With PI Hire & Inspire, Massage Envy scaled sprawling growth smoothly

Background

Massage Envy Spa is the largest provider of therapeutic massage and skin care in the U.S.—with more than 1,100 locations in 49 states. Since 2002, Massage Envy has grown to 35,000 employees who provide roughly 90 million massages annually. The company’s core values include optimism, empathy, consistency, excellence, and commitment to safety, and their mission is to make therapeutic massage services accessible to everyday consumers.

The Opportunity

Faced with rapid growth, scaling a franchise model, and maintaining a business entirely dependent on customer service, Massage Envy needed to strike a balance between hiring quickly and landing strong job fits for each key position. Misalignment with job responsibilities and company culture could be the difference between a one-time customer and a lifelong customer—optimizing talent was critical. The leadership team tasked Susan Landgraf, Chief Learning Officer, with building a corporate training team and a replicable hiring method that would result in faster, more seamless onboarding.

The Solution

Landgraf had used The Predictive Index® at a previous company for hiring, training, and engagement—so it was a no-brainer to introduce it at Massage Envy when the opportunity arose. She began to take immediate action on the hiring process using the PI Hire solution. Candidates at more than 100 Massage Envy locations were given the PI Behavioral Assessment™ during the interview process, while Landgraf utilized the PI Job Assessment™ and PI Job Target™ to define the ideal behavioral and cognitive recommendations for specific roles. This empowered franchisees to hire for various positions based on data-backed job profiles—as opposed to gut feeling.
Almost immediately, franchisees started seeing results—hiring became more efficient, precise, and scalable. The assessment noticeably expedited the recruitment process by eliminating the need to review more than 50% of the resumes received.

“The PI Behavioral Assessment is a valuable tool that works so effectively in hiring our sales staff,” said Donald McConnell, a Massage Envy Regional Developer in Michigan. “A high degree of [extraversion] and the ability to connect with people are the key traits we look for in a successful sales associate.”

Hiring the right people and knowing their behavioral drives also enabled managers to coach more effectively. Using PI’s Inspire solution, one franchisee trained his sales associates by leveraging their inherent skills and saw the average sales close rate jump from 12% to an average of 27%. He estimated 80% of this turnaround was directly attributed to the insights PI provided.

Franchisees also began relying on the behavioral profiles and PI Relationship Guides to manage team dynamics. One franchisee incorporated behavioral profiles into a mediation session between two employees who were experiencing conflicts due to a difference in their communication and work styles. The behavioral assessment served as an objective conversation starter that successfully helped the colleagues—one of whom was intuitive and abrupt and the other, detailed and methodical—gain a better understanding of how best to work together. The result was a more productive, functional team dynamic.

The Results

Despite rapid growth and a potentially complicated business model, Massage Envy was able to optimize talent to drive results. In addition to a more seamless hiring process, employee development and communication improved—resulting in a more positive customer experience.

“Every person hired by a franchise is either an asset or deficit to our business,” Landgraf said. “The PI Behavioral Assessment gives you the ability to prescreen and select the best candidates. And it can be used for far more than hiring. It identifies individual traits, but also gives you the entire scope of people’s behavior and a deeper understanding of how to motivate and impact their performance.”

Since implementing PI:

• The average sales close rate for a franchisee in three regions jumped from 12% to 27%.
• For the same franchisee, PI expedited the hiring process by eliminating the need to review about 50-60% of resumes.
• Franchise owners communicate more effectively, define roles more clearly, and measure their team’s long-term performance.

Optimizing talent with PI achieved Massage Envy’s goals of quickly scaling an efficient hiring process and getting the right people in the right positions. “The PI Behavioral Assessment is a quick and easy tool to administer and it will give you 100 times the return on your investment,” said McConnell. “[It] identifies strengths and provides our management team with the insight to create bottom-line results for the business.”