Case Study for World-wide Oil Company

Introduction and Background

The following predictive case study is related to the Harrison InnerView Employment Suitability Profiling System. This study summarized below was conducted from 1991 through to 1993 as part of the Job Train Program of the Commonwealth Employment Services of Australia. The administration of the questionnaires, the processing of the questionnaires, the implementation of the associated training, and the gathering of the data relating to the results were all done independently of Harrison InnerView.

The Job Train Program is aimed at training people who have been unemployed for more than one year in order to provide them with new skills that enhance their employment prospects. Previous training programs showed employment outcomes of 19% (19% of trainees found employment after training and remained in employment for a period of at least three months).

The InnerView software system was used to screen the applicants prior to training to determine the suitability of the applicants to work in a customer service role. The courses were conducted over a 20 month period. There were 601 applicants and 94 persons were selected to be trained.

InnerView was asked to make a “success or failure” prediction as to whether new applicants would successfully complete the training, gain employment, and remain employed after 3 months. The prediction was to be made by the software system using the “template” function for customer service. (In this case, applicants who scored 68% or more on the template were considered to be predicted to succeed and those who scored below 68% were considered to be predicted to fail.

Results of the study

Mostly applicants were taken on the course that InnerView predicted would succeed, however on the initial two courses, six applicants were selected that InnerView predicted would not succeed. Of those six, five did not succeed. Of the eighty-eight applicants that InnerView predicted would be successful, seventy-six were successful. The overall accuracy of predictions was 82 out of 94 (87%).

This data gains additional meaning when compared to the previous outcome of only 19% for the Job Train program prior to using InnerView. Despite selecting the six candidates predicted by InnerView to fail, the overall success of the training program was 89%.

A follow-up study was conducted by the primary employer in the study. In this study, a different group of independent assessors posing as shoppers, determined that those employees selected by InnerView were rated 15% higher than the National Australian average in customer service effectiveness, despite having been on the job for a very limited time period compared to the other employees.