Evaluating Employee's Personality in Filtering Selection (Big Five Test)

Abstract

            Using MBTI, Big Five Personality Model and Person Job Fit Theory to examine the impact of personality and its variables in assessing an employee’s qualification by selective filtering and if there is a more accurate assessment.

Overview

            Tools to assess job placement are becoming more available to the corporate world. No longer do organizations have to use classic dimensions of personality to assemble a perceived notion of how an employee with perform in the work place after an interview. With new technology, consulting firms are able to evaluate employees on more dimensions than previous thought as well as using more tangible predictors such and applying skill concepts before hiring.

Introduction

The effort of researchers to categorize and segment the basic elements of personality and cultures has been influential for business’s evaluation of employees and the employee’s success in an organization (Caligiuri, 2005). The topic of assessing personality dimensions is still controversial but worthy to note that it has positive correlations to employee’s performance and success in business (Willis, 2006). Personality is being used more frequently to analyze employee’s ability to work with a team and asses the overall performance of an employee. Tests such as the MBTI (Myer-Briggs Type Indicator) are used to match employees with teams, in hopes of increased performance and decreased conflict. However, MBTI is widely used assessment instrument, it is not 100% accurate as many test have cultural biases or may contain human errors (Kennedy, 2004). The Big Five personality seems to be a more accurate measurement and simplify all personality to five basic characteristics (Heneman, 2006). For business purposes, personality tests in conjunction with principles of Person-Job Fit Theory are used to asses who would be a good representative for and successful performer in a company.

Gordon Allport, an early American psychologist, described personality as, “the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment” (Robbins, 2010). This definition allows us to view an employee’s personality as an adaptable organism with variations rather than a concrete substance that is inalterable. Tests that determine personality frequently use continuums or multiple/variable results to account for the versatility of personality; though some view this as inaccuracy or short comings of the tests (Taras, 2010). Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assesses individuals on a continuum of eight dimensions: Extravert versus Introvert; Sensing in contrast to Intuitive; Thinking opposed to Feeling; Judging compared to Perceiving (Briggs, 1976). Based on these dimensions, sixteen different personality constructions assist in predicting employee’s behavior, interactions with co-workers, and leadership abilities (Kennedy, 2004). The Big Five personality model categorizes individuals into five basic dimensions: Openness to new experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Emotional Stability or Neuroticism (Costa, 1985). This model classifies individual’s personality by their most highly perceived attributes in the given dimension.  From research, the Big Five model seems pervasive in studying personality rather than application in selection of employees (Caligiuri, 2005). MBTI and the Big Five model deliver similar results in assessing employees’ predisposition to work: performance, satisfaction and turnover (Harvey, 1995). By incorporating principles from Person-Job Fit Theory, the degree of congruence between a person and a job (Sekiguchi, 2004), organizations are able to create a model that delivers optimum success rates.

Culture, as an independent variable, disrupts degrees of importance on personality types and the influence those dimensions have in creating structural success. According to the Big Five model, the five basic personality types allow for a congruent evaluation of individuals and cultures (Costa, 1985).  An article entitled, “The Big Five Personality and Their Impact on Customer Services in Russia, China, Albania, and the USA” affirms, “the specific traits that are significant also [vary] across countries”(Ade 2010). The data concluded for “Russia; conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness were significant predictors of higher levels of personality oriented measures of customer service. For Albania, extraversion, tolerance for stress, openness to experience, and agreeableness were the significant predictors of higher levels of personality oriented measures of customer service. For China, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness were significant predictors. For the USA, extraversion and agreeableness were the only significant predictors of higher levels of personality oriented measures of customer service” (Ade 2010). This study demonstrates that even though similar, cultures prove to have differing perceptions in the composition of personality traits that determine proper customer service.

Current Practice

Organizations such as Albertsons, McBer And Company, McDonalds, Target and hospitals and government agencies use the MBTI assessment to filter and evaluate employees (Bolch, 2008; Cha, 2005; Robbins, 2010; Van Emmerik, 2010).  Besides skill, psychometric tests assist in determining selection of employees with the desired characteristics applicable to the career sect. For McDonald’s or government agencies going through a large number of applications, having a personality test in place alleviates unnecessary interviews with unqualified applicants and increases preferred selection. McDonald’s and other customer service based companies have been known to evaluate successful employees who are already grounded in the organization to establish a concept of an ideal employee (Bolch, 2008). By comparing prospective employees’ results to those of the ideal employee, Companies’ standards are not jeopardy since they have seen how an individual of like personality performs. Companies that utilize personality test have proven to have higher employee performance and job satisfactions as well as decreased job turn over (Heneman, 2006; Cha, 2005; Robbins, 2010).

Due to the overwhelming amount of applications, McDonald’s has countered this problem  by contracting Kenexa, a consulting firm that specializes in selective hiring, to create a tailored psychometric test that focuses upon attribute of “niceness” and productivity (Bolch, 2008). By focusing on the organizations desired characteristic of “Hiring a Smile,” McDonald’s transcends cultural barriers for a universal sign relatable to high or low context cultures which important for its multi-national success.

Most companies do not have the capacity or resources to brainstorm, develop, and construct a personality test to best asses their needs in home. Though MBTI exists, this theory of evaluation has been questions for its accuracy and reliability (Kennedy, 2004). Accuracy in the decision is important in selecting a potential employee. An organization’s success directly correlates upon performance, commitment to organization, and overall satisfaction of its employees.  Hence, the necessity for a personalized profiler that assess personality qualifications and filters the undesirable, so a manager can spend more time evaluating qualified individuals.

Hogan, Kenexa, Select International and PreVisor are just a few of the top providers of psychometric tests. Hogan’s service offers six different reasons why filtration is important: fit, basis, express, advantage, high potential, and safety, as well as four different assessments: Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI), and Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory (HBRI) (Hogan, 2010). Each test asses a different aspect of personality from basic personality normality and interpersonal behavior to core values and problem solving abilities (Hogan, 2010). Hogan’s service allows for an in-depth assessment of an employee’s personality and their perceived utility to the organization. By incorporating safety into the judgment, a higher degree of perceived ethics is allotted to Hogan. Valuing the community’s hierarchal needs is more important than the company’s increased profits revenue.

Kenexa’s “library includes skills and abilities tests, behavioral and personality assessments, structured interviews, assessment centers and simulations, performance indicators, cultural fit, job fit and career fit,  realistic job previews, leadership assessments and custom-built assessments”(Kenexa, 2010) which is a more than comprehensive list of evaluation factors. Kenexa also allows for a variety of modes of assessment: online, phone, in person, paper and even a formal display of grasping concepts (Kenexa, 2010).  Kenexa’s use of informal to more formalized assessment practices proves the accuracy and clarity of decision making processes.

PreVisor Talent Management assesses individuals on cognitive ability such as logic and reasoning, situational decision making, skill, personality, and simulations (telephone call, software skill and clerical work) (PreVisor, 2010). PreVisor, like the others, has established a specialized manner of assessing employee’s qualifications.

Selection International serves a wider variety of industries than other assessment providers: call centers, distribution, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, service, and transport and logistics (Select International, 2010). Selection International assessing employee’s overall quality, determined safety, stress tolerance, likely productivity, potential absenteeism, turnover risk, and service ability through biographical data, behavioral statements (in scripted questioning and unscripted interaction), and personality dimensions (Selection International, 2010). The lack rigorous evaluation is down played by focusing on a larger industrial demographic, a quantity over quality practice.

 Best Practice

Choosing, Hogan, Kenexa, Select International or PreVisor provides a company an elite group of employees selected and assessed by a multitude of prerequisite. A competitive advantage is also obtained, necessary in an increasingly aggressive market. Kenexa provides a superior quality dimension.  Evaluating employees in the context of a “best fit” model allows for employees to not be placed in an organizational culture or position that is unsatisfactory. The different modes in which the Kenexa tests an employee gives the employer a realistic view of how the employee will perform rather than assumed correlation of a established personality label.

Recommendations and Conclusion

            As far as the traditional process of evaluating personality, MBTI or the Big Five model create labels which associate stereotypes that do not take in to consideration an individual’s life experiences. By actively judging an employee’s ability and personality, a company can gather more information about the actual behaviors of an employee.  These new test allow for a precise conclusion of what to expect from an employee.

With proper evaluation of employees’ personality, companies have increased accuracy of appraising employees’ and the organization’s performance and possible success in the foreign territory. Cultural favored values and predominant personality differences affect an enterprise’s ability to relate with others. However, by selecting employees with personalities that are congruent with niche position, the hindrances are limited for both organizations and the employees. MBTI and the Big Five model are suited for the purposes of categorizing individual personalities. These personality identifiers and test also increase companies’ probability to make informed decisions about employee’s full qualifications and predict the employee’s satisfaction and performance in the particular career.   

References

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