Connaught profiles staff to find balanced teams

Connaught has adopted dating agency principles to make its partnering contracts even more successful.
The contractor has employed the services of consultancy Traico to put all its staff involved in partnering contracts through personality profiling tests to draw up a database of qualities that help make contracts successful.
"Getting the right blend of players in a team is essential to partnering contracts," said Connaught director Jackie Ducker. "On one partnering contract we found that problems were being caused because the team was full of people with innovative ideas, but there was nobody getting the job done. By using our database we found the right person to insert into the team and now the contract is working a treat."
Connaught embraced the profiling approach after it carried out research into the sports industry.
"We wanted to go outside the industry to ascertain what makes a football or rugby team work as a unit," Ducker said. "We found that success in sport came from a blend of characters with different strengths and weaknesses."
The profiling process is introduced at the start of a new contract when staff from the client and Connaught draw up a graph of the work required and the personalities needed to carry out the job.
The profiling database, which is strictly confidential, is then accessed to get the right blend of people together by getting staff to undergo a test based on the principles set out by teambuilding experts Belbin and Thomas.
Approximately 75 Connaught staff have completed, or are going through, the profiling process and following their assessments they undergo feedback sessions to discuss the findings.
Tests are renewed on a
regular basis.
"The process has been invaluable on long-term contracts where a member of the team leaves. We need to find the person with the right qualities to fill the gap," adds Ducker.
Connaught's use of profiling complements the company's partnering excellence model it set up a last year to guide
clients through the principles
of partnering.
Successes of the model on some contracts include shaving around six months off the mobilisation period and cost reductions of around 25%.
Last year Connaught had a 100% success rate on a series of eight contracts it bid for.