Il Giardino si riproduce - Studio Staff RU

Studio Staff: quaranta anni di consulenze in un’Italia che cambia
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Storia contata da Roger Holdsworth
Socio fondatore SHL
My background, over nearly 50 years, is as a psychometrician, applying this
science to the world of work. Having graduated in Psychology at Cambridge University, I
worked for 7 years at an Institute of Applied Psychology in Sweden, and then for 5 years at
the National Institute of Industrial Psychology in London. After 5 years’ further consulting
experience in this field, in 1977 I founded (together with Professor Peter Saville) Saville &
Holdsworth Limited, which later became known as ‘SHL’. This company was at its apogee
the largest psychological assessment company in the world, with 1,000 employees in more
than 30 countries, a sales turnover of circa 100 million euros, and profits of nearly 20%.
Initially, SHL was a UK company, but by the mid-1980s we began also to grow by
joint ventures in other countries, partly building on my previous international experience.
Because I have always felt very warmly towards Italy, I was keen to develop a JV there, but
at first I had difficulty in finding any suitable contacts. However, a former secretary of mine
had moved to Ivrea to live with an Italian, and they had friends in the HR department of
Olivetti. The only company on the shortlist of contacts that they gave me that was of
interest, in the sense of having compatible aims with those of SHL, was Studio Staff. I duly
wrote to them and was duly invited to visit them ‘next time I was in Rome’. So I arranged a
family visit to Rome for the New Year (1985).
At the first meeting we spoke French. None of the Studio Staff partners had
enough English, and my Italian was only sufficient for ordering a meal in a restaurant!
Anyhow, as a result of that meeting we set up what we called a joint venture, which was
really an agreement that Studio Staff could translate and use SHL tests and questionnaires
with their clients, and – in particular – in some of the public competitions for which they
might bid.
The first of the ‘concorsi’ in which we cooperated was with the Circumvesuviana,
a fact which I will always remember when in that part of Italy. In English, the prefix
‘circum-‘ tends to be slightly comical or even pejorative, as with the word ‘circumlocution’
which means not-plain speaking, so I have always wondered about the efficiency of a
transportation system which goes around Mount Vesuvius.
More remarkable from this period was the INPS ‘concorso’, in which 90.000
candidates were tested (using partly SHL content) simultaneously in 100 Italian cities on a
Sunday morning. I always wondered whether the Vatican had given some form of
dispensation for this!
The next key event in our relationship was when I visited Rome in late 1987, and
we made our joint venture much more substantial by situating it in MTA, with SHL
obtaining 49% of the shares in this company originally set up by Aurelio Necci and later
integrated with Studio Staff. At this stage it was also agreed that Emanuele di Castro, who
had previously been our chief contact, would be replaced in this respect by Peppe Carelli;
that Peppe would have an intensive course to improve his English; that Sara Del Lungo
would spend six months with SHL in England to have an in-depth ‘indoctrination’ in SHL