"Our people are our greatest asset"

Of course they are. They must be. Because every CEO and business owner says so.

But just like any asset class, people have to be carefully selected, reviewed, and nurtured. Just as fund managers carefully select, monitor and manage their investment portfolio.

Otherwise your people can become your greatest liability.

A survey by the U.S Dept. of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed the average cost of a bad hire by a company can be anything between 25% and 50% of the staff member's first year's salary. And more than 30% of business failures were caused by employee dishonesty. Some industry estimates put the potential cost of a bad hire as high as three times the employee's annual salary!

Small wonder, then that Australia companies are searching for a more reliable way to screen and select employees - and to benchmark the performance of the people already on board.

Which is where the Integrity and Values Profiling System fits in. Developed in conjunction with leading employment psychologist and international psychometrics expert Dr. Elizabeth Allworth, the profile is now available as an easily-administered, low-cost, statistically-validated measurement tool, to support your recruitment processes, and to assist to refine and improve the organisational development of your key operational and management teams.

Look before you leap, by all means. Please. But now you can also look after you leapt, and assess the attitudinal health of your key people, to put your organisation firmly back on track.

• What has been the cost of a bad hire in your organisation?
• How do you plan to avoid it in the future?