Personality tests can be fun, let’s face it, we all love learning a little more about ourselves, but unfortunatley, they can be of limited genuine application in the workplace.

Goodbye to MBTI, the Fad That Won’t Die,” exclaims organizational psychologist Adam Grant.

Popular personality tests like Myers Briggs and DiSC have come under a lot of scrutiny in recent years, especially in the workplace — and for good reason. These type-focused personality tests lack validity because of the way they fit individuals into limited categories, not accounting for the diversity of human personality. While each may be fun as a team building or other less business- critical activity, leveraging these pop psychology personality tests to make expensive and critical decisions — like who to hire or promote — who is best placed to do certain projects, tasks or roles – is ineffective, and potentially unethical.

On the other hand, trait-focused personality tests based on the Five-Factor theory of personality, have been widely accepted by personality test and psychology experts as a far more valid and
reliable way to measure personality, especially in the workplace. When paired with a job analysis, the Big 5 personality test provides organisations with a predictive and data-driven method to uncover a candidate’s suitability for a role on a whole new level.

Walk into a networking event and right away you can see personality in action. Some people actively approach others, while others quietly sip their drink. Some discuss the weather, while others dive deep into complex issues. This scenario shows that people often respond differently to the same situation. Core to this is our personality — the “individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving”.
In other words, how a person typically acts from day to day.

The Five-Factor theory of personality is the longest- standing framework for organizing the underlying traits that make us who we are.

The OCEAN Scale Workshop gives participants an opportunity to discover where they are on the Big Five Personality Traits scale. Rather than being labelled a ‘type’, people instead learn where they are on each of

• Openness to Experience — The extent that someone is curious, imaginative, flexible, and interested in trying new things.
• Conscientiousness — The extent that someone is organized, works hard, stays on task, and perseveres to finish the job
• Extraversion — The extent that someone is outgoing, assertive, friendly, and active.
• Agreeableness — The extent that someone is cooperative, trusting, polite, and compassionate.
• Neuroticism — The extent that someone worries, and is irritable, or easily stressed. The opposite of this trait is often called Emotional Stability.

Beyond offering a predictor of suitability for different jobs, the knowledge that is gained in this workshop, about ourselves and each other can help us to better accept people as they are. Instead of trying to constantly change ourselves or others, this workshop opens up opportunities to optimise and understand each other instead, facilitating increased connection and collaboration, and key to creating positive cultures