Employees are the key to driving results in any organization. From building revenue, producing the product or service, helping customers with problems, and everything in between, your people are the common denominator. Understanding what engages every member of a team will make it stronger and more productive. An individual’s personality type helps determine whether team members can communicate with each other effectively, work as a unified group, and achieve results.
That’s why hiring leaders need to look beyond skills. They should consider personality tendencies and cognitive aptitude through assessments administered by reliable organizations. By establishing this as a regular part of the hiring and development process, companies can reduce turnover, increase their teams' efficiency, and create an overall friendlier working environment.
The average voluntary turnover rate in the United States is 25%. Therefore, with each batch of new hires, around 25% of the employees won't stay at the firm for long. Considering how much companies usually spend on hiring and training processes, a high turnover rate can seriously impact a firm's bottom line.
Personality assessments minimize this likelihood by quickly eliminating individuals who are not a strong fit and, therefore, might burn out or leave once the novelty wears off. It also helps eliminate applicants who may have a tough time working with the existing team and might quit sooner due to different communication styles or different levels of independence.
Fitness to perform a job is more than just having the skills to do it. Any doctor can diagnose a patient and prescribe medication but not all of them can communicate and foster a strong, trusting relationship with a patient. Personality assessments help increase the likelihood of finding candidates with a personality that matches the unique demands of the job. If you are hiring a salesperson, you want someone who is naturally assertive versus naturally timid. A timid employee may take orders well but struggle to find, develop and close their own leads. Maybe your whole sales team is assertive but also strongly social; they are excellent relational sellers, but they struggle with being consultative. You might want to add an assertive, analytical seller to the group to help round out your team’s selling strengths. Knowing what you need helps you find the right complement to your existing staff.
Personality assessments can quickly eliminate job candidates from contention and narrow down your applications to only those that meet company requirements. While these assessments shouldn't be the sole reason for hiring a person, they're useful indicators of who should make the shortlist for a position. Our industry job models and Target reports produce real-time results so you can quickly move to the second phase of the hiring process. When used as a primary filter, personality assessments can reduce the number of people who need to be interviewed one-on-one.
The primary drawback of personality assessments is when they are used as the sole reason for hiring a person. Hiring is all about consistently selecting the best talent for the job, and that means collecting enough data to build a solid picture of each candidate. The only way to do that is by using a variety of tools that contribute to the whole picture. If all you’re doing is screening resumes followed by an interview, you’re missing out on a wealth of information from other tools. For example, imagine how much more you can glean by using a skills test, a background search, a phone screen, an in-person or video interview, a job simulation exercise, a personality assessment, and a cognitive assessment.
Assessments come in all forms and types. Omnia provides two important assessments for building strong teams: behavioral and cognitive. Here's how each one evaluates the fit of an applicant:
This assessment looks into the motivations and preferences of an applicant and how those factors will translate into the areas that affect their work performance. Each position requires a particular set of characteristics, and you want to find the candidates that embody those characteristics to perform their responsibilities effectively. The behavioral assessment ensures a match between the personality and the role you're trying to fill.
The Omnia Assessment measures four characteristics: assertiveness, communication, pace, and structure. A good personality assessment service provider should be able to deliver on all of this information and give you a comparison based on your own job benchmark or an industry-standard model. For example, what are the ideal characteristics of a marketing lead, according to experts? The person you hire is the one whose personality assessment results come closest to the industry standards of the role.
Cognitive assessments measure the ability of an applicant to think critically. They detail how a person uses logic and reason to solve problems typically encountered in their desired position. They'll tell you if the person can flourish in the workplace or if they'll buckle under pressure.
Cognitive assessments typically give you an idea of a person's abstract thinking skills and ability to adapt to new environments or situations. For example, can they understand new concepts or create solutions to new problems? It also shows you if the individual can learn from experience and utilize their new skills to better the firm.
Understanding how each individual plays into the overall workflow of a team is crucial if you want them to achieve common missions and visions. Our role here at The Omnia Group is to help streamline your hiring and development processes with the goal of building effective, high-functioning teams.
With decades of experience in the field, we take great pride in assisting business owners and companies in finding the right people for their open positions. We welcome any opportunity to talk about our service. Contact us today to optimize your workforce!
