Case Study

Amtico: Grounding its development and succession planning activities in psychometric science

Following the Covid pandemic, businesses like flooring manufacturer Amtico had weathered one of the greatest ever disruptions to their operations. The sector was especially hard hit by the lockdowns, which inevitably unsettled employees. As the cost-of-living crisis deepens and the UK enters a recession, the business was called upon once again to go above and beyond to look after its people.

Amtico

Employees

201-500

Industry

Manufacturing

Country

United Kingdom

Solution

Behaviour (PPA)

Personality (HPTI)

Emotional Intelligence (TEIQue)

Aptitude (GIA)

360

The Challenge

Barry Large, Head of Learning & Development and Sustainability Implementation, explains that Amtico had been using Thomas assessments prior to the pandemic: “I think one of the initial drivers for the business adopting the assessments was a need for a standardised recruitment process for management and salespeople, which Thomas assessments helped us achieve by mapping out job profiles for these roles. When I joined Amtico, I became accredited in Thomas’ assessments, and it was interesting to learn about all the different things we can do with the tools. Since then, we've used them in a much more focused, detailed way across the business.”

The Solution

Following the disruption to business operations during the pandemic, for many companies, the need for agile working and workforce planning has been acute. As the marketplace continues to shift, Amtico has responded by grounding its development and succession planning activities in psychometric science. Barry explains, “For senior management, we have used the 360-feedback tool with great success, and we layer all of our assessments with questions from Thomas’ Emotional Intelligence and Personality and Behaviour assessments, to create effective coaching plans.”

“We have also built our annual appraisal and personal development process around the Emotional Intelligence report, which has been really insightful for our managers and their teams. We have approximately 500 people at Amtico - half work in manufacturing and half are office or salespeople. Of our 250 office colleagues, about 100 have received emotional intelligence profiles as part of their annual appraisals over the last two years, and we will continue to increase this number and incorporate these profiles into our personal development plan process. The idea is that everybody within the business will have the opportunity to go through this process.”

“People have enjoyed receiving the feedback and creating their development plans. It gives them the ability to hold a mirror up to themselves and to see how they work. We provide everyone with one-to-one feedback, then managers get feedback on every person in their team, so they can better understand their people. This has been a nice way of approaching personal development, and helped some managers identify gaps within their teams.”

Amtico continues to use psychometrics in recruitment. Barry says, “We use psychometrics for recruitment across the business and recently introduced them in our European operations. Over the next three months, we will be rolling out the use of the Emotional Intelligence assessment as part of the European teams’ development and self-awareness. Another example includes the use of the Aptitude assessment in recruiting for a specific role that involved fitting floors, where candidates need to be able to look at a floor and piece it together. We were able to identify good candidates for the job by looking at their aptitude results in areas such as spatial awareness.”

The Results

Despite the unprecedented challenges that have beset businesses in recent years, Amtico has emerged with a stronger culture and employee experience than ever before. Barry elaborates, “I've seen a culture change with the adoption of the assessments. People are used to them now and departmental leaders come to me and request the report for their teams. For example, we recently had a new starter in Marketing – the first point of call was for them to take an Emotional Intelligence assessment and set up their development plan, rather than waiting a year until their annual appraisal. Word of mouth across the business is driving change.”

“The reports have had the biggest impact on our development. Previously, annual appraisals may have been viewed by some as a tick box exercise. Now, the assessments have helped us to create a process that enables people to develop, and they feel that they are being supported. This benefits retention, but also helps us attract new talent. We blend the awareness created by the assessments with the support offered by LinkedIn Learning, which empowers our people to develop themselves.”

“In the context of the cost-of-living crisis, we are focused on creating value within the business. Last year we made sustainability a strategic focus. Part of that focus is on our people, and how we support them. We understand that people are not just in jobs for the money nowadays. The money is of course important, but they also want additional benefits. Historically, asking how a business supports its people was one of those woolly interview questions that you felt you should ask. Now, we find that people are passionate about development.”

“Our development process helps with succession and future planning, looking at how we can support and retain our existing individuals. During Covid, Amtico was very good at supporting our people and engaging with them to make sure they felt reassured that they would still have a job despite what was happening. Coming out the other side, we have continued with that, and we are focused on how we can support people, using tools like the Thomas assessments to help them grow and progress into different roles within the business to better their careers.”