HR management

Things were getting ugly in the beauty department at Logo Department Stores and something had to be done about it. Beauty advisors (also called cosmetic associates) in their 177 stores were leaving their positions at a higher rate than sales associates in other departments during the first few months on the job. This seemed odd to the manager as Beauty advisors received more training than any other sales position and had higher income potential. Logo already had an assessment in place that was supposed to determine if an applicant was a good fit, but it clearly was not working for the beauty advisor position.

Logo HR started asking some tough questions about what it takes to be successful in a beauty sales position. Since cosmetic sales require getting up close and personal with customers, much more so than other sales positions, they wondered if a beauty advisor needed to have different personality traits than someone selling clothing or bedding. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projected that demand for sales workers would grow at a faster rate than other professions, Logo couldn't afford to be constantly replacing sales workers, especially since they receive 30 hours of training in their first 60 days of employment. It was both time‐consuming and expensive.

Consultants interviewed hundreds of high‐performing beauty advisors and managers at Logo to try and determine the traits essential for job success. The results were surprising. Prior to the survey, managers assumed that friendly, customer‐service oriented people who loved fashion and beauty were good candidates. Those factors were important, but cognitive and problem‐ solving ability were critical. Successful beauty advisors, they found, are intelligent problem solvers as much as they are sales people, as they help customers with very personal skincare, makeup, and fragrance needs.

As a result, 10 questions were developed for store managers to ask when interviewing applicants. A new assessment was also developed and validated for adverse impact and other discriminatory factors. All applicants for beauty advisor associate positions are now required to take the 80‐question assessment test—it takes around 20 minutes to complete—and the results have been encouraging. Beauty advisors now remain with Logo stores 12 percent longer than they did before the assessment test was implemented and turnover is the lowest of any sales group in the store. New associates also achieve 2.1 percent more total sales per hour than associates hired before the assessment was developed.