Lowering Employee Turnover Using Behavioral Profiling

By Jonathan Slain, an EO Cleveland member, and CEO of Fitness Together

One of my resolutions for 2013 was to systematize hiring at Fitness Together. After reviewing many options, I decided to use the Everything DiSC Workplace Profile to help lower turnover and improve hiring. The DiSC profile has been around for more than 30 years. It places employees on a continuum of behavioral traits including Dominance, influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness (DiSC).

To start, I invested in profiling every one of my current staff members. I used the DiSC to foster collaboration among my employees, teach them how to build rapport with our clients and to gauge a potential employee’s fit with our team, before hiring them.

Once I use the profile to confirm that my employees tend to be outspoken, and that different environments and situations can affect my staff and their interactions with clients. I can make them aware of this tendency so they understand that sometimes their unbridled enthusiasm can be overwhelming. I don’t want them to change their personalities, but rather understand that they may need to temper their exuberance when it’s time to complete a task or interact with a client.

Beyond coaching employees on how to interact with each other, and our clients, I used the DiSC profile as a final check of new hires before I extend an offer to them. The DiSC profile is not meant to replace a robust interview process, but rather to amplify what we currently are doing.

My goal is to hire candidates who share the same behavioral traits as my best employees. For example, I recently had two employees reach a major milestone in our business. Both Jen Toronski and Cody Feller have trained more than 5,000 sessions at Fitness Together since they started working with me. The surprise to me was that when we completed their behavioral profiles, they were my only two employees who ended up scoring high in Conscientious.

Now that I know that two of my longest lasting employees are High C’s on the DiSC profile, I can aim to hire more candidates with this trait to fill open personal training positions. It’s unusual to have High C’s as personal trainers, but what a great insight for me to use going forward that I would have never known without using the DiSC.

The DiSC is another tool that we can now use before making a new hire. Best of all, it isn’t based on gut instinct, which means that the process should be repeatable as we continue to grow our business!

Jonathan Slain is a fitness business consultant and owns and operates franchises of Fitness Together in Cleveland, Ohio. He can be reached at [email protected], 877-FIT-OHIO, or www.FitnessTogether.com/ohio.

Categories: Best Practices LEADERSHIP PEOPLE/STAFF

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