In today’s fast-paced business environment, effective change management is crucial for success. In the following article our founder, Charles Pulliam, explains the transformative AWE PHACTOR framework. The AWE PHACTOR framework was designed to help leaders navigate organizational change and drive strategic objectives. Click the link below to learn more about creating a resilient, adaptable, and high-performing team.
Tag: Human Resource Management
Stress Management
We are excited to announce the release of our most recent white paper on stress management in the healthcare field. Solushiens’ advisor, Jeanne Pricer, delves into the critical issue of stress among healthcare professionals and provides valuable insights and strategies for addressing this pressing concern. In an era where healthcare workers are facing unprecedented challenges, our white paper offers evidence-based approaches to help healthcare professionals better cope with stress, enhance their well-being, and ultimately change their work environment. This resource is a must-read for healthcare organizations, practitioners, and anyone interested in improving the mental and emotional health of those who dedicate their lives to the well-being of others. Download our white paper today and join us in taking proactive steps towards a healthier and more resilient healthcare workforce.
Should you use personality tests in the workplace?
What’s your impression of personality tests? Maybe you’ve taken one as a job candidate, or perhaps you’ve used them to better understand your workforce. Depending on that experience, the execution, and the test itself, your mileage may vary. Personality testing can be quite a polarizing subject. But not all personality tests are the same. There are quite a few tools, such as psychometric evaluations, as well as behavioral and cognitive assessments, that we tend to erroneously lump under the same umbrella. In this post, we’ll unpack some of the misconceptions and limitations of personality testing, while also exploring:
- What are the most common workplace personality tests?
- What are some of the benefits of personality testing for employees?
- How does talent optimization go beyond personality testing?
If your goal is to determine whether personality testing can be a boon to hiring, your current employees, or your company culture, read on. You want to be clear on your options, and whether there’s a better approach for your organization’s needs.
What are the most common workplace personality tests?
A lot of things that aren’t personality tests get mislabeled. And many of the most commonly used tools, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, are not actually validated for workplace selection. That said, here are some of the most common personality tests, and what they aim to achieve:
- DiSC assessments help individuals and managers make daily workplace improvements.
- Five-factor models (also referred to as “Big Five” tests) have many variations, and gauge an individual based on the five “major dimensions of personality.”
- The Jung personality test assesses how you prefer to deal with different people, processes, and information.
- The MBTI test helps someone “recognize his or her true preferences” as they pertain to perception, judgment, and decision-making.
All of these evaluators (and others) have two key things in common: They’re free, and they’re not scientifically validated by a third party. Neither of those facts is disqualifying on its own, but it’s important context if you’re considering them for workplace use.
If you’re an HR director or people manager working with a limited budget, but still trying to gain an understanding of different personalities in the workplace, you start somewhere. Any of these tools may be helpful in identifying the personality traits and work styles of team members, but they’re not comprehensive. They are but one piece to a larger puzzle.
If you want to truly understand how those tendencies play out in the workplace, you need to go deeper.
What are some of the benefits of personality testing for employees?
Personality tests are most effective when you use them in conjunction with other tools. You may benefit from a high-level snapshot of someone’s personality traits in the recruiting process, but that will only take you so far. You need to also have a clear idea of what gaps you’re aiming to fill, whether you’re evaluating an outside candidate or an existing employee.
If talent strategy is a priority (and it should be), you’ll hire for job fit. To ensure you’re hiring the right people for the right roles, look at your existing team dynamics — namely your Team Type. This provides a baseline from which to start, with the strengths and strongest drives of the group already plotted and visualized. From there, a personality test can help you identify a candidate or existing employee with appropriate levels of:
- Extraversion/Introversion
- Agreeableness
- Steadiness
- Conscientiousness
Personality testing can also provide some insight into more abstract traits, such as neuroticism, but it’s generally not going to account for culture fit on its own. These tools may help you better understand an individual’s tendencies, but they’re limited in assessing potential job performance or a person’s contribution to team building efforts.
For those sorts of insights, you need to go further still…
How does talent optimization go beyond personality testing?
A talent optimized approach fosters awareness at every level: the individual, team, and the organization. It doesn’t necessarily exclude any of the aforementioned tools, but it accounts for more. PI’s behavioral and cognitive assessments, for instance, are scientifically validated (and regularly re-evaluated) by third parties.
The behavioral assessment takes you beyond the individual’s high-level traits, offering deeper insights into their workplace behavior. How does the BA work? To start, we take the word “assessment” literally. You can pass or fail a test, but the BA operates on the philosophy that all behavioral patterns are beautiful—when applied correctly. Along with a cognitive assessment and/or a job assessment, you can determine whether someone:
- Has the desired behavioral drives for team dynamics
- Can process new information quickly enough for the role
- Can assert themselves situationally where appropriate
And that’s really just scratching the surface. A talent optimized approach to filling an open role—whether with an external hire or internal promotion—has many benefits. You get a better sense of how a person will mesh with their potential manager; you also gain insights into their preferred working pace, and how that might play out within their new team.
Maybe you need a steadying presence to temper high-dominance, low-patience team members. Talent optimization provides a better sense of whether you’ll get that with a given person through the assessments, but also its other core aptitudes. The process helps underscore the significance of any change in head count.
Leveraged correctly, behavioral assessments can also promote inclusivity in the hiring process. They don’t remove bias, but they can help mitigate it, furthering your objective recruiting efforts when combined with other DEI steps.
Talent optimization is the whole picture.
Personality tests have their merits, but in a vacuum, you run the risk of pigeonholing or misjudging people from the outset. And too often, that sort of limited approach leads to external mishires or internal misfires.
Understanding how someone’s behaviors might manifest in the workplace—and specifically, your workplace—is critical to team cohesion. Don’t use this knowledge to just explain or excuse specific behaviors. Rather, leverage it in a way that promotes awareness at every level. In doing so, you’ll foster empathy, understanding, and leadership. That’s where talent optimization sets itself apart.
Want to know more about a talent optimized approach to hiring? Click here to get started.
Original blog found here. Used with permission from our partners at Predictive Index.
How Do I Know What I Think?
I heard a quote credited to E.M. Forster stating, “how do I know what I think until I see what I say…” How do I know what I think, until I see what I say? This profound question sent me on a reflective journey this week unlike any I can remember. The question made me consider a wide range of things like diversity and inclusion (D&I), career aspirations, fear and anxiety, strategic planning and execution, society in general, and much more.
Diversity & Inclusion: As we make snap judgements about people, how do we know what we think until we see what we say? How do we know all people in any people group are a certain way until we know someone from said people group? I venture to say, we really don’t actually know how “they” are until we have met ALL of them. I spoke about this in a presentation to a regional Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) group a few months ago. In the address I made the comment, “Social psychology is to diversity & inclusion (D&I) as on-base percentage is to the “Money Ball” story. Leaders with corporate responsibility and hiring authority will most likely hire the types of people they are familiar with… Especially leaders who are intent to mitigate risk of failure and to increase the odds of outcome achievement.” In other words, people will promote what they know. In the case of D&I, people will hire and promote who they know (figuratively of course). If hiring authorities are not personally familiar with the value of a diverse group of people, he or she is less likely to willingly hire a diverse team, especially into positions of leadership. In the Money Ball story loosing was the symptom and low on-base percentage was the underlying cause. A lack of D&I is a symptom and social psychology is the underlying cause. The real tragedy is most people make snap judgements about entire groups of people based largely upon assumptions as opposed to firsthand knowledge. How do you know what you think until you see what you say?
Career Aspiration / Fear & Anxiety: I had a conversation this week with a young professional about career aspirations. She communicated uncertainty about her ability to be successful in a job she’d never done. I reminded her of two things: 1) how do you know what you think until you see what you say and 2) embrace failure and/or the potential of failure, because a point of failure is the only way to recognize the need for improvement. There is no improvement apart from failure. Attributes and efforts make people successful, not the jobs they do. I advised her to stop looking for a job and to work to pay attention to what she loves. I encouraged her to find a place in which she can do the things she loves most often. Passions are catalytic to successful pursuits. Jobs are to passions as 501 (c) 3 is to non-profits. 501 (c) 3 is simply the tax code giving non-profits the right to function as they do. Jobs simply give people the right to function for organizations as they do. Non-profits pursue missions, not the tax code. People should pursue passions in their vocations and not jobs. We went on to discuss how the fear of failure is based on assumptions more so than factual knowledge. You don’t know what your worst fears are like until you experience them. You don’t know what you actually think about your worst fears until you see them come to fruition. Until you experience the reality of your pursuits, you don’t know what you think about them. How can you know what you think until you see what you say? My statements aren’t meant to negate the need for risk awareness and caution. They are not meant to inspire recklessness. My words are intended to free you from the crippling affects of fear and anxiety by seeing before formulating an opinion.
The E.M. Forster quote could be turned into a book, maybe even a series related to all of the places my reflective journey took me this week. Until I or one of you decides to write such a book I hope you remember to challenge what you believe you think. Ask yourself, “how do I know what I think until I see what I say?”
Remember, nothing said is everything, but everything said is something…
Charles Pulliam… Until next time…
