Human Resources

"Your presentations ... dealing with communication styles and personality types was extremely well received. Understanding the Individual Self and Interpersonal Communication related very well to your presentation and the group learned a great deal more listening to you that just reading the text. You gave some outstanding pointers for getting along in the work place with a variety of personality types." Nannette Meyers, Coordinator, Education and Training. University of West Florida

DISC is a critical recruiting tool in finding, and placing, qualified applicants in a position. As a placement tool DISC will give you an idea of how well an applicant will do at certain tasks. For example, if you are looking for a customer service representative for your company you would look for someone who scores high on People traits; that is a high "I," or "S" type of person because people skills are their strength; but even this may be to vague. Lets say the customer service job you have in mind involves the employee staying in an office environment with customers coming to them, or calling them on the phone, the "S" (People/Reserved) trait would be ideal. For the outgoing "I" style the same predictable office environment may be too slow for them, they would become bored and lose interest. If, on the other hand, you want someone "out there" among the customers talking to people in an open, changing, fast moving environment the "I" (People/Outgoing) style would be the best choice. For the reserved "S" style the unpredictable, fast pace environment would be too much for them. So even though it may appear one job -- customer service -- it is actually two, depending on the environment.

To use DISC effectively in this role, a Job Profile, or Role Assessment must be created. The Role Assessment is a modified DISC assessment tool listing the desired skills or traits the position requires. To insure an accurate profile the assessment should be filed out by employees doing the work, and supervisors of the position. Others, HR, etc, may also do a profile to insure that the position involves what they think it does.

NOTE: DISC will not tell you how well a person will do the job they were hired to do, only time will tell you that. DISC will however, tell you that their personality style will make them better suited for the position and they should do well because there will be a low occurrence of Role Conflict (below).

Having the applicant take the DISC assessment before an interview is an excellent way for the interviewer(s) to see the strengths, as well as the problem area(s) of the applicant. For instance an applicant with a high D/I combination will excel in the areas of getting it done, and communicating with people, they move fast, and like to work independently. Knowing this, you can ask questions addressing these strengths. Conversely, and more importantly, this applicants problem areas will be in the details, a "C" trait, and forming solid working relationships, a "S" trait; knowing this you can ask questions that address these areas as well.

Another advantage of the DISC assessment is the Basic and Environment chart that is generated. The applicants Basic chart will show that they are a high D/I, low S/C combination, their Environment chart, which shows what the applicant has learned in order to adjust to their environment may show a higher amount of S/C, or at least a lesser amount of D/I. In other words they have learned that the D/I combination gets things done but having a high amount of S/C will sometimes do just as well, and is a more "people friendly" approach.

Knowing this about your applicant will allow you to ask questions that address not only the "real" person, but how well they adjust to situations outside of their comfort zone.

In Recruiting (above) I spoke of using the Role Assessment to determine just what a position requires. This is another strength of the DISC assessment used by Your People Puzzle, it will do just that. To validate a position, employees doing the work and their immediate supervisors fill out the assessment. This will give an accurate picture of what the position entails by the people doing the work, and supervising it ; where the rubber meets the road, if you will. Now include Human Resources, and people who created, and evaluate, the position; this will give you an accurate picture of what they envision the position qualifications and necessary skills to be, the pie-in-the-sky stuff.

Now compare the results. Major differences, if any, in what the position requirements are and what is actually happening will be very obvious. For instance: HR may list the position as not requiring a high degree of independent decision making, but employees on the job say that they are sometimes required to make independent decisions. This is supported by the supervisor who says that they have allowed this to happen because the nature of the work does not always allow the employee to stop, find a supervisor and ask them to make the decision. In essence the line supervisor has given the employee a greater degree of antimony than the position originally stated. If this is allowed to continue you may be hiring people who are not comfortable making independent decisions because specifications of the position do not require it. Knowing this, the position could be tweaked and adjusted, this will insure that you hire the correct person for the correctly defined position.

This process can also be used to validate a new position. It would require some modification because no one is actually doing or supervising the job but employees and supervisors in related areas could be used to provide input to "get in the ballpark." Later, after the position is filed another assessment is done to "norm" out the first and adjustments made as necessary.

Role conflict is generally the result of either the wrong person in the right job, or the right person in an incorrectly defined position, hiring someone just to fill a vacancy, or job ambiguity (not knowing what the positions entails, but expected to do the work). All these can cause role conflict and DISC can be used for each of them.

For example, a "I" type working as an accountant, or a "D" in customer service; certainly not the best job choice for either. This is not to say that "D's" would not make a good customer service representative, or the "I's" a good accountant, they could, but it would be difficult. The danger here is what tends to happen when employees are working in positions that are almost opposite their personality style. They will come to depend, to a large degree, on their secondary traits to function, think of this as running on battery power. After a period of time (the battery starts to run down) their job will become a chore, a task, a stress generator; when stressed to much, their basic style will take over. The Basic and Environment chart generated by DISC will show the difference between the two, and if there is a two segment or greater gap between them you are setting the employee up for failure if allowed to continue.

The DISC tool, when properly used to validate a position will insure that the position is defined correctly, that it is filed by qualified employees and there is no job ambiguity. For an example of how DISC and a color wheel can be used to identify stress/conflict areas click here.

Eventually in an employees career, they will move from doing the work to supervising someone doing the work; will they be prepared? Unfortunately most companies do little to prepare their employees for this eventuality. All personality styles can be leaders, each in their own way. By using DISC, and the Management Report, you can chart each style and develop a plan to work with their strengths and develop their weak areas. For instance: a high "S" will not be comfortable supervising and telling others what to do; however, the "S" will have secondary traits of "I" and "C," and although it may not be much, some "D." By identifying the "D" they have and working with it and their secondary trait(s), they will eventually become an excellent productive leader, in their "S" way.

Care must be taken to insure that the information gathered by the DISC assessment is handled in accordance to existing laws and regulations of your state. Legalities aside people do not want to be labeled or categorized, they want to be understood and appreciated. It should also be noted that DISC is not a psychological assessment, it is a personality assessment and is legal for use as a tool to evaluate prospective employees. Be careful however, as assessment tools of any type may not be used as the sole determiner of qualifications for a position.