Psychological Associates Helps New Business Hire the Right People to Become a “Beary” Big Success

The dream of every business entrepreneur is to take a great idea and run with it.

In 1997, Maxine Clark had an original concept for teddy bear themed stores in malls where children could actually make their own customized stuffed animals. Kids would not only go home with a personalized toy, they would take a memorable experience with them as well.

But in the tough world of retailing, the phenomenal rise of this unique enterprise owes more to thorough planning and smart execution than to dreams. Clark brought a 30-year career of retail and merchandising success to her new enterprise. She opened the first Build-A-Bear Workshop^® in a St. Louis mall in 1997. Today, the company has more than 400 Build-A-Bear Workshop stores and approximately 6,000 associates worldwide.

According to Darlene Elder, Chief Human Resource Bear, Build-A-Bear Workshop had to do two things to succeed. “We needed to hire the right people and train them to be successful.” As the retail entertainment concept was new to the industry, developing the “right” associate profile was the first step.

Psychological Associates Becomes a Strategic Partner

While they succeeded in recruiting top quality retail talent, Clark and Elder turned to Psychological Associates for the development of the model profile to identify the ideal Build-A-Bear Workshop store manager. Even though Psychological Associates had been helping companies assess and select the right talent for 40 years, Build-A-Bear Workshop was unique.

“We didn’t even have a profile of what success looked like, so we started collecting data,” stated Dr. Melinda Bremley, Senior Vice President of Performance Consulting at Psychological Associates. She worked closely with Elder to select a battery of assessments to administer to those already employed at Build-A-Bear Workshop. She ranked the results to identify those traits and qualities that matched up with the best performers.

Defining Success Characteristics as the Standard

This data was the starting point for establishing a management hiring profile unique to Build-A-Bear Workshop. Over the next decade, thanks to the teamwork of Build-A-Bear Workshop and Psychological Associates, these success characteristics were continually refined to serve as templates not just for assessing and selecting, but also for recruiting, developing, and benchmarking managerial talent for the needs of an organization that was growing as big as . . . a bear.

An example of Build-A-Bear Workshop’s innovative requirements: Elder and Bremley decided that assessment measures used to identify managers should include creativity and problem-solving. “As a pioneer in the entertainment retail business, we needed management teams in our stores that could think on their feet and not rely on scripts or manuals to find the right answers,” Elder said.

It was essential to establish uniform selection standards because the company was growing so quickly. “We were opening stores rapidly throughout the country, so we didn’t have time to develop and promote managers from within our organization,” Elder explained. As the new millennium came, Psychological Associates kept fine-tuning the data bank to improve the assessments’ accuracy and validity. According to Bremley, “We tried a lot of new measures, EQ for example. We looked at new nonverbal problem-solving tests. We also kept incorporating what people were doing on the job.”

At one point, Elder found an assessment tool to identify teamwork skills, which she felt was an important addition. “We had begun to understand the importance of teamwork at the store level. When we hired people together and trained them as part of a group, they jelled and were more successful.”

Refining the profile and using it as a measure for comparing assessment data has also helped Build-A-Bear Workshop raise their standards for hiring over the years. To this day, Bremley compares new management applicants’ results with the high expectations established for that position and then issues an analysis and recommendation.

Of course, as Elder is quick to point out, assessment data alone is not the basis for hiring. “We could find high school students whose assessment scores would match perfectly with the characteristics of a successful manager position at Build-A-Bear Workshop. But you can’t look at just that. Obviously, you have to take into account a person’s background, résumé, and experiences in life.”

Accurate Assessments as Predictors

When it began, Build-A-Bear Workshop was one of few retail companies to use assessment tools for hiring managers at the store level. Newer managers to the business were challenged to understand how assessments could be utilized to predict success. “They couldn’t believe that a paper and pencil assessment instrument could tell more about someone than their own four hours of interviewing. Yet, in cases where the managers’ hiring recommendations were followed in spite of the data, the assessments nearly always proved to be accurate. They were that precise.”

Since then, Psychological Associates has turned Build-A-Bear Workshop assessment profiles into interview guides to help standardize the interview process and to ensure that key behaviorally based questions are asked.

After new managers are hired, their assessment data also serves as a valuable tool for development. “It tells us where a new manager is already strong and where development opportunities exist,” Elder said. “The supervisor has a great place to start on the associate’s development, rather than having to work together for any extensive period of time to learn the areas of strength and opportunity.”

In addition to providing templates for retail management positions, Psychological Associates has also developed ones that apply specifically to positions at Build-A-Bear Workshop World Bearquarters (corporate offices). Today, the process can be handled electronically.

Benefits Go Beyond Bottom Line

The success of the company in such a short time is proof enough that hiring the right managers has brought Maxine Clark’s vision into every store location, resulting in lots of “beary” satisfied guests.

However, Elder noted other benefits derived from precise selection. She believes it contributes to higher retention rates as well as employee satisfaction. “The average retail turnover rate is consistently in the 100% range, but we are proud that we consistently perform at about half of that rate.” She feels people want to work where their bosses manage well and engage employees.

She also referred proudly to a recent University of Georgia study that documented that the overall level of employee satisfaction at Build-A-Bear Workshop far exceeded that of other companies. Furthermore, the company was named to the 2009 FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For^® list.

Why does Elder think the partnership between Build-A-Bear Workshop and Psychological Associates has worked so well through all the stages of growth at the company? “Psychological Associates has a great team of executives. They are intellectuals who took the time to get to know us first, and then became very immersed in our business. We have a mutual respect for what each other does, as well as a shared passion for our business. The Psychological Associates team is always willing to work with us on whatever challenge is presented. Overall, we consider them an extension of our Human Resource team!”

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