Personality Testing For Select Employees - 1710 Words

Organisational Behaviour MGMT1135 Assignment 2 By Henry Mony de Kerloy Introduction â€Å"Personality refers to the relatively stable pattern of behaviours and consistent internal states that explain a person’s behavioural tendencies.† (Mcshane, Travaglione, 2005) In the past the use of personality testing to select employees was looked down upon and thought to not be an accurate predictor of an employee’s job performance, however with increased confidence in how personality is defined (The Five Factor Model) experts are starting to recognize the usefulness of personality tests in predicting work performance (Hurtz, Donovan, 2000). Agreeableness, which is a part of the Five Factor Model, is an important trait in employees ability to interact†¦show more content†¦Review What is Agreeableness? The Five Factor personality Model (FFM), of which Agreeableness is a part, is a, â€Å"hierarchical organization of personality traits in terms of five basic dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience.† (McCrae, John, 1998) The FFM is a widely used model for defining the dimensions of personality. In this essay I will be focusing in on the dimension of Agreeableness and the effect of how agreeable an employee is affects their performance in a job, which has a lot of interpersonal interactions. Traits commonly associated with Agreeableness â€Å"include being courteous, flexible, trusting, good-natured, cooperative, forgiving, soft hearted and tolerant.† (Barrick, Mount, 1992) Is Agreeableness indicative of high job performance in a customer service setting? Employees in customer service jobs and jobs where people have to deal with social interactions, such as retail businesses, have to be able to get on with the customer and have a lot of interpersonal interactions with them. If they want to be good at their job and have a high job performance they will have to deal with the wide range of different customer personalities, all the while doing it in a warm, courteous and good natured way. All of which are traits of a person who is highly agreeable. Thus, â€Å"Agreeableness will be positively related to performance in jobs involving interactions with others.† (Mount, Barrick,