22 Dec Predictive Index® Helps Tradition-Steeped Culture Embrace Change, Build Strong Teams and Enhance Communication
Case Study: Plunkett Cooney Law
Leveraging the Predictive Index® behavioral assessment to understand how employees manage change within the organization, 100-year-old legal firm Plunkett Cooney guided employees within a conservative culture through a major corporate-wide technology overhaul that would limit paper dependency, automate processes and support customer service delivery.
“The Predictive Index is a competitive advantage for us. I believe it differentiates us in the market because it has created a common language and brought people closer together to do good work.”
– Denise Boucke, Director of Human Resources, Plunkett Cooney
Highlights:
- Conducted effective change management in successfully transitioning the company to new technology in a timely manner.
- Optimized employee engagement and preserved employee morale during the organizational change process.
- New team-based approach to shaping the corporate culture to enhance employee engagement and retention.
- Won Best and Brightest Companies to Work for in Metro Detroit Area for six consecutive years and recognized as a Top Workplace by The Detroit Free Press.
- Improved communication across the organization; latest employee assessment results indicates greater transparency and confidence in the organization.
Client:
Established in 1913, Plunkett Cooney is one of the largest and most accomplished litigation and trial firms in the Midwest. Today, the practice consists of more than 165 lawyers across a network of eleven offices throughout Michigan and one each in Ohio and Indiana.
Challenge:
For the last 100 years, Plunkett Cooney’s diverse teams of professionals have worked side by side and across geographic boundaries to deliver exceptional client service. To sustain this success for the next century, CEO Hank Cooney needed the company to become more innovative in two key areas: Talent and Technology. First, the firm sought a better way to select, develop and manage employees both as individual contributors and as part of cross-functional teams. Further, the company planned to introduce new technologies and processes that would transform the traditionally paper-heavy environment into a “paperlite” culture. Both initiatives would require senior management to gain a deeper understanding of employee workplace behaviors to ensure job fit, productivity and a smooth transition into a more technically-advanced environment.
Solution:
Plunkett Cooney turned to the Predictive Index® (PI®) behavioral assessment and job analysis PRO tool to support recruitment, selection and development efforts, ensuring an individual’s natural drives and motivations aligned well with the behavioral requirements of the job. In addition to placing the right people in the right teams and developing them for long-term success, PI data also provided invaluable insight into how employees handle change within the work environment.
Benefits:
The adoption of PI into Plunkett Cooney’s corporate culture enabled management to identify and articulate individual behaviors for employees and teams, eliminating discord and improving communication and job fit. Across the organization, these behavioral insights illustrated a risk-averse culture, triggering the creation of small workgroups based on common behaviors to allow for improved communication, engagement, training, and execution during the testing and implementation of the new technology initiatives. The firm continues to utilize the workgroup concept to share ideas to improve workplace practices. Plunkett Cooney has been recognized for their exemplary people practices through local awards including Best and Brightest Companies to Work for in Metro Detroit Area for the sixth year in a row and as a Top Workplace by The Detroit Free Press based on an anonymous employees survey.