Personality tests are often thought of as tools used to find the best match for an employer seeking to fill an opening. But what about finding the best fit among existing employees for a spot on a team? Personality tests can help here, too.
Test for Better Team-Job Fit
If person-job fit is defined as “the compatibility between an individual and the job or tasks that they perform at work,” we assert that team-job fit should expand the scope to a group of individuals and their compatibility not only to their job, but to their team.
Teams may collectively fill a number of different roles, ranging from those who lead the development of a plan, to those who research how to implement that plan, to others who coordinate putting the plan into action, and more.
Assembling teams from groups of employees who share common values can lead to stronger teams that develop solutions to problems more effectively and efficiently.
In many cases, assembling teams of employees based strictly on skill sets or leadership ability can result in groups plagued by infighting or with too many competing plans and not enough due diligence, attention to detail, creativity or timely execution. Use personality tests instead to help identify the right blend of complementary attributes for optimal team membership.
Additional Benefits
Once well-matched teams are assembled, they not only function more efficiently, but they can also create more satisfied employees, the benefits of which include reduced turnover, improved morale, and increased productivity. Employers can also save valuable resources by assembling a solid team on the first try rather than through trial-and-error.
As referenced in this useful post from LinkedIn, some added benefits of a well-constructed team include:
- Culture & Communication. By going through internal assessments results together, employees are able to gain an understanding of how their colleagues perceive problems and solutions. This helps cement relationships within teams and creates goodwill among team members.
- Constructive Self-reflection. Individuals are afforded an opportunity to look at their personality traits strengths and weaknesses out from under the spotlight of a job audition. They can identify aspects of their skillset ripe for improvement and gain confidence in areas where they excel.
- Enlightened Leadership. Senior management can get a 360-degree view of the personality traits, strengths and weaknesses of their existing workforce and use that intelligence to develop policies that best suit the characteristics of their employees.
Where To Begin
Using personality tests designed specifically for the workplace that are based on the Big Five personality traits is a good place to start. These traits, which include conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, openness to experience and emotional stability, are well-tested and have held up to scrutiny and study for decades.
Tests built using the Big Five and designed to gauge a person’s potential for performance in the workplace will provide reliable feedback. What’s more, because personality traits are generally stable over time after reaching adulthood, the results are enduring.
Myriad Benefits, Better Teams
Personality tests for existing employees are specifically useful for forming high-functioning groups. But they also have collateral benefits for both employees and employers. The tests have the additional advantage of being cost-effective when they are used to find the right people for the right groups—and find them early on in the team-building process.
