Category Archives: Blog

The iWAM EQ Test – How it can Help YOU!!

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The Inventory for Work Attitude & Motivation (iWAM) is a questionnaire used for job-related activities, such as recruitment, coaching and training projects.

The iWAM Management Report identifies a person’s motivational and attitude preferences in the job context and predicts how this person will behave in various job types, such as administrative, customer contact or managerial tasks. The iWAM Attitude Sorter predicts key motivational preferences and development areas.

InnoChan Solutions is delighted to be one of the first to offer this unique test in Ireland and, the ONLY company in Ireland permitted to provide Training and Certification for this test method.

What can iWAM provide for Your Organisation?

Efficiency: Sometimes the moment a candidate walks into the door you get this feeling that the interview might be a waste of time both for you and the candidate. Since iWAM is available on the Internet, it saves you time by testing people even before inviting them for an interview.

Reliability: iWAM has been designed to eliminate test falsification. Furthermore, because the iWAM test is analysed against data on a regional basis, e.g. Ireland/England, USA, Europe, Australia, etc. the results provide a clearer comparison against the Attitudes and Motivators that matter to you and your environment.

Low Cost: iWAM is available at a fraction of the cost of other evaluation models with comparable features. The flexibility of the test provides so much more scope than other tests. As a tool, iWAM reduces recruitment costs because it provides greater insights into the Attitudes of potential recruits. iWAM also provides a great tool to help improve staff performance and motivation while targeting your Coaching and Development strategies towards focussed elements rather than wasting money on more general training.

Speed: The iWAM test takes approximately 25 minutes to complete on-line. The results and analysis of the test can be carried out immediately which will facilitate immediate feedback. InnoChan Solutions can arrange for the entire program to be conducted as a seamless end to end process which will help you to reach speedy conclusions and to put immediate plans in place.

Flexibility: The iWAM management report can also be used as a management and teambuilding tool. The report indicates how a person will react as a manager, in an administrative function or in a customer-oriented function. It even indicates what kind of language will motivate the person.

Models of Excellence: If you regularly recruit people for the same role, e.g. call centre, sales, security monitoring, etc. it is possible to develop a Model of Excellence test which will focus on the key cognitive patterns that you need your candidates to have for each role. This will save you time in recruitment costs, ensure accurate Recruitment adverts that will target specific people and ensure that the people in the job are the right people in the job thus ensuring greater staff motivation and improved staff retention.

Teams: Do you want to set up a team for a specific purpose? The iWAM test will help you to select the correct people based on their attitudes and motivators. This will ensure that the team will work well together, understand each other and achieve their purpose with the minimum of issues.

Do you have one team performing better than another at the same task? With the iWAM test it is possible to compare the individual attitudes and task motivators of the two teams which allows you to identify the specific attitudes in the higher performing team that are likely to be resulting in the higher performance. Using this information it is then possible, through Coaching and Development, to improve the performance of the second team.

Managers: The iWAM test will help managers to understand the individual motivators for each member of their team. This will help them to adapt their management approach so that it enhances the motivation of their team rather than deflate it.

Improved Staff Mobility: Do you have staff members who move to offices and sites in other countries? This can be a major step for your staff member. The regional aspect of the iWAM test means that your candidate for a foreign post can undergo the test against the Attitude and Motivational patterns in the region they intend to go to. The result will show how well the candidate is likely to ‘fit in’ with their new environment.

Do you recruit staff members from overseas? Again, the iWAM test can be used to check just how well the candidate are likely to ‘fit in’ with their new environment. This will ensure that your selection is more likely to last in the role and eliminate the need for you to repeat the recruitment process (possibly at short notice).

What can iWAM do for YOU as an Individual?

Understanding: The iWAM test will give you a deeper understanding of you. It will highlight for you what YOUR key Motivators and Patterns are in the work environment. Once you can understand your cognitive patterns, you will be better equipped to identify and understand the patterns of others. This will have the benefit of improving understanding and interaction with other people both in the work environment and in your private life.

Direction: The iWAM test will help you identify what really motivates you and enable you to develop real plans which will see you in a role that appeals and engages you at every level.

Mobility: Are you considering a move to another country? This can be a major step for you and your family. The regional aspect of the iWAM test means that you can undergo the test against the Attitude and Motivational measures in the region you intend to go to. The result will show how well the you are likely to ‘fit in’ with your new environment.

InnoChan Solutions is ready to help you and your teams to identify and achieve real benefits through the iWAM EQ test. Why not Contact Us to arrange a meeting where we can discuss your needs in greater detail. Remember we can also arrange to train your HR or senior management to administer and assess the test for yourself and your teams.

iWAM is probably one of the most powerful tests of its kind available today. Why not tap into the power of iWAM and help yourself, your team and your business to achieve real and lasting change.

Refusing to Accept Negativity….We CAN Do It!!

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(This Blog originally appeared on my other website; www.secs.ie)

For a little over a year now, I have made a conscious effort to eliminate negativity from my life. It has been difficult at times but on the whole the change has been fantastic. I try to look at life situations differently, I try to find the positive in ‘bad’ things and, probably most importantly, I have given myself the power and authority to decide how I should react to whatever I encounter.

 

Periodically I have told people of what I was trying to do. The range of reaction has been interesting; some have looked at me disbelievingly before launching into a tirade on how I shouldn’t bury my head in the sand, or how negativity is a part of life, while others have congratulated me and asked me how I do it.

 

So I began to think a bit more about the concept of negativity and in particular how we all already selectively refuse to accept negativity.

 

Picture the scene, you are walking down your local hight street. It is a beautiful day and you are enjoying your time browsing from store to store. Life is good. You are in a good place and you are happy. Suddenly you are accosted by a group of youths who are running around noisily and are bumping into you and your fellow shoppers. They are shouting, laughing and generally being a nuisance to everyone. Do you consider this to be a scary situation? Is the group of youths having a negative effect on your previously happy day?

 

Maybe you actually have been through something like this. Maybe it wasn’t a group of youths, but someone who was the worse for wear from alcohol or drugs, or maybe it was a couple having a very public argument. Any one of these would have a negative effect on you and your day. So what did you do? Be honest!!

 

In most cases, when we are faced with situations where we feel that we are being threatened or scared we do what we can to get away from the situation. It is basically our ‘Fight or Flight’ instinct kicking in. We take ourselves away from the threat and get on with our lives. This does not alter the fact that the situation occurred, but we give ourselves the choice not to become involved in the negative events of others.

 

Now let’s look at home. You are relaxing and watching TV. During the program you see images that upset you. They may be of a surgical procedure, or a violent riot, or a particularly gruesome attack. What do you do (even for an instant)? Your reflex is to turn away, close your eyes or change the channel until the event is finished. In effect, you choose not to watch (or listen to) the upsetting and negative events being portrayed on screen.

 

How many times in your life have you found yourself in a situation you didn’t like where your remedy was to take yourself away from the issue? We have all done it.

 

So why do we believe that we HAVE TO take on the negativity that we see, hear and read every day in the media? How do you know that by refusing to accept negativity, I haven’t found a way through the current climate without the baggage that you have to carry from accepting negativity as a part of life?

 

As I have shown, negativity exists everywhere, if we let it. But we have the power to either accept it, get caught up in it and carried along in the tide, or we can swim to the shore, get out and choose not to be part of it. This power is within us all. Just imagine how much quicker the current recession would end if we all chose to focus on positive instead of negative. How much more energised would we be if we didn’t have the baggage of negative thinking weighing us down.

 

As a final test, ask yourself, if you think that negativity is necessary, who’s negative thoughts are you accepting as your own? Go on ask yourself that question and see what answer you come up with.

 

If you believe that you should accept what you read in the press or hear on the news, then you are accepting the negative (and often biased) information that another person has decided you should hear/read. So in effect, you have given them the power to tell you what you should (or shouldn’t) believe.

 

I make a point of listening to a news bulletin at least once per day (I have not become a recluse just because I am working to eliminate negativity from my life), but I tend to listen to the headlines only. That way my thoughts and decisions are not going to be affected by what a reporter wants me to believe. (If I need further information, I will research it myself and come to my own decisions.) Once I have an idea of what is going on in the world, I can get back to what is going on in MY world and its interaction with those around me and those I meet.

 

Basically, I have control of the one thing that I can control; ME.

 

What about YOU???

‘Sometimes Life Just Gets in the Way’

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Isn’t life a funny thing.

I was sorting through some papers recently and I came across some materials from a hobby I had many years ago. As I sat and flicked through the papers and books, I remembered the enjoyment I used to have. I remember the people I interacted with and I began to miss it. I also began to wonder why I ever stopped. I mentioned the hobby and what I found to a friend and my wonderment on why I stopped. She said “that’s normal, sometimes life just gets in the way”.

That got me thinking. How can Life get in the way of Life? If we let Life get in the way, what are we missing out on?

We are all familiar with the various sayings relating to life and getting the most from it, so how can it get in the way? Very easily really.

The current pace of life is very fast. We are bombarded with information through the various forms of media. We are under pressure to perform at work, to earn money to pay the bills, support our families, etc. etc. The list is endless (or so it would appear).

With so many demands on us in our daily lives, it is easy to understand how some things can fall by the wayside and, if not picked up again, can be forgotten altogether. Forgotten, that is, until sometime in the future when we stumble across some remnants from the days we were doing that hobby or job.

In a way, I see such an occurrence as if we were in a very crowded street. People are rushing everywhere pushing and bustling along. Now imagine that you are carrying something you like (maybe a book) and in the melee it gets knocked from your hands, but before you can reach out to pick it up, you get carried along by the crowd until, in time, you forget about the book altogether and move with the flow of the crowd. Then, out of the blue, you are passing a book store and you find your book in the window. The memories come flooding back to that day you last held it before it was knocked from your hands and left behind.

It is one thing to lose a book or to forget about a hobby, but, if the pace of life is so fast now, what else are we losing? What other parts of our life are being ‘blocked’ by our life?

Are we losing sight of more important things than just hobbies? Things like relationships, family, friends, intimacy, etc.

Think about it.

We become so caught up in the demands we encounter in our lives that we can miss that coffee with a friend, that visit with family and friends, that time for talk and intimacy with a loved one. Sometimes we don’t even realise that, by our actions, we have in fact begun to move and leave these important things behind.

We promise that we will make it up to them tomorrow or next week, but we rarely do because by then we will be faced with new situations and things that need our attention. So tomorrow, becomes next week. Next week becomes next month and next month becomes ‘let’s pencil something in for the holidays’, etc. etc. Before you know it, your thoughts change to “I couldn’t contact them now, I’d be too embarrassed, it’s been so long”.

It is time to STOP!!

We need to re-focus our attention on what is important, not just to us, but to those people and things that are really important to us (not just work).

Take a moment while you read this to reflect on someone (or something) you have been neglecting because ‘Life has gotten in the way’.

When you think of these people and things, how do you feel?

What memories are these thoughts triggering?

Feels good doesn’t it?

Now for the big question; What are YOU going to do to change the status quo?

Are you prepared to jump off the treadmill for a little while and re-engage with the people you have been neglecting because you have been too busy?

Remembering our image of the lost book and the crowds from earlier, are you prepared to leave the crowds, the hustle and bustle of life to enter the shop and once again buy that book?

We can all use life as the reason/excuse for missing out on the important things in our lives. We keep using these excuses until it becomes too late. Then we mourn the lost time, blame our lives and increase our regrets. Yet each one of us has the power to make it right.

You have the power to re-kindle that relationship with a loved one, a spouse, partner, child, family member, friend, hobby or thing. YOU alone can regain the intimacy and connection that you now miss because of your ‘schedules’. The challenge for you is; When are YOU going to do something about it?

I challenge you to step off the merry-go-round of life and take back the life you have blocked out. Make time at least once each week to pause the rat-race and re-connect with the things that are important to you (the rat-race will still be there when you get back!).

At the end of the day, it is within your control to make sure that YOUR life doesn’t get the the way of YOUR life…

iWAM in Recruitment

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JobEQ is the company behind the iWAM (Inventory for Work Attitudes and Motivators) Emotional Intelligence test. iWAM is a questionnaire which allows to identify a persons attention filters and cognitive styles, also called metaprograms.

The iWAM measures a person’s 48 cognitive patterns (Meta-programs). Using this, one can predict what motivates a person, what is their work attitude and how they will want to communicate and to act during their work context. iWAM allows the individual preferences  to be taken into account and to value each person for their strengths. iWAM will allow an organization to make better use of the human potential of its workforce.

JobEQ has identified 6 major problems with how recruiting works today. These present serious risks both to the candidate and to the company. In the UK, for example, about 10% of hired candidates don’t even make it to the end of the first month on their new job!

InnoChan Solutions is the only company in Ireland that offers the full range of jobEQ products to suit your needs. We can provide:

  • Needs Analysis
  • Test administration and assessment
  • Training and Certification in iWAM test assessment
  • Development of Models of Excellence
  • Assistance with development of Closed User Group (CUG)
  • Follow up consultancy

In the table below, the left hand column picks up some of the main recruitment issues that affect the selection of suitable staff while the right hand column demonstrates how jobEQ and the iWAM test can be effectively used to overcome each of these issues, improve the efficiency of recruitment, reduce recruitment costs and most importantly, improve staff retention and motivation.

 

Market weakness iWAM solution
Job Description & Candidate Profile
How do you know what type of person you are looking for?		 Model of Excellence
For many positions, each organization has examples of people doing that job well. jobEQ helps you to find out how they function to get these results. We use their profiles to design a model of the ideal candidate.
Job Advert
How do you make sure your advertisement is appealing enough to attract the right candidate?		 Job Ad design
Once you know what motivates the best performers in a function, you can write the advert using language that will motivate people that are similar to your top performers.
Which resumé to select
Out of all the resumés that you receive, how do you select who you should interview? (What do you do with the ones you reject?)		 Pre-employment Testing & Profile Matching
Candidates fill out the iWAM questionnaire. Their answers are compared to the model of excellence. This is an objective, scalable process that can quickly narrow the field to only the best candidates.
Cycle time
How can you deal with dozens or even hundreds of candidates in a reasonable amount of time?		 Internet Processing
The iWAM test is available online, dramatically increasing the efficiency of the recruiting process.
Recognize best match
How do you recognize the best match for the job?		 Candidate Ranking
Using a Model of Excellence, ranks all candidates according to the degree in which they match with a model of a specific role. Moreover, the iWAM management report describes the candidates in detail.
Motivate to join
How do you motivate the chosen candidate to join your team?		 Training & coaching
Feedback reports tell you the exact words that will motivate a particular candidate. You will also learn how to close the gap between the model of excellence and the new employee using coaching and training.

 

Contact us today on +353 (0)5991 34733 or +353(0)85 1777951 or by e-mail on info@innochansol.com for more information or to arrange a meeting.

iWAM – So What’s it all about?

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Up until last year (2010) I was not aware that there was an Emotional Intelligence (EI) test called iWAM. I was certified to administer the Bar-On EI test and I had experienced the MSCEIT test. I thought both were spectacularly powerful (the Bar-On test in particular has had a profound effect on my personal and professional development over the last few years). However, I never really realised just how powerful and important Emotional Intelligence tests could be until I experienced iWAM.

 

The inventory of Work Attitudes and Motivators (iWAM) test blew my mind.

 

The iWAM measures a person’s 48 cognitive patterns (Meta-programs). Using this, one can predict what motivates a person, what is their work attitude and how they will want to communicate and to act during their work context. iWAM allows the individual preferences  to be taken into account and to value each person for their strengths. iWAM will allow an organization to make better use of the human potential of its workforce.

 

iWAM has been developed to test the full white collar workforce, entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals, from call desk employees or first line sales people to middle and top management and beyond. It is successfully used in applications from hiring interns for summer jobs to assessing managers at all levels and improving team performance.

 

The power of the iWAM test lies in the fact that once a person becomes aware of their key motivators, they can more effectively manage how they interact with others. The self awareness they achieve will help them to recognise the patterns of the people they interact with.

 

On average completing iWAM takes 30 minutes online. Most people complete iWAM between 20 and 40 minutes (no time limit is imposed). The test itself consists of 40 questions/statements and a choice of answers which the participant must arrange from most to least relevant to them. Once completed, the assessor will have access to a wide range of reports that include summary graphs and charts to full reports to various team reports. This provides multiple HR, Coaching and Management tools to effectively select and manage staff. The bonus is that a single price covers all reports, making it an extremely economic form of psychometric testing.

 

InnoChan Solutions is one of only a handful of companies in Ireland currently certified to administer and assess the iWAM EQ test. Additionally, InnoChan Solutions is the ONLY company in Ireland licensed to train and certify test administrators. Being certified to administer the test makes sound economic sense to HR departments and companies who, after certification, will be able to manage the tests themselves either through InnoChan Solutions or through their own Closed User Group (CUG). Certification training can be run as an open training event or (if numbers are available) as an in-house program.

 

More information can be obtained by contacting InnoChan Solutions on +353 (0)59 9134733 or by emailing info@innochansol.com

Who Are You??

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(This Blog originally appeared on my other website; www.secs.ie)

We are all familiar with phrases like “that person wears their heart on their sleeve” or “I can read you like a book” or “what you see is what you get with that one”. All imply that we fully see the ‘real’ person in question, but is that really true? Do we ever really get to see the real you, or is ‘what we see is what we get’, the view that you have unconsciously (or consciously) decided that we should ‘see and get’?

We all suffer from split personalities; the person we really are (our unconscious profile, aka our ‘natural style’) and the person we allow others to see and interact with. Have you ever thought that you knew someone until a time when, perhaps they were under particular stress or pressure, they acted in a manner that seemed alien to them? We are familiar with the line from the movies;“Who are you and what have you done with ‘Name’?”

In fact there are times, when the people we thought we knew so intimately act in a manner that is strange to us. They display traits that we never saw from them before, sometimes we don’t like what we see. We try to explain away their unusual behaviour by putting it down to pressure or stress and we tend to give these people some space until ‘normal service is resumed’. In essence, we wait until the mask that has fallen off, is replaced.

It’s sad to think that we all live under false pretenses. To some extent we all wear masks that hide our true selves at some point in our lives. In a world dominated by ‘PC” (Politically Correct) behaviour and the need to impress others, we may feel that we have little option but to ‘follow the pack’ and match others. In effect, we air-brush our natural style to become the person others see. So what are we ashamed of?

In a world where image is everything we are constantly bombarded by messages telling us how to act and behave in various circumstances. Add the hardship of a global recession and the increase in the numbers of unemployed people looking for work and we see the pressure increasing for us to become someone else in order to get a job or just ‘fit in’.

We engage with people with whom we have no connection and we demonstrate the external signs of interest while internally, there is a voice in our heads telling us to get away. We take on roles that do not suit us and force ourselves to undertake tasks that we are uncomfortable with. Such tasks put us in a spiral that can have serious consequences to our health, our relationships and our work, if left unchecked for a long period of time.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation (work or social) which left you feeling drained? You might blame your tiredness on the pressure of the work or having to deal with so many people. You might feel guilty over feelings you have about ‘having to talk to’ , or just spend time in the company of certain people.

In reality, your feelings may not be due to the pressure of work or the people you interact with. You might, in fact, be feeling this way because of how much you have to change from your Natural Style to another style in order to interact with your job or other people. The greater the level of change, the greater the effort required and the greater the effect it will have on each of us.

You could argue that in the current climate, it is necessary to take on roles that require a major change in our personality in order to earn money and pay the bills. While, that may be so, it is also important that we are able to recognise the effects the additional effort is having on us.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. It is possible for us to change so that our natural style becomes the style we need in our lives. However, before we can change, we need to know what to change and, we need to be happy to make the change.

Emotional Intelligence tests (EQ-i) as well as other Psychometric tests can help indicate specific areas that we could work on in order to become more effective in our lives or in a specific situation or role. For example, a person in a customer facing role might need to work on his/her interpersonal skills to help when dealing with customers, while a person in a pressure role might need to reduce their chatty nature and develop their stress management skills. Without such tests, the people in question could continue in their roles blissfully unaware of their need to make changes. Blissfully unaware, that is, until something goes wrong.

When things go wrong, the first indicator is that the mask is dropped. The person will return to their natural style. If they are naturally very quiet and withdrawn people, then in a customer facing role, they will stop interacting with their customers and they will tend to avoid contact. They may then move to avoiding the work altogether. To colleagues and managers, this will probably seem like abnormal behaviour, while in reality it is actually the person’s natural behaviour and what the management had been seeing up to this was abnormal for the person.

At it’s extreme, a continuous change from our natural style could affect our health. How many times have we witnessed celebrities suffer from what we call a ‘melt-down’. While some of it may be drug or drink induced, we should ask how much of it is simply because they have been so long operating outside their natural styles to the point where the effort required to ‘be the person everyone else expects them to be’ has become too much of an effort.

Even those celebrities we see flaming out through drink and drugs may be using the intoxicants to help them play the role that the public expects of them. Drink and drugs are simply ‘courage in a bottle’ that they use to overcome their natural styles and put on the mask of someone else.

We see similar ‘burn-out’ situations in the people around us and much of it can be due to people reverting to their natural styles due to the level of effort that has been involved in maintaining this mask or alter-ego.

It can be scary to see your profile in the black and white print of a psychometric report, but it is also fascinating to be able to get a clinical view that is not tainted by friendship, fear or some other emotion.

If you are feeling increasingly tired after work. If you feel something is wrong with your life, or if you would like to find out more about yourself, why not take the test. You will be surprised at what you will discover about yourself.