By John Eary
Edition 6 – October 2015 Pages 18-21
Tags: flexible working • management
The introduction of Agile Working into organisations
has typically focussed on the workstyles of different job roles,but has tended to treat the jobholders within these groups in the same way. The successful introduction of new ways of working clearly relies on the willingness of the people occupying the job roles to embrace new ways of working; yet there has been little investigation of the needs of Agile Workers with different personality types beyond looking at the needs of extroverts and introverts. These studies have tended to focus on the workplace; for example, the Cushman Wakefield Workplace Programme briefing paper1 examines how organisations can accommodate the needs of extroverts and introverts working together in the workplace. However, using OCEAN personality profiles, Nigel Oseland2 foundthat different personality types have different preferences, which in turn are likely to affect their performance at work
This new research3 looked at the links between agile working, personality and performance to see if different people are more suited to different ways of workingand if organisations should use different approaches to Agile Working employees to increase their productivity. Theresearch,undertaken by JEC Professional Services, was commissioned by the Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion (enei), with sponsorshipfrom DWF and Santander,
The research looked at four main personality types and found differences,as well as commonalities, in both their performance and their attitude to Agile Working. Those with an Influential personality profile appeared to have the most challenges, particularly with team working,although this is also an issue across a number of personality types. While all participants valued reliable technology there was little interest in more sophisticated technology tools and only a small proportion rated a good workplace asvery important.In general there were no significant differences between respondents based on age, gender, job role, length in job role or employment status.
Methodology
584 employees and managers from Birmingham City Council, DWF (a major business law firm), Santander, the
Department for Work and Pensions, the Ministry of Justice and the NHS chose to participate in the survey. All had some autonomy in where, when, and how they chose to work. Each participant was asked to:
1. Complete an Employees’ Ways of Working Questionnaire to describe the way they work and their views on performance and workstyles.
2. Send a request to their line manager asking them to complete a Manager’s Questionnaire to provide a confidential view about the employees’ performance in relation to their way of working.
3.Complete a Personality Profile Questionnaire.
A literature search was undertaken of published papers on ways of working and personality and performance4.
Figure 1 shows how different workstyles were assigned to ways of working categories
Personality types
To provide the personality assessments we used the DiSC®profiling technique,which takes its name from the initials of its four main factors: Dominance, Influence, Steadfastness and Conscientiousness.
DiSC is a well-proven test used by some 41 million people across 50 countries since 1984. By looking at the relationships between different factors, it is possible to build up a library of individual traits that a person possesses and also assess traits that a person lacks. Employees witha high score on each of the DiSC personality traits can be summarised as follows (the proportions in the sample are shown in brackets they add up to more than 100% because an individual can score high on several different traits):
• Dominant(10%) – are “doers” and “go getters” who like to get things done and quickly. They are driven to achieve.
• Influential(14%)-thrive within a team environment where there is lots of human interaction. They like freedom but are not disciplined.
• Steadfast (26%)-like structure and routine with a stable workload.They are strong team players who will put the needs of others in front of their own….