Helping a thriving manufacturer find their next strategic hire.

Client

Phillips Tube Group (PTG) is an industry leader in welded steel tubing that operates three tubing locations: Shelby Welded Tube (OH), Middletown Tube Works (OH) and Phillips Tube Group of Alabama. PTG has been in business for over 50 years and manufactures carbon and/or stainless steel tube, operating its own trucking division. PTG has about 40 direct employees and has partnered with Aliniti since 2016.

Challenge

As a thriving manufacturer, PTG identified that a new CFO role was necessary to lead the financial function of the organization and make a shift from operational leadership to strategic leadership. Having previously hired a vacant Director of HR position for PTG, ALINITI were seen to be the right partner again.

Solution

ALINITI benchmarked the position and developed a detailed job description as well as a clearly defined set of goals and targets for the prospective hire. ALINITI’s candidate assessment programs and continued onboarding helped PTG to identify a talented candidate who will fill the role and grow with the company.

To help PTG our solutions included:

  • Developed position overview and benchmarked the position with TriMetrix assessments
  • Conducted market research and created a tailored strategy to attract the right talent
  • Sourced qualified candidates and built a strong candidate pool based on position requirements
  • Vetted candidates through a thorough interview process including phone screenings, technical interviews, assessments, and references
  • Created customized interview guides constructed from benchmarking data and candidate assessment results to assess candidates’ overall job and organizational fit
  • Presented initial job offer to final round candidate and facilitated negotiations
  • Developed a customized onboarding plan for the new hire’s first 12 months of employment
  • Managed onboarding and coaching for new hire’s first 12 months of employment

Results

“The ALINITI team were very professional and very task-oriented. Business owners are not always easy to get in a room or to respond in a timely fashion. They were very assertive in keeping the process going and I appreciated that. It’s easy for these processes to fall apart when they transcend a few months. Their energy was good, and they kept us all on the time frame. It’s interesting because I had budgeted the CFO salary to start in April and that’s exactly when it did,” explained Scott Hendrix (Member of PTG Board of Advisors).

ALINITI’s recruitment process aims to ensure clarity regarding the expectations of the role, both for the company and the future hire. Duane Rutter (PTG’s new CFO), has started his new position with no surprises and is set up for future success in the role.

An opportunity to reassess and reevaluate

After the Director of Finance position became vacant at PTG, Angela Phillips (President / CEO) took the opportunity to reassess and reevaluate the role to better fit the future needs of the business. Due to the significance of this role, it was important to invest time in the role analysis and ensure that it was a fit for the long-term.

For technical roles like this a Subject Matter Expert (SME) is involved to provide insight into the technical competencies of the role. In this case, Aliniti partnered with Scott Hendrix, a member of PTG’s Board of Advisors, who has extensive financial management knowledge and experience. Scott had many experiences with recruitment firms over the years, having historically worked on the inside of large fortune 500 companies. However, the relationship with ALINITI was different:

“Maybe it’s my financial background coming out, the fact that I can be over analytical like most financial professionals, but ALINITI have created a very systematic approach to the recruitment process,” said Scott.

“Benchmarking was influential in developing the ideal candidate we were looking.”

As part of the Position Analysis phase, time was invested with the  key stakeholders of the position to ensure complete clarity of the role, responsibilities and an ideal candidate profile was achieved. This was accomplished through the Key Accountability and Benchmarking process and allowed the team to compare candidates’ strengths and weaknesses in a systematic and unbiased manner.

“I feel the profile for the assessment that we ultimately defined was the perfect one for what we needed at Phillips. It really was more of a strategic Controller than a CFO, which is what we originally thought we needed. That was so important for getting the right candidate through the process.” said Scott.

Saving precious time in a client’s busy schedule.

After creating a pool of over 50 potential candidates, 6 highly qualified candidates were passed to Scott for technical screening. This process ensures that all candidates moving into the second-round interview are technically competent to do the job, then cultural fit becomes the focus.

“All candidates presented to me through ALINITI’s initial screening process had the technical competence to do the job, it was more about fit at the time,” said Scott. “I was pleased that I didn’t have to interview a lot of candidates that really should’ve never made it through. It was a huge time save.”

Helping to alleviate personal bias.

Each candidate that moved on to the next interview completed a TTI TriMetrix assessment which compared their behavioral style, motivators, and competencies to those established in the Benchmarking process. The assessments highlighted any gap areas between the candidates’ results and the ideal state benchmark. With this, Aliniti provided extensive coaching throughout the hiring process to help alleviate some of the personal biases that naturally occur in hiring through individual scorecard use.

“I felt like I was really biased about a lot of things,” said Angela. “It really helped involving our senior management team too which would be their peer group because they knew the culture fit and they knew what we were trying to achieve going forward.”

12 month guarantee and continued post hire coaching.

When the decision was made to extend an offer to the successful candidate, ALINITI managed the offer process and subsequent negotiations to ensure the final stages of the hiring process moved forward promptly.

With the guarantee of 12 months accompanying the hire, a thorough onboarding is vital. An advisor from ALINITI will meet with Duane and Angela monthly to coach them through their first year of working together, with Scott plugging in as the SME to ensure technical training and mentoring is a consistent point of focus.

“I actually like this process because it does open you up to be able to see how you perceive yourself versus how it comes out on paper,” said Duane. “It was good to follow up on after being hired, meeting with Angela to look at her styles too and make sure we’re on the same page. And if we’re not – what’s the best way to communicate with each other.”

To date ALINITI has helped PTG to successfully place a Director of Human Resources, CFO and HR Manager, with future recruitment opportunities being identified.