Case Study: Marquette Transportation Company
Problem
Marquette Transportation Company came to us with a unique challenge: How could they reduce turnover when no matter how you frame it, the job is just really hard?
Entry level employees at Marquette are required to be away from home for long periods of time, work in tough outdoor conditions, and adhere to a unique sleep schedule.
The perks of staying on and performing well are numerous: long breaks between jobs, good pay, and the opportunity to move into highly specialized training and careers like engineering, piloting, and boat captain positions without a formal degree. What’s difficult is identifying which candidates will be motivated by the long-term perks, and which may be burned out quickly by the fast pace of the job.
Process
Optimize Hire's job was to identify at the get-go more of those employees who would thrive under the conditions of the job and be motivated to stay on longer.
Most Optimize Hire tests are built based on published, peer-reviewed research on traits relating to work behaviors; however, there isn’t much out there on someone's ability to thrive under the specific conditions of this job. So, we worked with our partners at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and stakeholders at Marquette to create an assessment that combined our expert knowledge of behavioral tendencies with their practical knowledge of the job. Our clients always know their candidates best.
“We collaborated closely with Optimize Hire to customize questions and answers to align with our culture and the behaviors we desire to see in our employees,” said Jeff Hudson, Chief Human Resources Officer at Marquette. “They really go the extra mile to make sure you have an assessment that helps you identify the best candidates for your company.”
Results
Using the Optimize Hire test at the beginning of the application process decreased overall turnover by 19%
How we found this
Our partners at the Wharton School conducted a validation study to investigate how using the assessment at Marquette improved hiring practices. In this case, a validation study included implementing the assessment in the hiring process, and then looking at the real time results several months later.
We can see each candidate's Optimize Hire score and then look at how long they lasted in the job controlling for promotion and terminations that can't be avoided (like an illness or a death in the family). We hold all of our studies to the rigorous scientific standard of 95% confidence, or a p-value of <.05. In this particular study, the p-value was .022, meaning we can be 97.8% confident that these results are not due to chance.
We also examined the correlation between high scores and each trait in the assessment, and learned that some weren’t as predictive as we’d hoped. After presenting this to the Marquette team, we spent a working session with them and our Wharton partners removing less important traits, adjusting questions to fit the job better and honing the scoring algorithm. We’ll study the assessment again in a year, and hope to find even better results.
Are you interested in reducing turnover, improving performance and saving your company money? Optimize Hire creates behavioral assessments at a fraction of the cost of most of our competitors. Our tests are created and validated by experts from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and testing licenses include unlimited use. Request a demo here.