Personality Tests by the Numbers

June 3, 2021

Personality Tests by the Numbers by Merrick Rosenberg

There are many profiles that assess an individual’s behavioral style or personality.

These tools are used extensively in companies to increase employee effectiveness by increasing self-awareness and teaching people how to read the styles of others and then, adapt to their need.

The American Society for Training & Development reported that U.S. companies spend $110 billion per year on development training programs. 60% of these programs include interpersonal skills assessment and 86% of these assessments were based on either the DISC system or the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

The use of these personality-based assessment instruments is so widespread that according to Psychology Today, around 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies use some form of personality testing. Generally, these assessments are used for leadership development, team building, sales training, and as a selection tool. Employees often receive their results as part of either a training program or in one-on-one coaching.

A study by TalentSmart revealed that successful people share one thing in common — they have an acute sense of self-awareness. They found that in the workplace, 83% of those who scored high on self-awareness were also rated as top performers. On the other end of the performance continuum, only 2% of bottom-performers were high on self-awareness.

Unfortunately, many people are out of touch with their core strengths. If you doubt this, spend an hour watching American Idol tryouts. Many superstar hopefuls have no sense of their singing ability…and this plays out at work as well.

Personality profiles are fundamentally based on increasing self-awareness and companies who invest in guiding their employees to higher levels of self-awareness will reap the benefits of increased productivity and happier employees

Merrick Rosenberg