If you’re not already using personality assessments for the employees in your company, you may be ignoring a tool that could provide a competitive advantage.

“People in large, well-managed organizations know that the difference between success and failure increasingly is the people that you put into your positions,” said Deiric McCann, executive vice president, Europe, for Profiles International, an assessment developer. During the last 10 to 15 years, more small- to medium-sized businesses have followed their lead.

It’s an international trend, said McCann. Although Europeans like to talk about how their countries are different from each other and from the U.S., when it comes down to commerce businesses, everywhere want to do the same thing — maximize output with minimum input so that they get a profitable bottom line.

“Particularly in the last five years, every organization in the civilized world has trimmed every last cost they could because of the tough economy,” McCann said. “But they’ve gotten to the stage where they can’t enhance their bottom lines anymore by cutting costs. The only way they can do that is by increasing output.” Employee engagement is a critical factor in this effort. “If you have the wrong people in your jobs, you’re not going to get that,” he said.

MATCHING CHARACTERISTICS OF TOP PERFORMERS

There’s a wide variation in the types of personality assessments available and in the way that companies use them.

Profile assessments identify the characteristics of the most successful performers in various jobs — a combination of personality, motivational interests and intellectual skills. Their clients can then compare top performers’ profiles to the assessment results of candidates for employment and promotion.

“If you know what it is you require in a job, and how a person compares to that, you can make a more informed choice,” McCann said. Armed with the knowledge of a person’s strengths and preferences, managers know the areas where an employee might have problems or need guidance and the areas where they’ll perform well with minimal supervision.

Managers who take personality assessments gain valuable information about what they look like compared to their employees and about where they’re likely to have conflicts or problems. Plus, by taking the test, managers let their employees know that they’re all going through the same thing; the tests are not something that the company is doing just to employees.

BETTER COMMUNICATIONS

At Dixon Schawbl, a New York-based marketing and advertising agency, new employees take a Myers-Briggs personality indicator after they are hired. They receive a copy of their assessment results and a “speed reaching technique” sign that they can display at their desks. It lists each employee’s personality type and the forms of communication to which they best respond. People at all levels of the company, from the managing partner down, post this information.

“That way people understand their different team members, their preferred work styles and the best way to approach them,” said Karen Sims, vice president people and development. For example, Sims said that assessments have identified her as an organizer. Armed with that information, her coworkers know that the most effective way to reach Sims is through to verbal communication and information presented clearly and logically. “I’ve had people come in who don’t do it that way at all, and it’s been perfectly fine, but it greatly helps them to get an idea approved quickly if things are presented that way.”

Dixon Schawbl recently incorporated employees’ Myers-Briggs results into employees’ performance reviews, giving managers new insights into their own interactions with those that they supervise. “Some employees might stop by every single day and check in with their managers, while there are others who might prefer to be more autonomous and are not as open at verbalizing how they feel,” Sims said. This helps supervisors reach out more to those employees, so it’s not just the squeaky wheel getting the grease but it’s everyone getting the same kind of thoughtful approach no matter what their personality type.”

IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR PERFORMANCE

Talent Plus, a global recruitment, development and retention firm with offices in Nebraska and Singapore, uses the same assessment tools internally that it has designed for its clients. Taking those personality assessments is one step in the employment process at Talent Plus.

“We want to see what they have the aptitude to do extraordinarily well if we put them in the right role and we invest in them,” said Cydney Koukol, chief communication officer at Talent Plus. The results of assessments also come into play when employees want to take on a new role in the company. “We look at people and ask, ‘Do they have the aptitude, do they have the capacity to do something extraordinarily well? Is that a role that they would enjoy every day and that they feel they have a talent for?’” Sometimes Talent Plus will select someone for a role that they’ve never had before because managers feel confident, based on the assessments, that the employee has the potential to do the job successfully.

Talent Plus also uses the results of personality assessments as an employee motivator. On their first day at work, every employee receives a talent card that has three sections. “One is ‘We like you because’; the second is ‘We need you because you have these strengths’; and the third is, ‘Here is what we expect of you,’” Koukol said. At the end of a long day, Koukol will sometimes reread her own talent card to remind herself of the skills the company saw in her. “If you have a great challenge ahead of you, you can say, ‘I know I can do this because I have a talent to do this.’”

Talent Plus considers personality assessments an essential tool for managers as well. “If you know what your potential is, and you know what you’re extraordinarily good at, it helps you see that potential in others. It helps you put them in the right roles to be successful,” Koukol said.

GETTING THE MOST FROM ASSESSMENTS

McCann noted that companies make a mistake when they use personality assessments only for hiring. “They’ve paid for the information, it’s sitting in their systems at their fingertips, and it wouldn’t cost them a cent to do more and look into it and say, ‘How could I use this to manage people better? How could I use this to promote this employee?’ People spend a huge amount of time making sure to recruit someone correctly, but they spend dramatically less time when they go to promote somebody. Sometimes promoting somebody can do more damage than getting the wrong person in the first place.”

Not everyone agrees that personality assessments belong in the workplace. Some critics say that test takers may not answer honestly or may skew their responses to what they think the employer wants. Others say that the tests are sometimes used to unfairly discriminate against job applicants.

But companies that do use personality assessments believe that they are effective. “Every time you select a new employee your culture gets better or worse,” Koukol said. “If you use these tools, you’re ensuring that your culture will get better, one consistent selection after another.”