The Client
Kramer Beverage Company is a premier beer distributor located in Hammonton, New Jersey.
Benjamin Kramer began Kramer Beverage Company in 1924 in Atlantic City as a soft drink bottler and distributor. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, Kramer added beer to the product line, becoming the local distributor for Ballantine and Piels, both leading products at the time.
Today, Kramer’s portfolio includes many of New Jersey’s hottest selling beers including: Coors Light, Original Coors, Coors Extra Gold, Killians, Keystone, Zima, Blue Moon, Pilsner Urquell, Beck’s, Guinness Stout, Harp Lager, Corona, Moosehead, Samuel Adams, Pete’s Wicked Ale, and Yuengling.
The Solution
Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT): The 50-question WPT, which has been used by thousands of organizations since 1937, is a 12-minute timed test that accurately measures a candidate’s ability to learn a specific job, solve problems, understand instructions and apply knowledge to new situations.
This test provides hiring managers with objective information about candidates, and based on minimum test scores, automatically eliminates a significant portion of the applicant pool enabling recruiters to focus their time on those candidates most likely to succeed.
Wonderlic Productivity Index® (WPI®): The WPI is a short-form measure of personality as it relates to productive behavior in the workplace. Based upon “Big 5” research by personality experts Murray Barrick, Ph.D. and Michael Mount, Ph.D., the WPI focuses on the fundamental factors that affect success in entry-level positions. The WPI assesses an individual’s willingness to perform productively and cooperatively on the job, and avoid engaging in counterproductive behavior. A one-page report provides easy-to-interpret graphical scores on the following productivity indicators and risk factors: Personal Productivity Score, Work Effort & Persistence, Service & Support, Counterproductive Work Behavior, and Turnover.
Based on a candidate’s WPI results, structured interview questions are presented which allow hiring managers to gain additional insight into any problem areas that have been identified through the assessment. The WPI helps to determine whether an individual is motivated to work responsibly and productively. It assesses important interpersonal and service-related traits that promote positive client and co-worker relationships. It also assesses the likelihood that the individual will adhere to company policies and remain on the job over time.
Family Distribution Business Maintains Integrity with Great Employees
When you’re hiring someone to join a company that has been family-run for generations, it’s not simply a matter of finding a warm body to do the job. Each and every new staff person takes on the responsibility of upholding a family’s legacy, and that’s no small task.
Cindy Purdy, Human Resources and Office Manager for Kramer Beverage, based in Hammonton, New Jersey, knows all about that. The people she hires today are part of the legacy of founder Ben Kramer, who started the company in 1924 as a soft drink bottler and distributor. Back in those days, he worked mainly in the Atlantic City area in the summer months when vacationers, sweltering in the heat, clamored for an ice-cold drink. Ben and his crew worked hard stacking, storing and taking inventory of every case and keg by hand in the warehouse, without modern technology like forklifts and computers to make those tasks easier.
With the addition of modern technology and conveniences like heavy machinery came more responsibility for the men—and they were usually all men in those days—doing the job. The ability to lift heavy cases of soft drinks all day long wasn’t enough anymore.
After the repeal of Prohibition, Ben added beer—along with son Arnold and many other family members—to the business. Today, Charles Kramer, Ben’s grandson, runs the company and Kramer Beverage distributes Coors, Sam Adams, Guinness, Corona and other products to the Jersey shore area. Recently Mark Kramer, Charles’ son, became the fourth generation of Kramers to enter the family business.
Just like in the old days when Ben was running the company, business continues to swell in the summer months, explains Cindy. The company hires an additional 40 people, going from 125 employees year round to 165 in the summer, to help out during that busy time, including drivers, warehouse workers, and office workers.
She knows that each and every one of them isn’t just responsible for doing their job, they become a symbol of the Kramer family name. That’s a big responsibility, which is why Purdy now uses the Wonderlic Productivity Index (WPI) and the Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT) to help with their all-important hiring decisions. The WPT is a 12-minute, timed measure of a person’s cognitive ability, and the WPI is a short-form measure of personality as it relates to productive behavior in the workplace.
The Wonderlic tests aren’t the first hiring tools she has used, but they have been the most valuable. “We were using another test, but it was too expensive for what it was delivering, and it was only for management positions,” she says. “We needed testing for other positions as well.”
In 2004, looking for a more functional and cost effective hiring measure, Charles Kramer attended a conference where a colleague recommended Wonderlic. He and Purdy chose the WPT and the WPI from Wonderlic’s many test offerings in order to measure candidates’ skills, abilities, and attitude. Now the tests are used as part of every hiring decision.
Purdy uses the WPT when hiring for positions like drivers, warehouse workers and office staff. “This test tells me whether they have the intelligence to do the job, and it also tells me something else: it tells me if they’re overqualified,” she says. “If I’m hiring someone for a clerical position and they score too low, I know that it will take too much of my time to get them up to speed. If they score too high, I know they’re going to be bored with the job and leave, causing me to have to start back at square one.”
When hiring drivers, Purdy uses the WPT to determine whether they have basic math skills and to gauge their level of thinking. “I want to know if they have the intelligence to know what to do if they get lost when they’re out on a route,” she says.
The WPT delivers a side benefit to Purdy as well. “I want to see how well they react to the process of taking the test in general,” she says. “If they respond with frustration, I know they’re not going to fit in here.”
In the year that she has been using the WPI in hiring, Purdy has found it to be an invaluable tool in determining which candidate will actually perform well on the job. “The WPI tells me what their work habits are going to be—and that’s important because it’s something you really can’t tell in an interview,” she says. “It tells me who is going to be chatting on the phone or by the water cooler, who is going to be playing solitaire on their computer instead of working, and who is going to look for another job in six months.”
Such employee behavior can make Purdy’s job more difficult, due to the additional training, supervision and possibly re-hiring that must be done to combat the problem. “If candidates score in the ’red zone’ on the WPI, I won’t hire them, period,” she says. “The amazing thing is, people can have a great résumé, interview beautifully but then bomb the WPI. Then I know: This person is great at interviewing but is going to be a terrible employee. I have to dig further to find the right person.”
Last year, Purdy was hiring a warehouse supervisor and thought she had a list of great candidates. “They were all bombing the WPI,” she marvels. “I couldn’t figure it out, so I called Wonderlic to ask why, and what I should do. They told me to stick to my guns and keep looking for that right person. We did keep looking and finally found a great person. I’m so glad we waited. I know that trusting that test saved us a lot of headaches.”
