Personality tests

What You Might Be Getting Wrong with Personality Tests

• 09 Jul, 2024
• Collaboration

In the fast-paced realm of modern work, where remote and hybrid work arrangements are commonplace, the intricacies of collaboration have taken on a whole new meaning. Traditional personality tests, once heralded as the solution to understanding personalities and team dynamics, find themselves woefully inadequate in this landscape. The primary problem is that they lack accessibility because they aren’t seamlessly integrated into teams’ daily workflows. Even when accessible, personality tests demand interpretation and lose the essence of quick, actionable insights. Moreover, they focus merely on behaviors, overlooking the vital motivators, values, and work styles that drive individuals and teams. Yet, a more significant concern looms large — the emergence of AI, blurring the lines between professional evaluation and personal privacy. This article will explore strategies on how to use personality tests in team building through leveraging technology and AI to create and sustain effective team collaboration. A Quick History in Personality Tests in the Workplace The world of pre-hire and employee self-assessments is age old. Based on historically recorded information, the first pre-employment cognitive testing may have been used during the imperial examination in China, dating back to the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). Its use was standardized during the Song Dynasty (960 AD – 1279 AD) as a civil service exam for candidates wishing to enter the state bureaucracy. The imperial examination tested candidates’ knowledge on topics such as civil law and fiscal policy, and helped the nation transition from a military ruling class to a scholarly one.  Objective personality testing began with Woodworth's Personal Data Sheet in 1917. That test was developed to identify soldiers prone to nervous breakdowns during enemy bombardment as well as shell shock during World War I. Soon after, many competing personality tests were developed for use in American industry. Many of these tests focused on the construct of employee maladjustment and were deemed important in screening out applicants who would create workplace disturbances.  As time went on, many types of personality assessment tools were developed. One famous test used in the early 20th century was the MMPI, Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Established as a way of determining psychopathology, it was used in some cases as a hiring assessment until the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission stopped its use as a violation of the standards of non-discrimination. Another, established in 1943, was the MBTI or Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, and it has served as a popular assessment for a number of purposes, including executive development. It was inspired by the work of renowned Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. While useful for staff development, it has demonstrated limitations in the selection of candidates. The use of other assessments and skills tests continues to proliferate the business world. Millions of workers take assessments each year as part of personnel selection, to improve collaboration and teamwork, and to identify next steps in a career path. On its own, personality testing is a $500 million industry, with an annual growth rate estimated at 10 to 15 percent.  Employers are continuing to use hiring, leadership, and employee mobility assessments to gather data points that will enable more informed decisions in the area most critical to the company’s success – its people. Making the wrong decision can be very expensive, so HR departments, executives, and team leaders rely on these tests – some with more success than others – even though most of these tools have failed to keep pace with the changing needs of today’s workforce. 3 Limitations of Most of Today’s Personality Tests Thankfully, assessment tools have evolved significantly since their early days. For example, the ability to take an assessment online, from anywhere in the world, has made them much more attractive than they once were, and algorithms can score tests quickly and easily. A wide variety of instruments can be used this way: Cognitive Ability Tests, Integrity Tests, Interviews, Job Knowledge Tests, and Personality Tests.  According to G2, there are 189 tools in the market – but that’s just a listing of pre-employment testing software! So while many of these tools are certainly continuing to evolve – albeit slowly – their limitations remain glaring, especially those in the personality assessment category.  To get any kind of value from these tools, many require external consultants or facilitators who are certified in particular assessment methodology. This then requires a highly manual implementation process whereby data is collected, aggregated, and analyzed by that consultant – and that takes time. This is why employer assessments have required an intermediary and remained within the domain of costly certified consultants. Personality tests are supposed to help you understand your team, build trust, establish psychological safety, and create an inclusive workplace culture. In remote or hybrid work environments, they fail to carry out that purpose for a few reasons:The test only measures behaviors, not what motivates an individual or team. Most assessments only measure behaviors and are vulnerable to multiple biases, misunderstandings, and interpretations with no chance of clarification. They're not sensitive to the employee's state of mind when the test occurs and may be biased due to the timing of its findings.  It fails to take into consideration change and adaptability. As an employee starts a job, they gain experience, try to develop every day, and subsequently adjust to correct previous shortcomings. These tests fail to allow room for that inevitable change and improvement. The results are not worth the expense. Assessments like the Myers-Briggs personality test and the Clifton Strengths test are costly and take a long time to be implemented. Additionally, further interpretation of the results can only be completed by a costly certified consultant or a psychologist.Common Challenges When Adapting to Remote or Hybrid Work Environments To complicate things, hybrid work environments are becoming the norm. This means employees must continue to get used to the mix of in-house and remote work and find ways to make virtual teamwork collaborative and successful. In trying to manage the hybrid workforce, here are some common challenges organizations encounter: Lack of connection: Remote teams mean personal and social connections are lost almost entirely. Members don't know their teammates, as there are no coffee breaks or lunch meetings where employees can sit together and break the ice. Mentorship and bonds between employees are hard to forge, and such a disconnect can make employees unhappy and less committed to the job. Lack of communication: Differences in how information should be relayed between workstations can be a big challenge. An example can be seen when a Gen Zer sends an email. Even if it contains lots of detail and information that a millennial recipient needs, it also has a lot of abbreviations and shorthand because that is how Gen Z likes to write. However, the millennial prefers more conceptual and formal communication and sees this email as unstructured, thereby ignoring it. The receiving person will likely delete the email and classify it as not worth reading, regardless of its vital information. Doing so leads to a loss in productivity and reaction time in completing that task. Lack of collaboration: Distributed team collaboration is a big issue within remote teams, as some employees might get left out of decision-making processes. Collaborating with remote teams takes more time and effort than with those who work together in person. This makes collaboration a big challenge in a hybrid work setting. It’s not all dismal though. Personality assessments can be very helpful in identifying the right kind of person for a role, to complement your existing team, or to help navigate conflict that currently exists on a team; and they can be particularly effective when aligning leadership teams. However, the most effective assessments are the one-stop shops that can serve multiple purposes at once: that is, use the data to hire and build more balanced teams, for leadership and team building, and to identify high potential employees and possible development and promotion paths.  How Do Technology & AI Improve the Impact of Psychometrics in the Workplace? Psychometric testing in the workplace through technology and AI acts as the glue that holds together different teams in the organization by helping boost connectivity. The following are just some of the many examples of how psychometric questionnaires paired with AI can enhance distributed team collaboration.Technology and AI connect all employees whether or not you've physically met them. They can track phone calls, virtual meetings, and related data to summarize when and how often people need to meet and connect. This helps to foster and potentially identify cultural aspects of the organization that are associated with productivity and performance. AI helps rewrite emails in various communication styles, all based on how the recipient likes to receive information – which reduces the friction among team members of different generations or backgrounds, thereby improving communication and mutual understanding within your workforce. It is responsible for suggesting and influencing virtual meetings for training, onboarding new members, and building good relationships – all based on actionable psychometric insights. Psychometric testing in the workplace builds an inclusive spirit by showing that differences can do wonders for teams that are willing to be open-minded and enhance efficiency. This diversity of thought leads to innovation and better problem-solving.Using Psychometrics in Your Existing Collaboration Tools In the digital realm, psychometric assessments are not just tools; they're catalysts in transforming remote and hybrid team dynamics. Imagine having essential insights at your fingertips, bridging the gap between colleagues you've met and those you haven't. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Utilize them for personalized email communication and AI-driven suggestions, crafting impactful 1-to-1 interactions. Leverage personality insights in meeting invites, empowering you to prepare in advance, supported by AI's tailored prompts. In virtual settings, these psychometric insights about team members can guide training, influence strategies, aid in onboarding new members, and foster cross-functional collaboration in ways unlike ever before There are many assessment tools and plenty of hybrid work technology out there that can help you identify great candidates, opportunities for manager and leadership development, or areas of strength and improvement for teams. However, not every tool can do all of these things in the same amount of time – unless it captures data in three key areas: behaviors, motivators, and work energizers – and then aggregates that data into actionable insights you can use to improve your teams. And we can help.