Case study

How Amarant’s youth division is using assessments to make better hiring decisions

Amarant is a disabled care institution in the southern part of the Netherlands. The organisation contributes to the wellbeing and happiness of people with a (mild) intellectual disability, autism or brain injury. Amarant is comprised of five different divisions, each with its own expertise. As an employer, Amarant provides a pleasant working environment, ample development opportunities and sufficient career prospects. It is an organisation where everyone feels welcome and where working makes you happy.

Amarant’s core values are ‘connecting’, ‘curious’ and ‘courageous’. Wellbeing and happiness at work are paramount in the organisation, while the value they give to ‘curiosity’ is apparent from their focus on fostering self-awareness. This helps the organisation the best out of everyone through collaboration, both on a personal and professional level.

Courage is rewarded at Amarant. If an employee has creative or innovative ideas, the organisation is open to them. And if a colleague wants to get to know a different target group or wants to take a course or training within Amarant, there are plenty of options. Amaranth is represented throughout the southern part of the Netherlands. Due to the great diversity of residents, there are many internal career opportunities.

Natalie van Leest is Senior HR Advisor of the Youth division. In this position, she is responsible for advising division managers when it comes to their employees, coordinating the inflow, promotion and outflow of colleagues and undertaking various initiatives in the HR field. She works with one other HR colleague for the Youth division.

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Amarant

Employees

1001+

Industry

Social Care

Country

Netherlands

Solution

Behaviour (PPA)

Emotional Intelligence (TEIQue)

The Challenge

Amarant’s Youth division is constantly looking for new colleagues to strengthen its various teams. Experience has shown that it was not always possible to collect all the necessary information about a candidate in interviews. Natalie explains. “We noticed that we did not always get the complete picture of a candidate after two job interviews.

For example, we regularly had to deal with new colleagues who dropped out after they had worked for us for a short time. This was often because they had not realised beforehand that the work in care for the disabled is hard, or they were bothered by their own experiences from the past, so that they could no longer continue with the work at the Youth division of Amaranth.” These kinds of issues can be difficult to estimate and discuss during a job interview. There was therefore a need for greater objective insight into the candidates.

The Solution

Natalie was already familiar with assessments and their possibilities from her previous employer. “We have started a pilot with both the Personal Profile Analysis (PPA) and the assessment that measures emotional intelligence (TEIQue). The PPA is very accessible, takes little time to complete and provides a wealth of information about the candidate. Now that we have been working with this assessment for a while, we have noticed that many candidates, but also colleagues, have an S-C profile.” Characteristic qualities of people with such a profile are, for example; being good listeners, reliable and methodical, but also perfectionistic and accommodating.

The assessment that measures emotional intelligence is also very valuable for this specific division of Amaranth. Natalie: “The TEIQue shows at a glance what someone’s character looks like, how someone reacts to stress, for example, and to what extent someone enters into new relationships. We gain insights on whether someone can motivate themselves or what someone’s self-image is. Very valuable information when we are looking for a new colleague.”

But Natalie does not only use the assessments during recruitment and selection. Even when there are certain career issues, she and her team make use of the assessments of Thomas International. “For a new colleague, we use the assessment results as a starting point for career opportunities within the Amarant Youth division. For existing colleagues, we also use the assessments for development opportunities. In case we experience certain challenges with a colleague, we regularly use an assessment to find out where the problem is and how we can solve this, together with the colleague.”

The Results

Using both the PPA and the TEIQue is an important step for the youth division of Amarant in the process of making better hiring decisions. “The current labor market is challenging, and I think this certainly applies to healthcare institutions as well. It is therefore important that we collect as much information as possible about a candidate during the recruitment process, so that we can accurately predict whether someone can do the work for us and whether someone will fit in the team. Both assessments provide us with a wealth of objective data, based on which we can make a good estimate of someone’s work behavior and how someone can adapt to his or her new role.”

Natalie has chosen not to leave the knowledge of the assessments solely with the HR department. “Since the division managers are responsible for conducting job interviews, we think it is important that they are also trained and have knowledge of the assessments and how to interpret the results. They therefore followed the training courses and are accredited for both assessments, so that they can get to work themselves reading the results and providing feedback to the candidates. Every now and then we follow an extra online training to gain new knowledge and to refresh existing knowledge.”

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