Capital One Financial

Capital One Financial corporation is committed to improving their work center by using various techniques. One technique is unique. “we try to minimize the traditional face-to-face interviews” (McNamee). The company doesn’t believe in the face to face process, stating that “They’re just not predictive” (McNamee). Instead, the use other techniques where they use their potential hire with actual job scenario’s.

“Results from a 4-hour battery of standardized tests taken by some 1,600 employees, from call-center operators to executives, are fed into a database with detailed profiles of the tested workers’ job performance.” (McNamee). What this does is help the company create a database to use to test potential hires to find out exactly how they would perform their day to day duties and see whether or not they will be able to meet the company’s standards. This forces someone to show the company that they have the knowledge[L13] .

Capital One’s hiring process is now extremely proficient since implementing the new changes. “A call-center employee can now be screened, tested, tried out, and subjected to one face-to-face interview in five hours—a process that used to take 20 days” (McNamee). With the company using these new techniques, they have been able to streamline the hiring process. Because of the new hiring process being highly efficient, they are capable of running through more potential hires faster to find the right people that fit the company’s mold[L14] .

A unique aspect of the training Capital One offers new hires is very productive. “A new hire spends a week in classrooms and outdoor exercise sessions designed to foster teamwork and creative thinking” (McNamee)[L15] . This shows capital one’s commitment to creating a productive and influential work center. By utilizing these training techniques, employees will be more apt to creating and presenting new ideas to their management, which in turn also improves the culture of the office.

Something that Capital One wants in their employees is a high Aptitude[L16] . “We’re really talking about hiring people for their aptitude[L17] so that they can move across the company and go into different roles. In fact, our goal is to add a fairly fungible skill set of talent so we can move people in, across, and around the organization” (Schuyler). The company wants this because they understand the value of hiring and keeping employees that are highly motivated, fit the company culture, and strive to constantly learn new positions.

“We conduct surveys every six months, even though every expert in the field said it couldn’t be done [because] people would become cynical. We think they’re wrong” (Liberson). One thing[L18] that Capital One emphasizes is ensuring that their employees are happy. By interviewing employees every six months, the company is able to identify potential issues before they become a problem. “If you can quickly turn around the results of your survey and communicate that to your employees, they’re less cynical because they can see the results” (Liberson). Once the surveys are completed, the company quickly reviews the results and gets with the employees to ensure that they know they are listening and working to make any necessary corrections.

Capital One is constantly trying to find new ways to keep their employees with the company. Some of the ways that they do this is through employee benefits. “Capital One has built an employee value proposition (EVP) that aims to support the organization as a great place to work and engage and retain employees” (Barton).[L19] The company understands that they need to have benefits in place that are appealing to employees. “The EVP focuses on benefits in the context of total reward. It covers the standard benefits offered by the organization, such as private medical insurance, pensions and bikes for work, and also ensures that staff are given details about their working environment, development opportunities and health and wellbeing initiatives.” (Barton). These are just some of the benefits that the company offers their employees that makes their employees want to work for them.

There are other benefits that Capital One offers their employees that sets them apart from other company’s and shows that the company is committed to helping its employees. “when[L20] it was looking at its health and wellbeing strategy and how it could maximize its offer in a cost-efficient way, Capital One brought a personal trainer into its on-site gym to offer employees classes and personal training sessions.” (Barton). Capital One views employee health as important not only for the wellbeing of the employee, but also to help improve and continue to improve the company. By bringing in a personal trainer, they are providing the employees with an opportunity to improve their health.

“Capital One ensures its employees are aware of all aspects of its EVP through regular communications, including an HR fair held each December to coincide with its flexible benefits enrollment window” (Barton). Capital One wants to ensure that all of their employees are aware of the benefits offered by the company. The company does this through a health fair that is strategically planned around the same time as the company’s benefits enrollment window. By hosting the health fare in December to coincide with its flexible benefits window, employees have an easier time enrolling in whatever benefit they may choose while the information is fresh in their mind.

“We believe people and culture are a source of enduring competitive advantage” (Hays).[L21] At Capital One, they believe in creating a competitive environment for employees by encouraging entrepreneurship and ownership. “We’re performance-oriented, we believe in entrepreneurship and ownership. If you’re asking me is culture more important than just paying people a lot of money, then yes” (Hays). This shows that they know what is important, which is retaining employees, and are willing to take that extra step to create an environment where employees can have a sense of pride and ownership in what they are doing.

When it comes to education, Capital One believes in encouraging their employees to always better themselves. There are a few different ways that they try and achieve this. “There’s quite a significant amount of in-house training on an annual basis to our associates. We also provide them the opportunity to go external for different courses. We provide them with educational assistance should they choose to go externally” (Schuyler). The company finds education to be extremely important. In order to ensure employees have the opportunity to better improve their education, they offer the above options. This is an excellent way for Capital One to show their employees that they truly care about them and want to see them succeed.

When it comes to Capital One showing their employees that they are listening, there is one way in particular that they believe in doing so. “Capital One uses an information-based strategy to tailor products to our 40 million customers. We bring the same data-based philosophy to HR and training and are as rigorous in its application in what we do internally as we are in the business” (Zemke). The company knows that to maintain employee morale, they must put in the work to ensure their happiness[L22] .

Capital One also knows that actions speak louder than words. “You can’t sustain a world-class training and development function because you believe you are doing things right. You have to show you are doing something with a substantial payback” (Zemke). The company is trying to practice what they preach. They understand that in order to get the employees to buy in to what they are doing, they need to show that what they are preaching will produce invaluable results.

Something that Capital One has also incorporated into the work center is ensuring that every member has a say in how everything should be arranged. “We need our line people to take a hand in team development and job self-design” (Zemke). The company wants to empower the employees by allowing them to help determine how things are done within the work center.

The company also understands what the post[L23] important part of the organization is. “When asked how he has managed to build that level of trust, Liberson shrugs off the suggestion that he has any magic formula, saying: ‘It starts with being very linked into the business, and it helps to have two bosses who believe that people are the most important strategic lever in the business’” (Zemke). It does wonders for a company that understands what resources that they have in people and knows how to utilize the resource properly.

When it comes down to striving to create an employee friendly workforce, capital has deployed several strategies to ensure they achieved their goal. From having the right management throughout the company, using unique recruiting strategies, and going above and beyond by offering benefits like a personal trainer, as well as continued education, capital[L24] one has delivered a company that many would want to work for. These are the reasons that they have landed at number 88 in fortunes top 100 companies to work for in 2016 and continuously strive better the company day by day[L25] .

Works Cited

Barton, Tynan. “Capital One builds enticing employee value proposition.” Empoyee Benefits (2014): 8.

Delahoussaye, Martin. “Training top 50.” Training(2001).

Gara, Antoine. “Capital One Expands In Healthcare Lending With $9B Deal As GE Continues Asset Sale Push.” Forbes(2015): 3.

Kuykendall, Lavonne. “Capital One Culture Focus of Suit .” American Banker(2003): 7.

Liberson, Dennis. Capital One senior vice president of human resources Scott Hays. April 1999.

McNamee, Mike. “WE TRY TO MINIMIZE FACE-TO-FACE INTERVIEWS.” Business Week (99).

Schuyler, Matt. Staff Training Key To Promoting Sales Culture Christopher Wood. 20 January 2004.

Sposito, Sean. “Banks Should Act More Like Apple: Cap One’s Innovation Chief.” American Banker(2013): 19.

Zemke, Ron. “Capital One.” Training(2002).

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[L2]Why are these capitalized?

[L3]Could you name some of them.

[L4]This looks like the outline format. If you care going to fill in these topics with more descriptive verbiage, then you are going to do well.

[L5]Be sure to show the results and increase in productivity.

[L6]Aptitudes may be the word. I don’t understand just aptitude.

[L7]Cross training is interesting.

[L8]This items should be a number 1. The next should be a 2.

[L9]Reward them for what? For adopting the values?

[L10]This is a good topic.

[L11]The 5 should be a 1.

[L12]You could cite that the company follows the communication model in the text. I like relating the company to what we have studied.

[L13]You have good results.

[L14]It sounds like they have high turnover in this section of the bank.

[L15]You seem to depend on this resource rather heavily.

[L16]Why the capitalization? Aptitude to do what?

[L17]Are they hiring for aptitude or attitude? Maybe the bank is using aptitude instead of attitude. They are successful; therefore, they can use what they want.

[L18]Perhaps the word, “Another thing….”

[L19]Excellent.

[L20]When should be capitalized.

[L21]Who is Hays? Why is he an important resource?

[L22]I want examples of the success. It appears that you are going to give me one in the next paragraph.

[L23]Is the word most?

[L24]Should this be capitalized?

[L25]I need more in a conclusion. You just end the paper. I don’t see a conclusion. Restate why it is one of the best 100 places to work.