Hiring top-notch employees — and then ensuring their success once their feet are in the door — is a challenge virtually every business struggles with. Luckily, there’s a 60-year-old company based in Westwood, Mass. that’s determined to help companies use more than resumes and references when making important hiring decisions.
The Predictive Index gives companies a suite of tools that allow them to create and execute people strategies that actually support their business strategies.
The original PI looked at certain behavioral traits that were tied to high performers.”
PI does this by providing more than 6,500 companies in 140 countries with software that assesses which skills they need candidates to have for certain roles, and then helps them locate the best talent. The SaaS platform also has tools for analyzing employees’ workplace behavior post-hire.
Thad Peterson, senior director of marketing at PI, said the company can trace its origins back to WWII; it was developed by Arnold S. Daniels as a way for the U.S. military to assess people’s skills when joining the Air Force.
“The original PI looked at certain behavioral traits that were tied to high performers,” Peterson said. “PI was a paper-based assessment back in the ‘60s and ‘70s that’s been turned into a SaaS company.”
Today, PI works across dozens of industries — from healthcare and education to finance, government and hospitality. The platform includes a scientifically validated behavioral and cognitive assessment, as well as a job assessment that companies can send to prospective candidates to determine whether they’re good cognitive and behavioral fits for the role. Is this candidate extraverted and dominant — patient and formal?
Assessments answer questions like these and more, helping companies rank potential candidates against their job targets so that they can hire more confidently.
PI also offers a suite of management workshops on everything from onboarding employees to training HR and future leaders, so that managers at every ladder rung can improve their processes, as well as their relationships with staff. To date, over 23 million people have taken PI assessments, while over 10,000 people are trained in PI workshops annually.
Currently, PI employs just north of 100 employees, but Peterson said that number is expected to balloon to 130 by the end of 2018.
