Case Studies Signpost Reduces Turnover Significantly and Increases Productivity

Challenge

Signpost is a software company that helps businesses communicate with their customers and prospects. They hire for a wide ranges of roles, including everything from inbound phone support agents and contact center supervisors, to full stack engineers and product managers.

After an acquisition that doubled their headcount, Signpost wanted to build a strong recruitment process to reduce the high turnover they were experiencing and to improve overall quality of hire.

Solution

According to Devany Smith, Signpost’s new Head of Recruiting, “I knew instantly we needed some type of assessment, and the Criteria platform allows so much customization.” Signpost started using Criteria’s assessments to hire a wide variety of positions at the company, with a large focus on inbound phone support agents, which accounts for the largest department at the company.

Depending on the role, Signpost used several of Criteria’s assessments, including the GAME, EPP, and typing test.

1. The GAME, or General Aptitude Mobile Evaluation, is a fast, mobile-friendly, game-based assessment of cognitive aptitude. It gives an indication of a candidate’s trainability and critical thinking skills.
2. The EPP, or Employee Personality Profile, is a general personality assessment that measures a wide range of behavioral traits associated with particular roles.
3. The Typing Test measures a candidate’s speed and accuracy with typing.

Signpost also took advantage of Criteria’s integration with Greenhouse, which enables them to increase their efficiency by viewing all their recruiting information on a single platform. Smith says, “I love Greenhouse and I just also love the Criteria platform. The fact that the Criteria assessment scores integrate in, it makes it so much easier.”

Results

By using Criteria’s assessments, Signpost was able to lower turnover, improve productivity, and take their recruitment process to a new level.

70% Lower Turnover

Signpost was previously experiencing high turnover for their inbound phone support agents. Approximately 10 out of the 80 agents were leaving per month, or around 12.5% turnover each month.

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After Signpost started using Criteria’s assessments to hire new employees, the turnover rate went down significantly, to just 3 agents leaving per month. This amounted to about 3.75% monthly turnover. In other words, Signpost was able to reduce their turnover by 70%.

Because the retention is now so high, Signpost also spends significantly less time backfilling for this role.

Annualized, Signpost went from having to backfill 120 inbound phone support agents per year, to just 36 per year.

Training Completion

In the past, Signpost had experienced a lot of early turnover during the training period, sometimes even within the first week of training. By improving the structure of the recruitment process, adding Criteria’s assessments, and optimizing the onboarding experience, Signpost dramatically increased the rate at which their new hires complete training. According to Smith, “the amount of candidates we extend an offer to that actually successfully complete training is close to 100%.”

Higher Productivity

After incorporating Criteria’s assessments into the recruitment process, Signpost found that the newer team members are more productive and more efficient. They are taking more calls and requiring less wrap-up time.

Signpost uses “time on queue” as one of their primary metrics for productivity for this role. This metric provides a measure of how on-task and available for calls each team member is. Signpost’s benchmark sits around 80%. Employees who had been hired without Criteria’s assessments were on queue an average of 60-75% of the time, while the newer team members are on queue 85-90%, exceeding the benchmark.   

More Advancement Opportunities

Because Signpost’s newer team members are exceeding benchmarks and excelling in their roles, they are also increasingly getting access to advancement opportunities. Smith says, "they’re more dedicated, more flexible, more able to take on more challenges, and they’re acclimating a lot quicker.”

By hiring team members who are more motivated, Signpost is also able to access a pool of internal candidates for promotion, making it easier to recruit talent for those roles.

A Better Candidate Experience

For Devany Smith, the candidate experience is a major point of focus. “That’s been my passion project, making sure our candidates from the point of the first email are receiving good quality communication and overall knowing that their time is valuable.”

To amplify the candidate experience, Signpost also took advantage of the option to add their company’s branding to the Criteria test center, where candidates take the assessments. By branding the landing page, candidates feel more invited into the experience of Signpost’s brand.