical talent, a candidate not only needs the proper skills, they also need to be suited to a company’s environment to be successful. Assessments performed by Hezel CultureSmart provide our company with a non-biased evaluation of the hard and soft skills of the candidate. This helps us avoid placing too much emphasis on their technical merit. Since we adopted these assessments as part of our hiring process our technical employee retention rate has increased.
~George Bailey
FBD Partnership, LP
I have worked with Mary for several years…in my current position as HR Manager at JTEKT Automotive and in my former HR Manager role. The selection testing helps us make more sound decisions as we review candidates for hire. The most beneficial part of working with Hezel CultureSmart is the personalization we get from Mary and her team. If we ever have any questions, they are always available and helpful in interpreting the assessment results. I would definitely recommend Hezel CultureSmart to anyone looking for selection assessments.
~Tammy Myers
Human Resources Manager
JTEKT North America Corporation
We love working with HCS for the individualized approach they take. We appreciate that Mary has taken the time to understand our organization and use that information to make sure that each assessment really works for our organization. Using the assessments in hiring has helped us to identify our best candidates. Moreover, it has allowed us to ask better questions in the interview. The assessments are also a great personal development tool. They have also served to help us understand our teams in really profound ways. I couldn’t imagine leading without the tools HCS provides.
~Kristen Mashburn
Chief of Staff – Retail
Listerhill Credit Union
Hezel CultureSmart assessments have provided a way for our organization to find a great fit for the position we are filling. Not only do the assessments reveal an applicant’s strengths and opportunities for improvements, but they help predict if the employee will be satisfied in the role. We all want productive employees, but it’s paramount we have engaged and happy employees who truly enjoy their workplace.
HCS Feedback Reports have become essential in our People Operations Department. They allow us to have a one-on-one feedback meeting with internal job candidates which highlight needs for continuing education, possible certifications, management and leadership training, and reveal personality traits that help our employees learn more about themselves.
~Heather B. Swann
Vice President of People Ops
Listerhill Credit Union
The features I appreciate most about the HCS assessments are the timeliness of the results and the detail of the full report. I like that the report includes sample interview questions to ask, and I like seeing the areas that are considered to be in the “fit” range for each job. Other helpful aspects of the report are the flagged areas customized to each position. This is certainly helpful in making a final decision when hiring a candidate. I find the personality characteristics to be helpful as well when deciding if a person will be a good fit for a specific position.
~Alina Sternberg, PHR, SHRM-CP
HR Manager
Lucifer Lighting Company
The HCS testing profile is used by us for follow-up questioning of candidates. We find the text suggested questions on behavior to be worthwhile in second stage interviewing. When we have disregarded adverse testing criteria and decided to hire a candidate, and there are later performance issues and coaching required, we go back to review the candidate’s testing profile and frequently find content we should not have overlooked. Mary Martin’s thoughtful one-on-one discussion with candidates, and subsequent feedback to us is illuminating and is often our go/no go switch. We consider HCS to be an important 1/3 of each employment decision. Our endorsement is strong!
~President of Local Manufacturer
Mary Martin and her organization have been instrumental in providing an objective view into candidates for key roles. Our new partnership has evolved from initial and simple assessment to multiple assessments, feedback, candidate interviews and a new base line assessment project.
We value and enjoy Mary’s partnership in our recruiting and selection process – we look forward to a long and lasting partnership.
~Stafford Bloom
PKC Group
As a longtime client of Hezel CultureSmart, Texas Auto Carriers has been using pre-employment assessments for our administrative positions several years now. Being a small company with a relatively small staff, we have to make the most of our hiring process and the team at HCS has helped us to implement a battery of assessments that give us the decision-making tools we need. I find that our interviewing process has become more productive and ultimately our hiring has been more on-target. Mary Martin and her team are very warm and friendly to work with while bringing a high level of professionalism to every project.
~LouAnn Wagner
Texas Auto Carriers