Visually assess the impact of new hires

I was sent a demo for the “Visual Team Builder” tool from Four Groups this week and then had a chat with Bruce, one of their Director’s.

Virtual Team Builder is basically a way to link behaviour with performance to enable recruiters to assess the impact a candidate would have on existing team members and colleagues.

The candidate(s), plus your existing team, complete the 4G questionnaire and the results are delivered as a visual representation of the relationships each potential new individual will have with the team.

It’s all very clear and intuitive to use.  The degree of “psychological comfort” is shown by the use of coloured lines.  A green line represents no effort (to make the relationship work) and a red line indicates “significant effort”.  There are “minimal” and “some” effort in between. As well as the visual feedback there is a short narrative about the candidate.

4G is a profiling tool based in part on the work of Carl Jung.  4G incorporates measures of people’s strengths, creativity, motivation and weaknesses. The model contains 16 definitions of individual’s behaviour, 14 different relationship types and 4 examples of group culture.

The product is being targeted at the selection process although it could also be used for development purposes.   In order to use it you need to assess relevant team members and also look at candidates, normally at shortlist stage (maybe 2 to 5 people). It takes around an hour for an individual to complete the questionnaire.

The work is either carried out by Four Groups as consultants, or there is an in-house version (requiring training) which reduces the price.  Prices start from £100 per person.

If you like the idea of using psychometrics to assess candidates but wonder how to link the results to your current team this is definitely worth a look.  You can access a demo via this link that Bruce very kindly set up for me. If you want to speak with Bruce, he can be contacted via bruce.lewin@fourgroups.com.