Case Study: Wilbert Plastic Services
Building a Data-Driven People Strategy with PDP Global
KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS
Phil Olsen, a highly-regarded business consultant with over 22 years of experience with PDP, was already well-established in the consulting field when he considered partnering with PDP Global. As the President of Know Your Strengths, a consultancy focused on matching talents with tasks, Phil had tried several assessment tools but felt they lacked precision, accuracy, and adaptability. That’s when PDP Global came into the picture and changed everything for him.
Company Overview
Industry：Manufacturing
Location：Belmont, NC; Harrisburg, NC; Easley, SC; White Bear Lake, MN
Employee Size：500
Instruments Used：
ProScan®
TeamScan®
JobScan®
Workable JobScan Models
of ProScans Administered
New Hire ProScan Completion
Establishing a Behavioral Foundation for Hiring and Development
Wilbert Plastic Services selected PDP Global to solve a critical challenge: separating the learning curve from the hiring process while improving role fit, development, and long-term retention. Beginning in 2013, Wilbert anchored its people strategy on verified behavioral data, making PDP ProScans a standard requirement for all exempt hires.
Over time, the program expanded to include hourly hiring and internal promotions, creating a consistent, objective framework for talent decisions across the organization.
To further strengthen selection accuracy, PDP JobScan position models were built for key roles, approximately forty active models at the time of interview. These benchmarks enabled side-by-side comparisons between candidates and incumbents, providing clear match scores to guide hiring and promotion decisions. Succession planning was also redesigned to require current ProScans for every identified successor, ensuring readiness of successors is supported by objective, behavioral insight.
“I am an absolute true believer in PDP and would not hire anybody—and have not hired anybody since 2013—without getting a ProScan profile on them. The product is outstanding, and the accuracy is uncanny.”
Mike Hachee, Manager of Talent & Organizational Development, Wilbert Plastic Services
Mike Hachee, Manager of Talent & Organizational Development, Wilbert Plastic Services
“PDP has become embedded in Wilbert’s culture and soon to be a part of Prism's culture before we know it. It’s by far the most accurate hiring tool I have used in my career."
Erika Ross, Director of Human Resources, Plastics Platform (Wilbert Plastic Services & Prism Plastics)
Erika Ross, Director of Human Resources, Plastics Platform (Wilbert Plastic Services & Prism Plastics)
Team Building Exercise With PDP
One key benefit of using PDP in your organization is its team-building potential. When team members share their PDP profiles, it fosters a deeper understanding of each person’s communication style, work approach, leadership tendencies, and energy levels. The profiles also highlight areas where individuals are working to improve—traits like extroversion, patience, and dominance—so colleagues can better support one another. This exercise often helps people introduce themselves to the team and, sometimes, discover new things about themselves. It builds cohesion, respect, and a strong foundation for collaboration. At Wilbert, we’ve facilitated many of these sessions, and the resulting camaraderie and fellowship have been invaluable.
“PDP is a great tool in the candidate selection process. It can help us predict future behaviors and then we can determine if those behaviors coincide with the existing team in place, extremely valuable advantage for employers.”
Glenn Sparrow, President, Wilbert Plastic Services
Glenn Sparrow, President, Wilbert Plastic Services
Top-Down Rollout Across Marmon Holdings and International Expansion
In 2023, Wilbert Plastic Services was acquired by Marmon Holdings, a Berkshire Hathaway company. To support adoption across sister companies, the PDP rollout began at the executive level.
Brian Diaz, President of Marmon’s Injection Molding Platform, (Wilbert & Prism) and Brandon Hough, President of PRISM Plastics, were among the first leaders to complete ProScans. Both quickly became strong advocates. With their support, PDP Representative Don Crosby facilitated high-level introduction sessions in which leaders reviewed their own results and volunteered for live profile interpretations—creating transparency, trust, and immediate engagement.
Following the successful launch at PRISM’s U.S. facilities, PDP expanded to Prism’s Monterrey, Mexico plant. The Spanish-language ProScan and reports ensured accessibility and equity, allowing for seamless adoption across borders. As Marmon worked to align best practices across its plastics businesses—including Spanish-speaking teams in Monterrey, Mexico and Harlingen, Texas—PDP provided a scalable, enterprise-wide solution.
Today, 100% of Wilbert and PRISM new hires complete a ProScan prior to hire, with candidates evaluated against role-specific benchmarks.
“PDP gave us a common language to talk about people and leadership. Even in the early stages, we saw immediate value.”
Brandon Hough, President, PRISM Plastics
Brandon Hough, President, PRISM Plastics
“I have prior experience with DiSC, and the tools supporting you with PDP Global are so much better. Instead of leaders relying on training that happened a year ago to estimate what profile a potential hire is and maybe how they’re going to react to stress, I get great comfort knowing that we send out the PDP Survey and we’re going to have side-by-side reports, a unique motivational checklist, and information that really spells it out for you.”
John Hernandez
Vice President Call Center Operations, MAQ Management“I have prior experience with DiSC, and the tools supporting you with PDP Global are so much better. Instead of leaders relying on training that happened a year ago to estimate what profile a potential hire is and maybe how they’re going to react to stress, I get great comfort knowing that we send out the PDP Survey and we’re going to have side-by-side reports, a unique motivational checklist, and information that really spells it out for you.”
John Hernandez
Vice President Call Center Operations, MAQ ManagementExpansion to Penn Aluminum International Within the Marmon Family
Recognizing the value of a standardized hiring and development framework, Erika Ross, Director of Human Resources, Plastics Platform, shared her experience with Jamie Walker, Director of Human Resources, Aluminum Platform (Penn Aluminum International & Cerro Fabricated Products).
Soon after, Penn Aluminum adopted PDP for hiring and training, extending behavioral consistency across another Marmon enterprise.
“Wilbert’s success with PDP gave us confidence to adopt it at Penn Aluminum. PDP is helping us create consistency in how we select and develop talent.”
Jamie Walker, Human Resources Director, Aluminum Platform
The Results
Workable JobScan Models
of ProScans Administered
New Hire ProScan Completion
The Results
Increase in Retention
Reduction in Turnover Costs
Turnover During Peak Season
All-Time High Retention
HPOne’s retention skyrocketed by 20% to a staggering 80% rate after using the PDP People Management System to make the right hires from the start and intervene with employees close to quitting to support them. Of the 6% of the workforce identified as close to burning out during peak season, managers successfully intervened to retain every single one of them, contributing to a total 50% reduction in turnover costs.
Confident and Streamlined Hiring
Because recruiters could utilize PDP JobScan models to make informed hiring decisions, HPOne knew a 70% candidate match or higher would succeed in the role and perform well under the stress of the busy period. The Hiring Manager no longer needed to interview and give final approval for each of their 1,100 hires. When retroactively analyzing profiles of low performers hired before PDP Global was incorporated into the hiring process, HPOne determined that 75% wouldn’t have been hired in the first place had PDP job modeling been used.
Consistent Company Culture
HPOne’s company culture has always felt like being part of a family. But when Covid hit and that family shifted to remote working, it was harder to maintain that sentiment since employees weren’t experiencing the office community. PDP Global empowered the culture to grow in new ways, encouraging meaningful engagement from leaders and employees unique to their behavioral preferences. Colleagues attest that the culture still feels like a family: a fun environment with high integrity and accountability.
Leadership and Management Style Shift
Instead of leading and managing based on something “wrong” with an employee, the PDP People Management System shifted HealthPlanOne’s coaching perspective to capitalize and grow an employee’s strengths. Only after knowing someone’s strengths through ProScan can that individual be placed in opportunities to naturally succeed. HPOne used this behavioral knowledge to create small wins by giving certain tasks to individuals who genuinely enjoy doing them rather than someone who wouldn’t. Leaders appreciated hiring people who were not exactly like them because it created a more well-rounded team and released the pressure they often felt to be good at everything.
Moreover, HPOne’s HR department quickly realized that most complaints stemmed from simple miscommunication between people with different behavioral traits. ProScan equipped leaders and managers to conduct crucial conversations more effectively than before with insights into likes, dislikes, motivators, preferred communication methods, and logic styles.
Invest in Your People. Transform Your Organization.
PDP has been a catalyst for a complete transformation within Wilbert Plastic Services. From resolving plant-wide crises to coaching individual leaders into stronger, more confident versions of themselves, PDP shaped a culture of growth that endures through change. Your organization can experience the same legacy: stronger leaders, engaged teams, and careers that impact communities for years to come.
