Is Your Company's Employee Assessment Data Safe and Confidential?

When choosing a company to provide you with expert assistance in your selection, hiring and coaching of employees, don't forget to consider how safe, secure and confidential your sensitive assessment reports will be.   

Organizations who are concerned about the security, availability, and confidentiality of their information when working with service providers will find the AICPA Trust Services standards to be a requirement moving forward. Attached please find a recent press release about the Service Organization Control (SOC) audits that were conducted by award-winning accounting firm Whitley Penn LLP.

Profiles International is the only Talent Management solutions provider to meet both the SOC 2 and SOC 3 requirements.  This is a key differentiator between Profiles International and other talent management solutions providers.  Our data and system security is a key point of differentiation one of the criteria that our clients look for in a business solutions provider.  Our customers rely on our assessment products and services in the course of doing business.  Profiles International takes these aspects of system and data security very seriously in the development and delivery of services to our customers.

The following press release is confirmation that Profiles International is not only a leader in the design of employee assessments that exceed validity & reliability standards published by the U.S. Government, but also have the systems, controls and infrastructure in place to keep our clients' sensitive data secure.

David Parsley
President
Parsley Performance Solutions, LLC
(888) 332-6409
www.ParsleyPerformance.com

  





CLICK HERE FOR A PDF VERSION OF THE FOLLOWING PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                            
Contact: Aoife Gorey PR Associate
Aoife.Gorey@profilesmail.com

Profiles International Successfully Completes SOC 2SM and SOC 3SM Security, Availability and Confidentiality Audit

WACO, TX – April 9, 2013 –Profiles International, Inc., (Profiles) the leading talent management solutions provider for organizations worldwide, announced that the company has successfully completed Service Organization Control (SOC) audits conducted by award-winning accounting firm Whitley Penn LLP. The SOC 2 and SOC 3 reports state Profiles maintains effective controls over the security, availability, and confidentiality of its talent management solutions systems.

Whitley Penn recently completed the SOC examinations of Profiles in accordance with the newer, more rigorous AT 101 standards following The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Trust Services. SOC 2 and SOC 3 provide much more stringent standards than the former SAS 70 - with a stronger set of controls and requirements.

Profiles is the only talent management solutions provider to meet the SOC 2 and SOC 3 requirements. All organizations who are concerned about the security, availability, and confidentiality of their information when working with service providers will find the AICPA Trust Services standards to be a requirement moving forward. This is especially important in highly-regulated industries like healthcare and finance.

"Our clients have always relied on the confidentiality of our assessment and survey reports, as well as the customer information they choose to share with us,” said Sia Ahmadzadeh, Senior Vice President, IT and Product Services. “Assurance of Profiles data and system security is also a frequent point of inquiry, and the availability of our systems is key for every customer who relies on our assessment products and services in the course of doing business. Profiles International takes these aspects of system and data security very seriously in the development and delivery of services to our customers.”

The SOC 3 report is designed to meet the needs of existing or potential customers who require assurance about the effectiveness of controls at a service organization. These controls are
relevant to the security, availability, or processing integrity of the system used by the service organization to process the customers’ information, or the confidentiality or privacy of that information. Current and prospective customers interested in a copy of Profiles' SOC 3 report may visit: www.profilesinternational.com.

The SOC 2 report goes into much more detail about a service provider’s systems and controls. This report is available upon request.  The following principles and related criteria have been developed by the AICPA and the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) for use by practitioners in the performance of trust services engagements:

• Security. The system is protected against unauthorized access (both physical and logical).
• Availability. The system is available for operation and use as committed or agreed
• Confidentiality. Information designated as confidential is protected as committed or agreed.

With the completion of a security audit focused on these trust principles, and the subsequent issuance of the reports, Profiles has demonstrated a commitment to terms established by internationally-recognized standards bodies. The reports provide third-party assurance to customers that Profiles International’s internal controls are appropriate and effective to these ends.

ABOUT PROFILES INTERNATIONAL
Profiles International helps organizations worldwide create high‐performing workforces by specializing in a comprehensive suite of talent management solutions. Profiles’ clients gain a competitive advantage by understanding their people at the deepest levels. This helps them select the right people for the right role and manage them to their fullest potential. www.profilesinternational.com

How to Align HR and Business Objectives

If you are in any form of HR position, you have probably heard numerous times about how important it is to align business and HR objectives. The Aberdeen Group’s 2013 study on human capital management trends found firms with HR departments that are aligned with business goals are able to better plan for future talent needs and integrate workforce and talent initiatives.
However, aligning HR and business objectives can prove to be quite a challenge. As most of you know, HR professionals wear many hats. They have to be expert relationship builders, bridging gaps between employers and employees. They have to balance this role as relationship builders with the ability to prove the return on investment of HR activities. It is a lot to juggle. When you add strategic business alignment, the task can seem insurmountable. Luckily, it is easy to break the task down into parts:  
 
1) Find metrics that please both HR executives and the C-suite.
HR professionals are likely to obsess over metrics like cost-per-hire and turnover rate. Most CEOs are looking at stock prices, return on assets, and other financial data. The key to aligning these metrics is to find how they impact each other. HR professionals should be able to explain in detail how hiring quality employees positively affects the company’s bottom line. HR Daily Advisor provides an excellent article on HR metrics for C-suite impact.

2) Share human capital management data with all stakeholders.
HR will never be at the forefront of company decisions until HR makes the necessary information available. The Aberdeen Group reports that only 25 percent of organizations make relevant human capital management data available to stakeholders. This information needs to be communicated to company stakeholders, just like financial reports. It also needs to be presented in a way that is clear to understand and easy to use. Providing the return on investment of HR activities is a great way to get stakeholder's attention. HR and organizational policy professional Tia Benjamin provides a guide for calculating human resources ROI here.

3) Realize that you are all working toward the same objectives.
C-suite executives must create a culture of inclusion for everyone in the organization. If HR feels like they are constantly fighting for funding or respect, they may begin to gain a short-sighted focus on metrics that only matter to HR, specifically to “prove” they are good at HR functions. But if a company is not profitable, HR efforts will not matter. Meetings that include leaders from all departments in an organization are critical to make sure that the company-wide mission and objectives are clearly communicated. This puts each department head in the right mindset to take actions that are best for the company as a whole, not just for their individual departments.
There is one shared factor in all three of these tips: finding a common link. HR professionals must assess every action in terms of links to business objectives. They should be honest with themselves about whether an activity is worth implementing if they cannot find a way the activity adds value. This honesty is the best way to make sure that HR objectives and business objectives are strategically aligned.

Repost from Profiles International's Workplace 101 Blog
Originally posted by Diamond Richardson on Mon, Apr 01, 2013 

Stop Using Only Old School Hiring Techniques

You just interviewed a potential job candidate. You liked her. Her resume was impressive and her experience seemed to check out. But your still not 100% sure if she is the right fit for your specific open position. Do you hire her? For many employers, the job interview will answer that question.

Through the traditional job interview, we can tell whether potential employees are well-spoken, energetic, and knowledgeable. We can tell whether they are bluffing on their resumes, and we can get a feel on how well they will fit the company culture.

The job interview cannot tell us everything. However we have a tendency to hold it up as the only time to discover everything we need to know about a job candidate, but it is not. Don’t get us wrong, we are not saying to STOP conducting job interviews (goodness no!), we are simply saying that you shouldn’t RELY soley on it when hiring.

Job seekers also realize the importance of the job interview. You can be certain they are the best versions of themselves when they are in an interview, a version you may not get from them at work every day. With so many new hiring techniques and trends in Human Resources today, why on earth would you stick with only the typical and traditional job interview?

Here are three common misconceptions employers make about job interviews:

1) What you see is what you get!
Unfortunately for most candidates, this is simply not true. Like we said earlier, candidates are the very best versions of themselves when they are on a job interview. They have practiced how to alter their behavior to fit what they believe you are looking for. While the effort is admirable, no one can act like this on a daily basis. It is up to you to be able to decipher who the candidate really is behind the smoke and mirrors. People also get nervous! I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous every single time I interviewed for a job. One of my very first interviews, I mumbled “Nice be to you,” instead of “nice to meet you” and spilled some water on the table. We are humans, after all. Thankfully, this past employer smiled, brushed it off for nerves, and we began discussing my capabilities and experience, (and yes, I eventually got the job!)

2) They sound like they know what they’re talking about, so they MUST be able to do it!
Two words can be used to counter this misconception: the Internet. You can be almost certain that before the interview, the candidate has combed through articles experts have written about the skill set necessary for the job. But the ability to talk about the job does not always translate into the ability to actually do the job. Last year, a marketing friend of mine was able to "blab" on for an hour-long interview about her experience with HTML and coding. She didn’t take a single skill test or have to show examples of her work before she was offered the job. She ultimately turned it down. Lesson? Don’t believe everything you hear.

3) I have been doing interviews for a long time, so I am an expert at judging someone!
We are sure you are! Confidence in your interviewing abilities is great, but even if you have conducted 100,000 interviews, each is still different because each time you are interviewing a different person. Each candidate requires different interviewing skills to get an answer to the question, “can this person do the job and do it well?” You set yourself up for failure when you over estimate your interviewing abilities. At the end of the day, an interviewer cannot measure all aspects of a person. Behavior, attitude, morale, thinking style, and interests all contribute to the success of job fit.

Combining skills tests, pre-hire assessments, and traditional interviews may take a little more time, but you will have a significantly higher chance of finding the perfect person for your job. In addition to a simple skills report, many assessment tools offer insight for hiring managers in preparing for interviews. Check out the ProfileXT® that includes an interview guide in its report.

Posted on Profiles International Workplace 101 by Aoife Gorey on Tue, Apr 02, 2013