Saturday, April 27, 2024

Can my employer force me to take a personality test?


Reader: I paintings for a small arts nonprofit of about 50 staff, in a nearly janitorial labor-type place, and I actually experience my activity. The new govt director has made up our minds all of us want to get to know every different higher and had us fill out a DiSC review to in finding out “who we are and where our strengths are.” I used to be no longer concerned with taking part, however everybody had to do it, and I used to be instructed it was once personal.

We have been rounded up into a corporate assembly the place everybody’s effects have been revealed out and dispensed for remark so “we could understand one another.” Many of our managers scored top in management talents; I used to be giant in task-oriented jobs (I can have instructed them that). We are intended to do that yearly to see “how our scores evolve.”

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I actually disliked all of the task and don’t need to repeat it. What is your take on these types of evaluation exams? Is this one thing I will be compelled to do, or can I choose out with out concern of reprisal?

Work Advice: Dealing with an worker who is just too excellent at his activity

Karla: DiSC, Myers-Briggs, Enneagram and different skilled “sorting hats” will also be helpful beginning issues to get other folks to consider what they price, how they be in contact, and what motivates or hinders them — all helpful information to have when coping with colleagues or attempting to map out one’s personal strengths and demanding situations.

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Like any evaluate device, they may be able to be damaging if used to pigeonhole other folks into inflexible roles in line with what their personalities “should” lead them to do, or to assign upper inherent price to particular types over others. In any activity, there must be room for a spectrum of introverts to extroverts, analytical to intuitive thinkers, process-focused to outcome-focused varieties.

Employers must no longer use exams to force you into a explicit slot, however to get you serious about how your edges are compatible with the ones of folks, and possibly to see what you might have in not unusual with other folks you don’t most often engage with.

How a lot staff get out of those workout routines relies on the level to which the employer is invested within the process and whether or not participation is obligatory or inspired however voluntary. You know higher than I the place your employer suits in those examples, and whether or not the employer’s purpose is taking a look like an “employer of choice” at the floor, or in fact producing considerate dialog amongst staff.

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It’s a mark for your employer’s prefer that everybody for your small group was once incorporated on this process, although you possibly can favor to be not noted. Think in regards to the message implicit in attempting to come with all staffers, irrespective of rank or division or activity form: Everyone right here issues. Everyone’s personality is legitimate and price attempting to perceive. Now consider what message it will ship if sure classes of staff or managers have been excluded. In this example, it’s higher to err at the aspect of inclusion.

Work Advice: Balancing collaboration and independence

I am getting your frustration with being made to go through a task that instructed you not anything new or helpful about your self, particularly if it took time from extra pressing issues. And it’s disconcerting that your effects have been shared after you have been led to imagine they might be personal; sharing, like participation, must be inspired however voluntary.

Employer-sponsored personality exams are like place of work events and different nonwork occasions: Some other folks unironically experience them. Others have little passion, however see them as a chance to view their colleagues — and let the ones colleagues view them — in a extra non-public context. Some grudgingly take part on account of how their absence may well be interpreted. And some merely decline to take part, or prepare to have non-public depart or some other battle scheduled all through that point.

So if the brand new director follows via on requiring a retake subsequent 12 months, what’s the proper trail for you?

Assuming you’re no longer being requested to do one thing unlawful, immoral or unsafe, it’s usually prudent to move at the side of what your employer asks of you all through your paid paintings hours — specifically if being sociable and approachable is necessary to your efficiency opinions and promotion alternatives.

Outside the ones parameters? Again, higher than I whether or not pronouncing “no thanks” to long term classes, and even providing comments to your underwhelming revel in, is well worth the chance to the way you’re perceived through control. If you make a decision it isn’t, then as a someday INTJ at the Myers-Briggs matrix, I be offering my sympathies — and a reminder, talking of camaraderie, that most certainly no less than one different particular person in attendance will proportion your antipathy and would feel free to commiserate in personal.



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