Practical aspects of Personality and Traits Theories

Personality Traits Theories are popular among Human Resource workers, because they help people to identify how easy or difficult certain tasks are for them to take on. For instance, it is far easier for an extraverted person to find success in a people-oriented sales job than it is for an introverted person to succeed in that same job. However introverts are successful in time working at home, than extroverted. It means that introverts are more effective in working alone. So by identifying the personal traits of the employee manager can easily find the type of job which would be the most acceptable for the person. For this reason, it is possible to say, that Personal Traits Theories help to find appropriate people for organization.

Among the advantages of Traits theories is their objectivity – most of them rely on statistical data, and thus do not have any bias. Trait theories are also simple to understand and easy to apply. The Theories help to understand the information regarding a human being’s personality, beliefs about himself and surrounding environment. In turn, provide the opportunity to compare people and identify what type of job to choose or to find a suitable collage or even in relationship.

Personality assessments have been used by individuals and psychologists for years. They used it understand how a person is likely to act, or react for some situations. Also to understand how that person can more effectively interact within the organizations. Nowadays the use of personality assessments in the workplace by organizations is going to increase. According to Rocket-Hire’s fourth annual survey of Electronic Recruiting Exchange (ERE) the use of personality assessments by organizations has increased from 34% in 2005 to 65% in 2006.

Typically personality assessments are used to show personality traits which person posses, personal styles and the way how person behaves. The results of the assessments can be used to predict how a person may perform in the workplace in certain situations. One of the most popular tools used for personal and career development is Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The Big Five Factor Model is also commonly used in personality assessment when making evaluating job applicants. Both theories make a contribution to the understanding of organizational behavior if correctly interpreted.

Although Personality and Traits theories can be used as a good predictor of how a person may perform in the workplace in certain situations, there are still several limitations of these theories that managers must bear in mind:

Hiring Process

Organizations use personality trait theories to determine what traits are useful for a specific job or career. Sales jobs will often have applicants take a self-assessment with questions relating to personality. The scoring for the test will rank applicants on each personality trait. Hiring managers use this information in conjunction with the applicant's credentials and interviews to determine who the best fit for the job is.

Self-Assessment Validity

Tests for hiring and recruiting processes may not always be valid determinants of who the best employee would be. Applicants looking to get hired for a sales job, for example, have every opportunity to lie about their personality to look more desirable to potential employers. Sales jobs will look for extroverts who are ambitious and competitive. An applicant could easily answer the questions on the test to match these personality traits rather than answering truthfully.

Career Assessment

Students use personality trait measurement tests to decide what careers they may be well-suited for. Students who are unsure of what major or career they would like to pursue can use the test results to narrow the options. The test attempts to match the student to potential careers that would be a good fit based on the student's personality. School counselors encourage students to take this test for a greater understanding of strengths and weaknesses when deciding on a major for college.

Future Behavior Predictions

Personality trait theories are limited in scope and are unable to accurately predict future behavior. A person with a specific personality trait may not behave in the manner associated with that trait in all interactions. It is expected that behavior will vary between personal and business situations. You may act very different around your friends versus people you are meeting for the first time. For these reasons, personality trait theories are not always capable of accurately predicting behavior, because they focus mostly on traits but not interaction of traits and external variables (situations).

Change and Development

Another criticism of Traits theories is that they give not enough information about trait development and no information about changing of traits. While statistics may be strength of trait theory, the statistical data captures the state of the tested people at a single-time – it does not describe development and change of personality. Thus, from the perspective of change Trait theories do not provide insight into long-term future behavior.

When making a decision to implement Traits theories in organization a manager should bear in mind all their advantages and disadvantages in order to fully utilize strong aspects of the theories and avoid use of theories in situations where they have limitations.

Personality and Traits theories have not seen wide-scale application in organizations yet, nevertheless along with more research in the field, organizations tend recognize the importance of personality and increase their use and application of Traits theories, which prove to be very helpful in an attempt to understand the ways of how person can interact within the organizations more effectively. The Big Five Factor Model and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are among the most popular theories practically applied in organizations with the former being effective when making hiring decisions and later being effective for assessing current employees. Traits theories have limitations in their effectiveness, however when applied correctly they can prove to be a powerful tool for increase of organizational effectiveness.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14