Press Release

Assessment guru Professor Peter Saville is set to take the psychometric world by storm with the launch of his new company, Saville Consulting.

The management team will comprise leading executives from the UK's major assessment companies, including: Bill Mabey, Chief Executive; Hazel Stevenson, Deputy Managing Director and Gabby Parry, Regional Director - all from Saville & Holdsworth.

Business psychologist Professor Saville, the co-founder and previous chairman of SHL Group, launches the new company this month. Globally focused, the business will be co-ordinated from Jersey with the UK subsidiary, Saville Consulting UK Limited, providing support for Scotland, Manchester, the Midlands and the South East of England. Commenting on his new venture, Professor Saville said: "Without a doubt the OPQ tests are the most popular in the UK today, however they were written in 1984 and other than some minor revisions made in the mid 90s they haven't moved with the demands of business today."

Saville continues: "Rab MacIver, who worked on these at Saville & Holdsworth, will also be joining the team here. We are embarking on a major research and development project and intend to provide bespoke tests, which will be validated against over 8,000 questions against 500 scales. All of these will be individually pressure tested. HR professionals want you to listen to their problems, and provide them with a solution not a product. So many people in our industry go and meet them with a bag of products which they can sell. Our approach will be more consultative. I don't believe that by ticking boxes you can evaluate a person or provide solutions for business. You have to consider that the needs of your client today are more sophisticated and the subtleties between roles are more refined."

This change in demand of today's marketplace has encouraged Professor Saville to develop a fresh generation of modern tools and solutions. He believes that his new tools will address the current changes in the employment arena and will be more insightful about people issues. With this in mind, Saville Consulting is currently in the development stage of its first set of products that will be available in early 2005, and is actively seeking companies to take part in its research to collect and validate data. Professor Saville, who founded Saville & Holdsworth, believes that the industry has lost sight of what's important, citing a number of graduate tests that demand candidates to take tests over the internet lasting several hours, only to be told at the end they have failed: "All candidates are potential customers to a business, and many firms have lost sight of this."

As one of the major benefactors from the flotation of Saville & Holdsworth, Professor Saville is funding this new venture himself: "I've made people offers they can't refuse, but I have also given them ownership of the business. This is something I did at Saville & Holdsworth, and will do again here. The team I have pulled together are all top performers, and have gravitated towards Saville Consulting primarily because they share the same values as I do. They have rekindled my passion for this business and are one of the major reasons for my return to the market. I am also delighted that the first full time employee I took on at Saville & Holdsworth, Dave Hawkey who was a Principal Product Development Consultant there, will also be joining our new firm."

"I am an academic, and entrepreneur at heart, and am keen to use my ideas and new models of personality without the pressures of a public company and all the corporate governance demands that entails. There is an indefinite number of personality variables, and subtle differences make an enormous difference to the success of someone in their job. A good manager knows how to interpret these, but jobs are getting more complex and our industry needs to respond to this," Professor Saville concludes.

Professor Peter Saville, who developed the OPQ, is chairman of the Saville Consulting Group based in Jersey and is responsible for international activities outside of the UK. Scott Rhufus is chairman and William Saville is Managing Director of Saville Consulting UK. We are also pleased to announce that Dr Sue Henley (previously partner/director of the Change Partnership) and Dr Rainer Kurz, (previously of Career Harmony) have also joined the UK company as Directors.