Personality assessments are amazing tools because although they’re critical to an effective hiring process, they’re also useful for coaching and developing staff. Assessing employees and holding onto those reports can prove helpful for years: reports can uncover answers to questions about job performance and promotion potential, as well as help retain employees and develop them into organizational leaders.
A key part to using personality assessment tools in this way is the report debrief. In my role here at McQuaig, I do two kinds of report debriefs with clients:
- First, I chat with our clients about their own results, helping them to understand how to interpret the report and act on the information they see.
- Then, I debrief clients using reports from their staff or interview candidates, providing insight into how to use the information to select employees or coach staff to reach the next level. This information can then be used by clients to debrief their own staff once employees complete their personality assessment. It’s basically a “train the trainer” situation.
Debriefing and reviewing reports is critical because this is where managers, team leaders, and HR staff take action. The information within the assessment report is helpful, but it only becomes truly empowering when it’s properly understood. To help get to the empowerment stage, here’s a sneak-peek at the steps we recommend when reviewing personality assessment reports. If you want more details, join a McQuaig Certification Training session to explore these steps in full!
- 1) Educate – Educate the candidate or employee on the assessment and the report. Explain the purpose of using the assessment, and go over what each section of the report covers. Discuss how it can be used for insight, coaching and development.
- 2) Read – Allow the candidate or employee to read their own report. As the administrator of the assessments, you’ll have been debriefed by your assessment provider. This is a great opportunity to pass on the knowledge, so I recommend going through the report with your employee or candidate. You may also want to select specific sections of the report to provide to them and other sections to exclude, depending on the goal of this session.
- 3) Coach – Ask coaching questions that allow your employee to build up their self-awareness and emotional intelligence. Open-ended questions related to information in the report allows employees to find answers on their own, instead of being told.
- 4) Objections – Address any objections the employee may have about the report by exploring it in more depth. Remember to ask questions, since their experiences and your experiences will differ. This can lead to “a-ha” moments of self-discovery, encouraging employees to see themselves in a different light – again, without being told point-blank.
- 5) Validate – Suggest that they share their report with a family member or friend that knows them well, and see if outside people agree with the accuracy of the report. This is a great way to validate the accuracy of the report, and it also helps with employee self-awareness: if others agree with the report results, then they’re likely true.
These steps are designed to improve employee self-awareness, providing them with the opportunity to discover ways in which they can do even more for your organization. This sort of discovery can re-engage staff with their organizations, doubling down on their commitment to moving the company forward – and it also indicates an investment from the company back to the employee. So once you’ve been debriefed on your personality assessment and the associated reports, it’s time to debrief your employees on their own results. It’s a win-win for companies and employees – and an extra win for the team leaders in the middle making it all happen.