4G Tech - structured using PI

What do they do?    Telecommunication technology
Using PI since          The company’s inception in 2004
No. of employees     25  
Primary use of PI     PI was used to structure the organisation at its inception and is still
used for every people decision
PI as company culture PI has ‘become part of our DNA’
Staff turnover           0%

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4GTech was built from the start using PI. Jobs were structured using the PRO and new appointments were made using the PI Survey and PRO. Sales staff have been trained in Customer Focused Selling and management uses PI for every people decision. Anthony Walley, the MD, says PI is part of the company's DNA.

How long have you been using PI?
From day one. I personally have been using PI for many years, and when we started designing the organisation I was already well-versed in PI. We used PROs to develop the organisational structure. Every single job in the company has been structured – if you look at 4G’s AccessPI, you’ll see that there is a PRO for every job (including the MD’s) and that the incumbents’ profiles match the PROs very well.

What attracted you to the PI system?
The fact that it allows you to understand people’s behaviours. It allows you to predict how they will react to stress. I was frustrated with not understanding how people with education and expertise might fail, whereas people with no qualifications could still excel. I realised that formal education was not the full picture – that there was an element missing. PI helped us find that element.

What are the biggest challenges PI has helped you to address?
•    What type of salespeople we need
•    Which key account manager should handle which clients
•    Resolving conflict within a team
•    Understanding and resolving performance issues with individuals and within teams
•    Retaining and developing our key staff

How has PI been implemented within your company? Is it something people encounter only when being interviewed, or is the average employee aware of the ongoing use of PI within the company?
PI is an integral part of the culture at 4GTech and all our employees encounter it or use it regularly. We use the PI profile to counsel individuals. One, we’ll ask if the behaviours are true and relevant, and second, we’ll explain that we have a job available internally that requires the identified behaviours, would that person be interested in moving to that position.

We routinely use PI as a management tool. We refer to people’s profiles and profile factors in discussions about performance and general development discussions.

And we use profiles in anything team-related to help people understand why behaviours are different. Since we’ve been using PI in teamwork we’ve definitely noticed better understanding and less conflict within and between teams.

Zero percent staff turnover in 5 years is an excellent figure. What do you attribute this to?
We are pedantic when it comes to recruitment. A lot of the managers find it frustrating, because once it’s highlighted that it’s more than education and expertise that makes a candidate right for the job, recruiting becomes more complex. You have additional criteria for individuals to meet.

It makes finding the right individual more difficult – but by the same token, once that individual joins the company, they have every logical asset they need to be in that position and to succeed.

How does PI make you money?
We have a streamlined, fat-free organisation with the right people employed in the right positions.

But in another sense, PI makes us money because it equips our sales people with the tools to understand our clients and their needs, making for more effective sales.

In what ways have you seen a return on your investment with PI? How have you seen it save your organisation money?
We haven’t spent a rand on replacing staff in our first five years. Which also means that our investment in training and development has been returned to the organisation. We may take longer to find our ideal candidates, but the use of the remote survey means we only interview candidates who meet all our criteria – which ultimately saves us time and money.

The PI Capacity Grid also tells us what the smartest use of our investment in staff training and development would be.

How do you use SSAT/CFS?
Within the sales team we use SSAT as a guide for the manager and the individuals to see what parts of the sales process they can improve on. SSAT is a self appraisal tool – we like self appraisals because people are tougher on themselves than they are on others.

One of the main elements of CFS for us – the magic part – is applying PI principles. Here’s a Hi B, Lo C client, let me allow him to talk about himself a little before getting down to business. Client is a Hi A, lo C, let me get straight to the point. Or let me refer my Hi B colleague to my Hi B client – they’ll be a good match.