White Papers & Research for Management We are passionate researchers and thought leaders in the area of applying employee assessments to solve important organizational challenges.     The Executive's Guide to Employee Assessments Learn how employee assessments give organizations tools that helps leaders make smarter people decisions. Download the full report »               Motivating and Managing      Why Smart Employees Underperform We’ve all been there. After an extensive and thorough search for a line manager, one candidate stands out. You hired the qualified individual, only to find there’s a disconnect with the new employee. This report discusses ways to prevent underperformance. Download the full report »           5 Critical Management Derailers: Symptoms & Remedies Why do front-line managers fail, and what can be done to avoid failure? We polled our experts to identify the five most common management derailers. This report elaborates on these five issues and offers common sense advice for helping your managers avoid them. Download the full report »       Eight Signs of Incompetent Managers Like winning coaches, successful managers are both talented and skilled. But if a manager lacks natural talent, his or her odds of success are lower. We indentified and explored eight signs of incompetent managers.  Download the full report »           Six Keys to Unlocking the Potential of Frontline Managers Times of change present many challenges for organizations, particularly for frontline managers. This fact inspired us to identify six keys to unlocking the potential of frontline managers. Download the full report »           The Leader’s Guide to Managing Workplace Stress Businesses should be concerned about promoting the health and safety of their employees. This briefing is designed to help executives understand, recognize and effectively deal with stress in the workplace.             Download the full report »             Improving Sales and Customer Service      Seven Factors for Building Extreme Customer Loyalty It costs more to acquire a new customer than to maintain an existing customer.We know that there are actions we can take and behaviors we can measure that create long term relationships between sellers and buyers. Download the full report »         Six Crucial Behaviors for Customer-facing Employees One bad customer experience can cost you that customer for life. This report identifies and explains the core behaviors of your customer-facing employees that make the biggest difference for your business.    Download the full report »         America's Most Productive We calculated financial data from over 1,600 publicly traded companies in over 175 sub-industry groups. We identified the companies that ranked highest in each category and took a closer look at the practices that enable them to out-produce their peers. Download the full report »           America's Most Productive: Large Sales Force Analysis Profiles Research Institute initiated this study to better understand the factors that drive sales force productivity in large organizations. Download the full report »           Selecting, Onboarding and Planning      Strategies for Selection, Re-deployment & Recovery Profiles International researchers conducted a comprehensive review of organizational design and talent management practices to identify over 50 “best practices” in the context of organizational restructuring. From this, we determined our “Top 10" best practices list. Download the full report »         The Executive's Guide to Strategic Workforce Planning Strategic workforce planning is a process that ensures your business has the right people in the right jobs at the right time to achieve your expected results. This report explores six steps of strategic workforce planning and offers some advice for achieving results. Download the full report »         Five Lessons for Upgrading Talent with Outside Superstars Provides five key lessons to help optimize the upgrading process. This report drills deeper into each lesson to guide you through the talent upgrade process and help you avoid common mistakes. Download the full report »