I know what you’re thinking, but no; it’s our first time turning 39! We’re not shy about our age. In March of 1985 gas cost $.83/gallon, the number one song was “Can’t Fight this Feeling” by REO Speedwagon, Beverly Hills Cop was a hit in theaters, and shoulder pads were all the rage. And that was the year Heather and John Caswell founded one of the first companies to pioneer behavioral analysis in the workplace.
It all started with a Macintosh 128k and a stack of floppy disks. If you don’t ever remember gas costing so little, you may need to read this Wikipedia entry to find out about floppy disks. This cutting-edge-at-the-time equipment was a critical component to pioneering the technology – The Omnia Behavioral Assessment – that has been helping businesses find the perfect fit for their jobs for nearly 40 years.
The Omnia Assessment (called the Omnia Profile back then) utilizes the theoretical work performed by William Marston, PhD, and the practical work by Prescott Lecky of Columbia University.
The Omnia Assessment analyzes non-pathological behavior – psychometrics – to evaluate an individual’s preferred behaviors. Then, using a series of questions, existing employees as benchmarks, and decades of industry knowledge, we help our clients create templates for their open positions. The individual preferences are compared with a position template to see if there is compatibility.
Our assessment measures four groups of behaviors: assertiveness, sociability, pace, and structure. And it includes something many of our competitors don’t have – a group of learned behavior words, which helps determine the quality of an individual’s behavior (what we call Perspective). For example, is an individual appropriately assertive and competitive? Or could they be reckless or confrontational? Are they measured and methodical, or might they be stubborn?
Both the assessment as a whole and the perspective measurement have been validated three times – most recently in 2023!
At the start, all work was transmitted via snail mail. Omnia mailed the assessment form to the client. Once a candidate completed it, it would be mailed back to us to be analyzed. Then, in the mail it went again, back to the client.
It’s hard to imagine having that much patience! Especially now, when an assessment can be sent instantly, completed on a computer or mobile device in under 10 minutes, and then returned either immediately, for our automated Target assessments, or within three hours, for our Custom analyzed assessments. But since the beginning, Omnia has embraced innovation, adopting fax technology in a drive to serve more clients more quickly. We still have clients who fax us assessments. If it works for them, it works for us.
Omnia has grown along with its clients, evolving our technology, adding new tools like our cognitive assessment, and improving our existing tools to help our clients hire, manage, develop and engage their talent. With that goal in mind, Omnia has just released its third annual Talent Trends Survey Report. We surveyed 388 companies across 21 different industries, functions, and hierarchies to offer critical, actionable insights to help organizations retain valuable talent in 2024 and beyond.
As Omnia nears its fourth decade in the compatibility assessment and employee retention business, it is helping more and more clients every year reduce turnover and boost profit by building a better, more collaborative, motivated and engaged workforce.
Speaking of working for our clients, here is what some of them have to say about Omnia:
“At Saga, talent is our number one resource. As a result, we are diligent in our recruiting and retention efforts. Hiring mistakes are usually costly ones. Tami Santiago and her team at The Omnia Group are a critical component to our success. We have been working with the Omnia Group for decades and will continue to do so.” Chris Forgy, Sr., Saga Communications
“The more I’ve learned about the Profile, the more impressed I am. Omnia saved us many times from a bad hire, and confirmed what we experienced with the candidate. Using Omnia takes a lot of stress out of candidate selection.” David Rose, Dowling & O’Neil Insurance
“For over 10 years, we have used Omnia to help us evaluate potential candidates for hire. Not only does the profile give us insight if the candidate is the right fit for the position, but they also help coach us on what a strong candidate looks like for our industry. As a result, we have made some tremendous hires that are helping propel our business to the next level!” Pete Krammes, Seltzer Insurance Agency
We’re so grateful to our clients for their loyalty and for allowing us to help contribute to their success. But Omnia doesn’t just sell and support our tools, we use them, too. If you’re curious how that has worked out for us, you should know that the average tenure for a US employee in 2023 was 4.1 years, and the average tenure for an Omnia employee in 2023 was 15.5 years!
What keeps us here year after year? Strong leadership (in the form of Omnia’s Co-founder and CEO Heather Caswell and President and COO Keather Snyder), hiring right the first time, and an unprecedented level of understanding of ourselves and one another has nurtured a culture of respect that is hard to beat.
In short, Omnia walks the talk! We are each familiar with our personality types, the strengths and challenges that come with our traits, and how to leverage the former and overcome the latter.
Knowing how we like to communicate and how our coworkers like to communicate, what each person’s preferred pace is, how assertive or cautious, structured or independent we all are helps us work effectively together. It irons out wrinkles that people who don’t use the assessment have to stumble over or work around. We don’t need to question why someone reacted a certain way to a specific situation; we know why. We get it because that’s what we do. Plus, we really like one another!
The helpful insights that come from the Omnia Assessment keep both our clients and our own team coming back year after year. It’s a tool we believe in, and it makes life easier!
From a Mac 128k on a kitchen table to virtual offices throughout the US, The Omnia Group has been helping our clients and our own company flourish since 1985. It has weathered hurricanes, economic crashes, a pandemic, and shoulder pads. If you want to see what this simple but powerful assessment can do to help your business excel, reach out to us today. We know how to help!
