Building a management team for a corporate startup using Wisnio

A global corporation in the automotive industry has decided to establish a new functional unit gathering all software engineers that are currently spread out in hundreds of different companies.

Ott Niggulis

The Client

A global corporation in the automotive industry has decided to establish a new functional unit gathering all software engineers that are currently spread out in hundreds of different companies.

Additionally, this new corporate division is responsible for starting a new business line establishing a “corporate startup” with planned business activities in the collection and analysis of big data along with finding business opportunities to monetize it.

To enable more freedom and innovation, the new enterprise was established in another country away from the corporate headquarters.

The Challenge

The new enterprise had only a managing director who was responsible for building out the C-team. In addition to the usual executive search process, the selected headhunter used the Wisnio platform as part of the search process.

Wisnio is a data-based talent analytics platform that uses team-based assessment to enhance hiring, onboarding, and overall team development.

“Wisnio helps us differentiate between candidates otherwise similar in profile and experience by simulating how these people would fit into the existing management team.”

Timo Jäntti - Chairman of the Board, Taplow Finland

The Process

First, a company profile for the new organization was created on the Wisnio platform and the one existing employee of the company – the Managing Director – took the 20 minutes it takes to go through the assessment and create their profile.

As the only member of the management team, any new team members fit with him was an important aspect to consider during the selection process.

Next, the first two positions (accounting manager and controlling manager) were analysed and key objectives along with threshold criteria as well as differentiating competencies were defined for both the account manager and controlling manager positions. The analysis done during this step informed the headhunter on the profile of people that would end up in the long- and, eventually, the shortlist of candidates to be represented to the managing director.

In a team context, extensive research has shown that teams with similar values, but diverse in competencies and behavioural patterns make for a high-performing and agile team. When assessing candidates and creating their profiles, the Wisnio app and it’s algorithms take this into account.

Candidate competencies - Teamscope

Assessing the Shortlist

Candidates on the shortlists for both positions were asked to go through the Wisnio assessment. Once this was done, the hiring manager could go to the platform to see, understand, and compare the results of the assessment on an interactive dashboard.

The dashboard showcases an overview of each candidates’ unique traits and behavioural characteristics along with personal values and motivators on an individual and team level. This overview is complemented by example behavioural questions based on the profile of the position and specific to the candidate and the team.

Based on this information, the hiring manager planned the behavioural interviews and questions. The interviews included questions on:

  • Basic requirements/threshold competencies (e.g. experience from a chief accountant role in an international organization, fluency in using a specific ERP, and similar)
  • Differentiating competencies (e.g. openness to change, teamwork, building relationships)
  • Concerning the core values of the candidate (if different from the hiring manager’s core values)

After each interview, the candidate was assessed by the hiring manager using a scorecard generated by Wisnio.

In addition to evaluating the threshold criteria and differentiating competencies, team fit factors including personal values, behavioural diversity, and the WOW-factor or the interviewer’s gut feeling about the candidate are evaluated.

After going through the interviews and evaluating each candidate separately, the results are displayed on an interactive comparison table on the Wisnio platform:

Teamscope candidate comparison table

The comparison table makes it easy to understand how different candidates compare and where their scores differ. The higher the overall score, the better the match with the hiring criteria and thus those candidates should be hired. In this case, the candidates with the highest scores were hired for both open positions.

A thing to note is the WOW factor or gut feeling score. It showed a strong correlation with candidates that the hiring manager had the best match personality-wise. This is to be expected – we intrinsically get along well with people who are like us. This point showcases why using a scorecard in candidate evaluation is crucial. Without it’s hard to judge who is the better candidate and who is personality-wise a lot like the hiring manager.

Learn more about Wisnio and how we can help you build high performing teams, sign-up for a free account here.

Conclusions

tean-values-overview-teamscope.png

After going through the process of hiring with the help of Wisnio once, the hiring manager is planning on using the platform for all future hires. Going forward, all new candidates will be compared against this new and improved team. As the team grows, so does the amount of available data to be used during the assessment of new candidates.

The Wisnio platform gave a very good structure for the hiring process. Using it from the beginning helped me better focus my decision making, to pay attention to the critical criteria and use the limited time with the candidates in the most effective way.

Knowing the personality traits and values of each new member that joins the team is great for onboarding as it helps to facilitate the development of a good working relationship from the beginning.

Hiring Manager

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