63% of employees who started new jobs in 2021 felt that they received insufficient onboarding. Learn how psychometric testing can benefit your new employees, DISC suggest.
How to Use Psychometric Testing to Ensure a Great First Week for your New Hire
After spending weeks advertising a job, reading CVs, interviewing candidates, and evaluating your options, you’ve finally hired the perfect person for the role. However, you can’t sit back and relax yet. The next step is onboarding and it’s crucial to get this right.
Unfortunately, 63% of employees who started new jobs in 2021 felt that they received insufficient onboarding. Many weren’t sure of their responsibilities and almost half were never given personal targets for role progression.
So, how can your organisation provide an excellent onboarding process for all new hires? Here’s how you can use personality tests to improve the onboarding process for everyone.
Why is onboarding important?
A successful onboarding strategy is essential for many reasons. As an individual’s first experience of working for a particular organisation, onboarding sets their expectations for the rest of their time there. A good onboarding experience reinforces their perception that they made the right decision accepting the job offer, allows them to start building relationships and networks within the organisation, and gives them the confidence to shine in their role. In fact, research by Brandon Hall Group has found that a strong onboarding process improved productivity by more than 70%. Onboarding is also essential for retention; a good onboarding experience has been found to increase the retention of new hires by 82%. In the midst of the current talent shortage, improving retention with a positive onboarding process is more important than ever.
On the other hand, bad onboarding can lead to poor performance and a lack of productivity from the employee. A sub-par onboarding experience can leave the new hire confused and unconfident, questioning whether they made the right decision. The excitement of the job offer can wear off, and the employee might even start thinking about quitting. This is why employee turnover is highest during a new employee’s first six months in the job. Even if they decide to stick around, a bad onboarding experience can have a negative impact on mental health; research shows that 42% of employees suffer from strong feelings of impostor syndrome during onboarding.
Overall, it’s clear that onboarding sets the tone for the rest of an employee’s time at your organisation – a good onboarding process sets them up for future success while bad onboarding leads to regret, turnover, and poor mental health.
With this in mind, how can organisations ensure that the onboarding process is as seamless and effective as possible, especially following the Covid-19 pandemic and the rise of remote and hybrid onboarding? Using personality tests can help.
Use psychometric tests to personalise onboarding
With onboarding, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Yet, too many organisations provide a standardised and admin-focused onboarding experience. In fact, 58% of organisations report that their onboarding process mostly is about paperwork and administrative processes.
Because every employee is different, every onboarding experience will be different. This can make onboarding a challenge, but it can also be an opportunity to provide a better and more personalised experience. The best way to do this is by using psychometric assessments such as the DISC assessment to adapt the onboarding to the employee’s personality style.
Psychometric testing is split into two categories: skills or aptitude tests and personality tests. Skills tests are often used in the recruitment process to find out whether an applicant has the necessary abilities for the role. Personality tests, on the other hand, may be used at any time during recruitment or onboarding or for current employees as a team-building exercise. These assessments measure the personality styles and behaviours of different individuals, providing insights on how teams can best communicate, collaborate, and resolve conflict together.
The DISC assessment
The DISC assessment is a type of personality assessment based on the work of psychologist William Moulton Marston. Individuals complete a self-questionnaire which asks them to identify the words most and least relevant to themselves. They receive a result which indicates their personality style, which is one or a mix of the four following types:
- Dominance: people with this style are direct and decisive risk-takers. They are goal-oriented and strong-willed and can be competitive at times. Sometimes they can be impatient if they feel that their work is not contributing to the overall strategy or big picture.
- Influence: people with this style are enthusiastic and inspirational. They are friendly and outgoing people who like to get to know others and work closely together. Occasionally, they might find it hard to finish tasks that they consider boring or consider the small details of a project.
- Steadiness: people with this style are tactful, patient, and reliable. They’re good team players and listeners who like working in a harmonious environment. However, they often dislike change and prefer not to take risks.
Compliance: people with this personality type are meticulous, task-oriented independent workers who may be reserved or private at times. They can be creative and pragmatic when approaching tasks, but risk getting caught up in minor details and perfectionism.
Ways to use the DISC model to improve onboarding
Personalise tasks to an employee’s DISC style for a great onboarding
The first way that DISC can be used to improve onboarding is by personalising the onboarding process to suit an individual’s DISC style. This will help them immediately feel comfortable and engaged in the onboarding process.
For example, when onboarding an employee with the Influence personality style, it’s important to remember that these individuals love meeting other people. Their onboarding should focus on introducing them to all the people they will be working with – if you leave them at their desk reading the employee handbook for too long they’ll quickly become bored and frustrated. Even worse, a fully remote onboarding where they have few meetings with other people may leave them feeling disappointed and isolated. An in-person, people-focused onboarding process allows I types to settle in more effectively and enjoy their onboarding.
In contrast, a person with the Compliance personality style will likely be very happy to take a break from meetings and training to read the employee handbook. People with this behavioural type love gathering information and are great solo workers, so independent tasks are a welcome break from meeting people for these types. Unlike their Influence type coworkers, they also may be private or reserved at first, so C types shouldn’t be expected to open up straight away. Providing a C type with a list of tasks to work through and giving them time to take in all the necessary information is a great way to make sure that onboarding is adapted to their DISC profile.
Use DISC to avoid overwhelming the new employee
Joining a new organisation can be overwhelming for anyone, with endless new people to meet, new procedures to learn, and administrative tasks to be completed. It’s no wonder that so many people experience symptoms of impostor syndrome during their first week or two at a new job – the onboarding process can be stressful!
Fortunately, DISC can provide some useful insights into how new employees can be onboarded without overwhelming them. For example, people with the Steadiness behaviour style are naturally resistant to change, feeling more comfortable in a harmonious and consistent work environment. This means that to get the best results from onboarding an S type, it’s important to introduce structure and consistency from the very beginning. These employees should know which tasks and meetings they have ahead of them each day because they don’t like surprises. They should be allowed to work at their own pace. Being patient with them and giving them very clear instructions and guidelines is essential to make them comfortable during their onboarding.
On the other hand, it’s likely that a person with the Dominance personality style will struggle with this type of onboarding. Preferring to look at the bigger picture and set goals, Dominance types want to jump straight into everything and not waste time settling in and fussing over the details. Presenting a D type with tons of information, details, and procedures straight away is likely to frustrate and overwhelm them; instead, their onboarding should be goal-focused and should provide the important need-to-know information straight away.
Embed DISC training in onboarding
Furthermore, DISC workshops or training can be used in a new hire’s onboarding to improve the cohesion and effectiveness of their entire team. This is an opportunity to revisit the DISC types of the team they are joining and ensure that everyone has an understanding of the different DISC types and how to work together effectively. By providing the new hire with an understanding of different DISC types and communication styles, you can improve their likelihood of working effectively with their new coworkers.
DISC training can also help new employees understand their own strengths and limitations, unlocking their true potential in their new role. Using a DISC profile report, the new employee can understand the ways they work best, their biggest stressors and motivators, and their manner of managing conflict.
Undergoing a group profile report which explores the behavioural styles of the entire team can also be a useful activity when a new employee comes on board. These provide insights on team-wide characteristics and behavioural trends. As a result, they facilitate group discussions and help members of the team better understand each other. An exercise to build understanding and communication is a great way to start the new hire’s participation in the team on a positive and productive note.
Conclusion
Onboarding is one of the most important yet overlooked aspects of an employee’s experience within an organisation; a good onboarding can set the new hire up for success and high performance for years to come. Yet, data from Gallup suggests that 88% believe that their organisation doesn’t do a great job of onboarding.
The low rates of employee satisfaction with their onboarding experience makes it clear that there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy; onboarding must be personalised to the new employee. Using the insights provided by psychometric assessments such as DISC, organisations can create stronger and more effective onboarding strategies for everyone.
Interested in embedding DISC in your organisation? DISC Group provides cutting-edge DISC assessments as well as training and consulting services to help you use psychometric testing to your advantage.
