APS Blog

Do Values Matter

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 12:00:00 Z

It’s 07:36 on a crowded platform and it’s just been announced that all morning trains into the city have been cancelled due to a signalling issue. There’s a ripple of movement as hundreds of passengers react to the news.

We’ve all been in similar situations. Cancelled trains, missed buses, a car that won’t start. How do people tend to respond in those moments? Do they immediately email the office? Open journey apps, scanning for alternative transport? Pace up and down, venting their frustration aloud?

Sometimes we’re not alone when disruption hits. What happens when you’re in a group—colleagues, friends, family—and everyone responds differently? The planner clashes with the panicker. The joker annoys the worrier. The pragmatist tries to rally the team, while someone else just wants to be left alone. Individual reactions collide. Tensions surface. What started out as one shared problem sparks a series of relationship conflicts.

And it’s not just on train platforms or neighbourhood streets. The same thing happens in meeting rooms, in project kick-offs, during any moment of sudden change at work - A key client postpones. Budgets are unexpectedly cut. New regulations land overnight. The plan everyone agreed on yesterday is thrown up in the air. Any disruption triggers ripples of reactions.

So, what if it’s not the disruption itself that derails high-performing teams, but the clash of what each person is naturally inclined to protect, prove or prioritise? What’s really at play in these moments are individual values—what Hogan describe as “the interests, motives, and drivers that shape what a person strives to attain in life.” Values set the agenda for what each person feels urged to defend or restore during disruption. They’re often unconscious, internalised early and rarely spoken aloud, but they govern the decisions people make—whether to stand firm, compromise, seek harmony, or push forward.

What it can look like

A manager driven by Security pushes to pause all non-essential activity when budgets tighten. If colleagues who value Aesthetics see their work deprioritised without discussion, this could lead to frustration and a drop in visible creative energy.
As a commercial opportunity emerges, a leader motivated by Commerce lobbies for a fast pivot toward high-value clients. Others, focused on Altruism, might actively resist, citing values misalignment. The impasse becomes a flashpoint for previously unspoken tensions—and focus drifts from execution to internal disagreement.
In urgent discussions, someone with a strong Power drive makes rapid, unilateral calls. Team members who favour Affiliation or Hedonism could disengage, pulling back from the conversation and shifting concerns to private side channels rather than addressing them upfront.

If leaders don’t know what really drives them, or those around them, are they likely to explore ways to explain the driving forces behind their decisions? Will they be equipped to understand why some people applaud their behaviour, whilst others barely tolerate it? And what’s at stake if they don’t develop these skills? Hogan notes, “Misaligned values between organisations and leaders, organisations and teams, or organisations and individuals can all cause workplace conflict.” In practice, this means projects stall, talented people move on, and energy gets lost to workarounds or silent disengagement. The cost isn’t always visible in the moment, but shows up through missed opportunities, hard-to-explain turnover, and outcomes that don’t match the team’s real potential.

What might help?

If these situations resonate, here’s some strategies we’ve seen move the needle:

Share individual leader MVPI profiles 1:1: Bring hidden drivers into awareness; give leaders language for their own instincts and blind spots, supporting better decision accountability in high-pressure moments.
Share anonymised MVPI profiles with teams: Make underlying team dynamics discussable in the open, diffusing personal judgement and helping uncover where value clashes explain recurring friction or misfires.
Map MVPI profiles against future team needs in recruitment and succession decisions: Surface where current values coverage is robust—or missing—so you can avoid reinforcing blind spots, build intentional diversity of drivers, and make sure appointments align with strategic direction.

Reference
Robinson, E. (2024). The Importance of Values | Hogan Assessments. [online] Hogan Assessments. Available at: https://www.hoganassessments.com/blog/the-importance-of-values/.

Under the Surface: Spot Risks With Hogan

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 12:00:00 Z

Some of a team’s biggest setbacks happen beneath the surface: behaviours that quietly undermine trust or momentum without obvious warning. With 61% of employees citing culture as their reason for leaving (Percy, 2024), it’s clear that the real cost of inaction is steep.

“You would have to hire four superstar performers to make up for the value destroyed by a single toxic employee,” warns Hogan’s Chief Science Officer, Ryne Sherman (2025).

This is why early risk-spotting matters - practitioners who can detect issues before they escalate help protect both business results and workplace wellbeing.

What (and Who) is ‘Toxic’?

Hogan’s research makes it clear: there’s no single “type” that creates toxicity. As Sherman puts it, “People aren’t toxic, but bad behaviour at work is.” These behaviours can range from discrimination and manipulation to impulsivity or aggression - and they often go unnoticed until the damage is done. Hogan’s data doesn’t just describe these problems after the fact; it offers specific pattern signals that let you predict where toxic behaviours could emerge next, even in high performing teams that appear successful on the surface.

Predicting Risks

Hogan’s research points to several scale patterns that may signal increased potential for the kinds of behaviours that undermine culture:

Manipulation: Sometimes observed with higher Mischievous scores.
Impulsivity: May be more likely with low Prudence, high Mischievous, or low Adjustment scores.
Aggression/Hostility: Can be associated with low Adjustment or low Prudence.

Spotting these patterns, especially in team data, gives practitioners a chance to raise awareness and introduce safeguards before behaviours become a problem for the team or organisation.

Insights to Action

Here’s how you can use Hogan data to take preventative action:

Scan for potential risk clusters: Identify if more than one team member scores high on Mischievous or low on Prudence, or if several individuals share patterns linked to impulsivity or aggression. Make note of these clusters, even if the team’s results are generally strong.
Highlight possible future impact: Clearly outline what these patterns might mean if left unaddressed. For example: “Current data suggests a tendency towards risk-taking or testing boundaries: valuable for innovation, but more structured decision-making or defining of roles could help.”.
Prompt reflection and ownership: Invite those receiving feedback to share their own examples or observations. For example: “Are there times when you’ve seen the strengths of a ‘high mischievous’ profile start to tip into risk?”.

Final Thoughts

Every Hogan debrief, report, or data summary offers an opportunity to make risk visible, prompt reflection, and reset habits before issues take root. By inviting your senior leaders to complete Hogan, and sharing both individual and team-level insights, you’re helping build a high-trust, resilient workplace.

References

Robinson, E. (2025, September 19). The hidden cost of a toxic workplace environment. Hogan Assessments. https://www.hoganassessments.com/blog/cost-of-toxic-workplace-toxic-employees

Percy, S. (2024, August 1). Safe to speak up? 4 Ways to build Psychological Safety at work. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypercy/2024/07/24/safe-to-speak-up-4-ways-to-build-psychological-safety-at-work/

How are personality tests made?

Fri, 26 Apr 2024 11:25:27 Z

Original post

How are personality tests made?

Hogan Assessments spend a great deal of time thinking about the difference between identity and reputation when they build their personality assessments.

Identity, or how we think about ourselves, is frequently changing and often self-serving, and that makes it a poor basis for building personality assessments.

Reputation, or how others think about us, is often more stable and a more useful way to build personality assessments that predict job performance. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Because reputation reflects past behavior, reputation is the best predictor of future behavior.

Hogan validate their assessments by having people take those assessments. Then ask other people who know them, such as peers, direct reports, and managers, to describe what they’re like. The assessment data and observer ratings—along with job performance review data, objective performance data, and 360-degree data—are stored in a database with personality data from several million people. Once someone has taken Hogan Assessments, Hogan can use the information from their database to predict whether the person will be able to do a job, how they will behave on the job, and even whether they will like the job.

How do personality tests predict job performance?

Personality assessments should measure personality from the perspective of reputation, which is how others are likely to describe or experience us. Reputation is a collection of past and present behaviors described by others, and we know it to be the best predictor of future job performance. We have found that personality helps us to describe the characteristics and behaviors that are required for or important to job performance—things like resiliency and strategic self-awareness and collaboration.

Hogan’s personality tests are based on decades of research on personality psychology and measurement, and they have been validated against external criteria, including job performance and peer ratings. This allows us to describe the reputation that a job candidate likely has in the workplace.

Hogan also compare the way a job candidate scores to thousands of other people to determine how that person will likely behave at work. Using custom research involving job analysis, Hogan can also create personality profiles to determine how well candidates will fit into a particular job role or organisational culture.

The Future Is Here: AI, Personality, and the Impact

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 12:00:00 Z

Original post: Hogan Assessments

Before we start catastrophizing about our future AI rulers, we should stop and appreciate the potential good that artificial intelligence can offer. The impact of AI on personality assessment and workplace communication will likely be positive—and extensive.

Recently on The Science of Personality Live, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, spoke with Michal Kosinski, PhD, associate professor in organizational behavior at Stanford University, about the evolving technology of artificial intelligence.

Michal’s primary research focus is studying humans in a digital environment using cutting-edge computational methods, artificial intelligence, and big data. He was also behind the first press article warning against Cambridge Analytica, the privacy risks they exploited, and the efficiency of the methods they use.

Let’s look at how AI language models have evolved, what AI-assisted communication might become, how AI affects the future of personality assessment, and whether AI language models can be creative.

The Evolution of AI-Language Models

Within the next few months (as of March 2023), AI language models will become exponentially more capable and ingenious. How does that explosive growth happen?

The approach to the development of AI language models started with chess. At first, software engineers and data scientists fed AI chess programs with archives of chess games played by humans. Then they equipped two AI programs with a virtual chessboard and instructions for how to play without any human intervention. “For the first few million games, those models were completely stupid,” Michal said, explaining that the rate of play was millions of games per second. “But soon, after a few hours, what emerged was this alien, superhuman software that could play chess at a level completely unachievable to human players.”

Software developers and artificial intelligence specialists used the same adaptive strategy to teach AI models how to craft language. Humans learn language through conversation, context, and correction. They make mistakes, learn, and make mistakes more rarely over time. “At some point they stop making mistakes and reach new levels of language. The same approach was used to train ChatGPT and similar models,” Michal said. The AI programs were given sentences with one word missing, failed millions of times to fill in the blank correctly, and then began to get it right. After a few million dollars of electricity and a few billion sentences, Michal quipped, the programs showed language mastery at an extraordinary level.

The AI revolution originated by teaching machines to solve problems using the same strategies that we use to teach humans: reinforcement and feedback. At first, the machines make obvious logical mistakes, but then they don’t. “The AI is responding to you as if as if it’s another person, which is the most incredible thing,” added Ryne. Because computers can exceed humans in logical ability, they are well suited to both playing chess and using language.

AI-Assisted Communication

“AI is a revolution comparable with the invention of written language,” Michal said. Manual writing gave humans the ability to communicate across time, sometimes thousands of years in the past. Knowing how to use a stylus, quill, or pencil was an essential method for communication before computers. Now, knowing how to use a keyboard is essential. Very shortly, the same fundamental change will happen with AI language models, Michal predicted.

“I think that GPT is potentially a new language for humanity to communicate at speed and convenience unheard of and impossible before,” Michal said.

An AI language model won’t just help humans write emails. It will craft the perfect message in the language that is most readily understood for the recipient. Here’s how.

Imagine that Michal wants to send Ryne an email. An AI language model knows and remembers all the events of each person’s life and has consumed every piece of digital communication each has produced. If Michal asked the AI to send a message to Ryne, he could make the request in very few words as if speaking to a good friend with intimate knowledge of him. But because the AI knew Ryne at that same level, it could “translate” Michal’s message into the perfect form for Ryne. The AI could use not only Ryne’s preferred language, such as English or Mandarin, but also a highly personalized form of that language unique to Ryne.

“In terms of the potential for translation, it knows the meaning of what you’re trying to say. It can translate that into a meaning that somebody else can understand in the way they understand,” Ryne said.

Another sense of AI-assisted communication is searching the internet. You wouldn’t ask the AI language model to find a website for you; you’d ask it the question you wanted to learn. It would search all websites and tailor its answer to any length or depth for your individual understanding of the world.

AI in Personality Assessment

Artificial intelligence is great at knowing and remembering what has been written, both words and data. For an AI language model to predict personality based on language, you’d need to first collect a lot of quality data. Michal pointed out that AI language models already understand language, of course, and can translate words into analyzable numbers. “They already understand psychological concepts like personality,” he said. These models have read texts written by introverts and extroverts and could theoretically detect, based on a fragment of a text, whether a person is introverted or extroverted.

Ryne imagined whether personality assessments of the future would have questionnaires and self-reporting. “One of the big questions surrounding this topic is to what degree I’m a willing participant in this endeavor,” he said. The quality of publicly available information versus data gained from individuals intentionally taking a personality assessment will differ substantially. The AI-assisted analysis would likely be higher quality in the latter case. Voluntary participation would also address questions of ethics.

Using big data models to predict personality characteristics is not a new notion. It has positives: it can analyze millions of people in a minute, and it can match people with compatible work or suggest workplace training and development. It also has negatives: it can be used to invade privacy or manipulate people. “As with many other technologies, we focus on the risks of the technology itself, completely forgetting that the real risk is in the intentions of the users,” Michal responded.

Artificial Intelligence and Creativity

A new fronter in AI language models is innovation and creativity. Humanity has taken generations to refine speech and writing. Individual humans spend over a decade learning to speak and write. AI language models have mastered written communication in a few years at a high level that continues to increase.

Michal compared AI creativity to human creativity in that most of us learn and combine elements of what we know or have experienced in new, creative ways. Perceiving computers as nothing but glorified calculators is short-sighted thinking, he said. That computers can incorporate and build elements into new results makes them fundamentally creative too.

“Many other animals are also creative in their own ways that we do not always recognize because it’s just not our type of art. The same applies to computers,” Michal said. “They learn from us, they learn from each other, and they become extremely creative with what they are good at—and they’re increasingly good at anything we ask them to do.”

Note: When ChatGPT (March 23 version) was asked to provide a quote in fewer than 120 characters about how it learned language, this was its response: “Words woven, sounds spoken, meanings grasped. A symphony of curiosity, immersion, and connection. Language learned, world unlocked.”

Listen to this conversation in full, and find the whole library of episodes at The Science of Personality.

The Easy Way to Increase Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Your Organization

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 12:00:00 Z

Original Post: Hogan Assessments

Diversity, equity, and inclusion. If you work in human resources, or a related field, you’ve heard these terms before and, odds are, you have some idea of what they mean. But just so that we are all on the same page, I’ll use the following, heavily borrowed, definitions for diversity, equity, and inclusion:

Diversity includes all the ways in which people differ from each other. Though this is often limited to race, ethnicity, and gender, it more broadly includes age, nationality, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education level, marital status, language, and physical appearance. Diversity also includes differences in ideas, perspectives, and values.
Equity concerns fair treatment, access, and opportunity for all people. Equity is about providing recognition, promotion, and compensation that is consistent with one’s work and qualifications. No one should be provided special treatment or privileges based on anything but performance.
Inclusion concerns creating working environments where everyone feels welcomed, respected, supported, and valued. Inclusive environments embrace diversity.

There are at least three reasons organizations should care about diversity, equity, and inclusion. The first is moral. Basic standards of human decency tell us that all people are of value and have something to contribute to society. Moreover, all people – regardless of background – deserve to be treated fairly, sharing equally in the benefits and burdens of society.

The second reason to care about diversity, equity, and inclusion is legal. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. The act also established Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which further expanded Title VII to include discrimination based on age, gender, and disability. Ultimately, organizations found to be in violation of the laws are subject to legal ramifications including fines.

The third reason to care about diversity, equity, and inclusion is to do better business. Solving business problems like growing market share, understanding clients for different markets, and ensuring your advertising isn’t off-putting to certain groups is easier and more efficient with people from a diverse set of backgrounds. In 2015, Bud Light added the tag line “The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night” to their label. The advertising was immediately criticized. One cannot help but think that if the marketing team had included just one woman, they would have immediately realized this was a really bad idea.

The good news is that many organizations today get it. In 2005, fewer than 20% of the Fortune 500 had officers/programs for diversity and inclusion. In 2016, that number was closer to 60% and is poised to climb even higher. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are good for the organization and they are here to stay. But many organizations still struggle to increase their diversity and inclusion. The purpose of this essay is to make the scientific case for the use of personality assessments as a direct way to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Making Personnel Decisions

When it comes time to hire someone, or to promote someone to a higher role, there are lots of valid ways organizations can go about doing this. Obvious options include asking for referrals, looking at resumes, and conducting an interview. All these methods, to various degrees, are valid predictors of workplace performance. Unfortunately, all these methods are also heavily subject to bias. Referrals practically guarantee that you will reduce diversity (i.e., people tend to only refer people with whom they are familiar, and we tend to be most familiar with people who are similar to us). While resumes may appear to be unbiased, they frequently include opportunities for implicit bias to occur. For example, some names may reflect ethnicity (e.g., John Logan vs. Juan Lopez) and even educational experiences may be a better reflection of parental socioeconomic status than ability to perform on the job. And, of course, interviews are full of opportunities for bias to creep in. The data are clear, with classic methods of making personnel decisions, you get increased workplace performance, but also increased bias. Ultimately, this reduces diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The good news is that it is easy to eliminate bias from personnel decisions: just make decisions at random. That is, if you decide to hire or promote people on a completely random basis (i.e., rolling dice, drawing names out of hat), it is guaranteed that you will not be making biased decisions. Unfortunately, it is also guaranteed that you will not be making the most effective decisions in terms of your organization’s long-term performance.

But there is still one more alternative, one way that you can increase both long-term performance and increase your organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion: scientifically validated personality assessments. Decades of research on personality assessment (broadly speaking) show effectively zero differences in scores due to race, gender, ethnicity, nationality, language, physical appearance, education level, or disability. (There are age differences, but these reflect maturity and are not biased against older adults.) At Hogan, we gather personality data from millions of people – from virtually every ethnic background – all over the world on an annual basis. Our own data show no meaningful differences in test scores as a function of group status. As just one example, the figures below show average scores on our three core assessments – the HPI, the HDS, and the MVPI – for different U.S. racial categories. The scores are so close that they are virtually identical.

But with personality assessments, you don’t just get diversity, equity, and inclusion. As already mentioned, you can do that simply by choosing people at random. With scientifically-validated personality assessments, you also get a track record of predicting workplace performance. Yes, you can have your cake and eat it too.

TL; DR

The point here is simple: If all personnel decisions were made using scientifically-validated personality assessments, unfair discrimination in the workplace would cease to exist. Personality assessments lead to increased productivity and engagement, as well as increased diversity, equity and inclusion. If you are serious about increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in your organization, using scientifically-validated personality assessments is an easy way to do that.

Improving Diversity and Inclusion: Practical, Evidence-based Recommendations

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 12:00:00 Z

Original Post: Hogan Assessments

The protests against systemic patterns of racism and police brutality following George Floyd’s death, the success of female heads of state leading their countries through the global pandemic, and the recent United States Supreme Court decision prohibiting workplace discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation are just a few of the topics that are spurring discussions about diversity and inclusion (D&I) right now.

Although these current events have brought D&I to the forefront, this topic should not be new in the workplace — addressing D&I concerns should be a critical priority for all organizations. However, many organizations struggle to create diverse workplaces, especially at the highest levels, and to promote cultures that allow all employees to feel heard and included.¹Fortunately, organizations can leverage Hogan assessments to help address these concerns and create a more diverse and inclusive culture.

Defining Diversity and Inclusion

There are different ways to define D&I in the context of the workplace. These borrowed definitions are helpful ways for us to better understand what we are referencing when discussing diversity and inclusion²:

Diversity concerns all the ways people differ from each other. Though this is often limited to race, ethnicity, and gender, it more broadly includes age, nationality, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education level, marital status, language, and physical appearance. Diversity also includes differences in ideas, perspectives, and values.
Inclusion concerns creating working environments where everyone feels welcomed, respected, supported, and valued. Inclusive environments embrace diversity.

Why Should We Care about Diversity and Inclusion?

Both diversity and inclusion should be important to organizations as they seek to do the right thing, avoid legal recourse, and deliver key business outcomes. Given these reasons, it’s not surprising that the majority of survey respondents (75%) in a recent study by Pew Research consider it important for their organizations to promote diversity in the workplace.³

Even if there were no moral imperative or risk of legal challenges, organizations could not ignore the strong business case for creating a diverse workplace. As one example, some estimates suggest that organizations with higher levels of gender diversity can outperform organizations that lack female representation by up to 58%.⁴

The positive impact does not stop there. Organizations with more D&I practices tend to have lower levels of absenteeism and turnover and higher levels of organizational innovation and performance. However, even with these notable outcomes, many employees still say their organizations are not doing enough to create inclusive environments.

How Can Hogan Help Your Diversity and Inclusion Goals?

There are a few reasons you should consider using Hogan’s personality assessments in your D&I efforts. First, personality assessment promotes fairness in selection. Our research shows that personality is a strong predictor of performance without producing meaningful subgroup differences. This means we recommend solutions that can help you identify the best talent without discriminating against any group, thereby preserving diversity in applicant pools. Contrary to popular misconception, using personality for selection does not create a workforce of people who have the same personality profile. Hogan creates selection profiles that are specific for each job and would vary across jobs within the same organization. Within a job, we typically only screen on a few personality characteristics for which people will have diverse scores on scales in the profile range and even more so across other personality characteristics.

Second, you can use Hogan’s personality tools to identify and develop leaders who will promote diversity and inclusion. We analyzed data from more than 5,000 individuals to explore the components of Hogan’s personality inventories that predict supervisor ratings on behaviors, such as

discouraging discrimination and prejudice;
relating well to a variety of people;
recognizing the unique potential of each person;
showing respect, tolerance, and open-mindedness;
respecting views different from one’s own;
treating others with respect regardless of race, gender, appearance, religion, and beliefs;
valuing diverse perspectives;
displaying sensitivity to issues related to diversity and culture;
having the ability to see the world through the eyes of others; and
displaying sensitivity to the needs of others.

We meta-analyzed within-study correlations across 47 organizations and found that Adjustment, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Prudence, and Altruism had positive relationships with behaviors related to diversity and inclusion. Additionally, Excitable, Skeptical, Bold, Mischievous, Recognition, and Power had negative relationships with D&I behaviors. This suggests that people who are optimistic, perceptive, warm, conscientious, tolerant, open-minded, not defensive, trusting, modest, humble, honest, sympathetic, and concerned about helping others will work to foster an environment of inclusivity, regardless of race, age, gender, background, and ideas.

Implications

The importance of diversity and inclusion and the steps you need to take to make your workplace more diverse and inclusive cannot be outlined in a short blog. In fact, half-baked attempts at improving D&I initiatives can have negative impacts. An appropriate organizational culture is necessary to nurture diversity and inclusion. Some research suggests that organizational diversity structures alone, such as diversity policies, diversity training, and diversity awards, can cause white males to have illusory perceptions of fair decision-making procedures impacting minorities (i.e., a “we checked the box” attitude).⁵ This can lead to white males reacting harshly to claims of discrimination because they might assume all D&I issues have been addressed. Further, we haven’t even touched on the complexity of thinking about diversity in a global context.

While we cannot give you a silver bullet, we do provide these practical recommendations for consideration in your larger D&I initiatives:

First, use the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) to select and promote all employees to increase diversity, hire qualified candidates, and promote fairness in hiring. Using assessments that do not discriminate will lead to more diversity at all levels.
Second, use the HPI, HDS, and MVPI to select, promote, and develop leaders who will create a diverse and inclusive environment.
Finally, use the HPI, HDS, and MVPI to provide feedback to employees and enhance their awareness of biases they might have that could stifle D&I efforts.

For more information, make sure you check out our webinar on the topic. You can also listen to our recent The Science of Personality podcast episodes, “Women in Leadership” and “SCOTUS LGBTQ Decision and What It Means for Your Organization.”

*This post was authored by Amber Burkhart, Kimberly Nei, Chase Winterberg, and Jessica Walker.

References

Jones, S. (2017, June 9). White Men Account for 72% of Corporate Leadership at 16 of the Fortune 500 Companies. Fortune. https://fortune.com/2017/06/09/white-men-senior-executives-fortune-500-companies-diversity-data/
Kapila, M., Hines, E., Searby, M. (2016, October 6). Why Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Matter. Independent Sector. https://independentsector.org/resource/why-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-matter/
Horowitz, J. M. (2019, May 8). Americans See Advantages and Challenges in Country’s Growing Racial and Ethnic Diversity. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/05/08/americans-see-advantages-and-challenges-in-countrys-growing-racial-and-ethnic-diversity/
Moran, G. (2017, January 23). How These Top Companies Are Getting Inclusion Right. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/3067346/how-these-top-companies-are-getting-inclusion-right
Kaiser, C. R., Major, B., Jurcevic, I., Dover, T. L., Brady, L. M., & Shapiro, J. R. (2013). Presumed fair: Ironic effects of organizational diversity structures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(3), 504–519. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030838

The Politics of Potential

Mon, 09 Jan 2023 12:00:00 Z

HR professionals typically agree that a more integrated, transparent, and strategic response to succession management is needed. Identifying high-potentials is part of that need and now, more than ever, succession management requires a reliable yet delicate approach. As outlined in 'The Politics of Potential - how organisational politics are poking holes in your high-potential programme', the old ways of selecting and developing leadership talent needs a shake-up; and the skills necessary to emerge as a leader aren’t the same as those required to perform effectively as one.

Adding a data-driven approach, based on reliable psychometrics and a verified high-potential framework can add value to a company’s succession planning toolkit. This e-book discusses the risk organisations take if they only focus on politically savvy 'go-getters'.

As a way to reliably assess the strengths and challenges, values and drivers, and possible career derailers of each person as a unique individual, Hogan’s model offers a comprehensive application along these three leadership dimensions:

1) Foundations

2) Emergence

3) Effectiveness

For more information please contact heather@advancedpeoplestrategies.co.uk

Advanced People Strategies Appointed Hogan Distributor for Ireland

Fri, 09 Dec 2022 12:00:00 Z

Advanced People Strategies are proud to announce they have been appointed as an authorised Hogan distributor for Ireland, having successfully represented Hogan for 18 years in the UK.

APS have experienced significant growth in recent years, providing supporting tools and services to maximise practical people development opportunities, including custom 360 solutions, individual coaching, team development, and their innovative SkillsPilot platform focused on quick and effective skills assessment and feedback.

“Our friends at APS have been a tremendous member of our international distributors network for nearly two decades, providing first-class services to clients across a wide range of industries,” said Hogan CEO Scott Gregory, PhD. “With so much potential in the Irish market, we anticipate further growth and success for them moving forward.”

Despite the impact of the global pandemic and recent economic uncertainties, APS has trained and certified more than 1,000 practitioners in the last three years.

“The APS team has years of experience helping organisations implement successful people development strategies,” said APS CEO Chris Humphreys. “We are looking forward to supporting our expanding network of clients in Ireland with access and experience to make the most of the added value Hogan can bring for business leaders and HR practitioners.”

APS will celebrate the appointment with an in-person event, “Make or Break Your Organisation's Future? Talented Leaders, Teams, and an Enabling Culture,” featuring Robert Hogan as keynote speaker. The event will be held at the Teeling Whiskey Distillery, Dublin 8, Ireland on Thursday, 2^nd March 2023. The conference will focus on critical people insights for business leaders, HR directors, and talent specialists in Ireland. Register today!

Advanced People Strategies (APS)

APS are leadership & talent development specialists, and Authorised Hogan Assessments Distributors for the UK & Ireland, providing Certification, Coaching, Masterclasses, & Team/Leadership Development programmes, supporting HR, L&D, talent specialists, and coaches looking for validated, data-driven people development tools.

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Who wants to be a game changer and what might get in the way?

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 12:00:00 Z

It was encouraging to hear from so many attendees about their existing experience of using Hogan Assessments to support executive recruitment, at the AESC 'Sustaining Growth' Global Conference, London 2022, reflecting the growing awareness of Hogan to support talent identification and placement.

The themes of the conference provided an ideal platform to discuss the impact of personality, values and ‘dark-side’ risk behaviours on the approach to sustainable growth at board level as well as other strategic applications using Hogan Assessments.

Dr Annalisa Jenkins, when addressing key questions around equality, diversity and inclusion, spoke about the importance of culture and leadership as well as highlighting the key question – ‘how do you ensure a high-performing, effective team’.

In his keynote speech, futurist, Gerd Leonhard, highlighted some of the elements of what he called a Key Human Index for future success including such elements as flexibility, empathy, resilience, intuition and imagination as well as values.

Reflecting on some of these critical behaviours, which experts expect to see in the leaders of the future, and their boardrooms, Hogan Assessments can provide key insights into all of them. Providing clear perspectives as to how natural tendencies, behaviours and values are likely to show up or get in the way, is a key element not only to help support those who want to be the game changer leaders, but also those whose mission is to identify and place them in the right roles.

Accelerate Leaders’ skills and readiness

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 12:00:00 Z

Building and nurturing a leader talent pipeline is easier said than done and way beyond a simple list of step-in names for disaster recovery planning! Evidence for readiness to step up to the next level is more than a qualification and current role performance. Preparing and supporting the right people to create vision and strategy, and enthuse others in today’s volatile world is surely an imperative.

Understanding individual aspirations and values is the first step to exploring: fit to roles, potential career paths, work climate, or cultural impact. As this translates to natural behaviours, skills and signature strengths emerge. We thus know the ingredients for success.

Readiness to take on bigger roles is typically gained through experience, the pace of this can be planned placement in various business areas or simply left to chance. Placement can definitely help and such exposure certainly helps with the understanding of different channels and cultures. This of course can take significant time, upheaval, and frustrations of tuning in, not just to the participant themselves but to others around them. Also, Leaders may still not have sufficient exposure to the broader pressures, issues and decisions dealt with at the next level up.

Hogan can provide validated evidence around, reasoning ability, motivational values, and natural behaviours to predict success in senior leadership roles. This can help objectively identify possible stars of the future.

The new SkillsPilot platform provides participants with exposure to typical problems for the next level of Leader to address in real-time. It can even include custom issues aligned to a business context. Such challenges are scheduled as a meeting and fit in calendars just like other meetings, minimising disruption and emulating the real-world.

So objectively identifying and accelerating talent readiness for the next role is much easier, more time, and cost-effective using today’s technology.

Discounts are available to trial Hogan Assessments and SkillsPilot, contact us for a chat and more details.

Five Things To Know About Employee Engagement in 2021

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 12:00:00 Z

Original Post HR News 28th January 2021

Employee engagement refers to the commitment and connection employees have to their organisation and is critical for business unit performance.

For business and HR leaders in 2021, employee engagement will be a top priority as many companies continue to operate remotely for the foreseeable future. Scott Gregory, CEO at Hogan Assessments, has outlined the five things leaders need to know about improving employee engagement this year.

Leadership shapes engagement
For some employees, working remotely can be lonely and isolating, especially for more dependant team members like new hires and junior executives. Ensuring that staff are supported and set up for success while working remotely is key to maintaining employee engagement in 2021.

Employee engagement is predominantly shaped by leadership effectiveness, with effective leaders defined as those who can successfully lead a high-performing and engaged team. To boost engagement, companies need to focus on how their managers behave, and that is true whether in “normal” times or in our current circumstance. While effective leaders will devote their time to supporting their team and forming relationships of trust with employees, ineffective – or emergent – leaders will waste their time building political capital and promoting their own accomplishments.

When organizations are suffering with a poorly engaged staff force, the first place they should look is at their managers and how they are behaving. That is, are they behaving as emergent or effective leaders? To determine this, companies must pay closer attention to personality.

Personality matters
When identifying effective leaders that support team members and improve employee engagement, it is imperative that companies look at personality. Decades of research show that well-validated measures of personality predict every consequential life outcome, and leadership effectiveness is no exception. Personality predicts leadership performance better than any other alternative indicator, including IQ. And because valid personality assessments promote fairness in selection and do not discriminate – that is, women perform the same as men, ethnic minorities perform the same as ethnic majorities – companies that leverage the science of personality can find strong leadership anywhere from a diverse pool of talent.

Hogan’s leadership value chain – based on over 30 years of data on job performance and leadership effectiveness – states that personality drives leadership, leadership drives employee engagement, and engagement ultimately drives organizational performance. Personality also influences how managers interact with their employees, and how teams interact with each other, which sets the company culture – another key ingredient for engagement.

To improve engagement and maintain high performing teams in 2021, business and HR leaders must be strategic at the source by using valid personality assessment to select better leaders who are well-adjusted, strong communicators, and deeply compassionate when it comes to supporting employees.

Spotting burnout is crucial
Perhaps the second biggest challenge to maintaining engagement and a high performing remote team is identifying which team members are becoming disengaged. Anyone can appear engaged and motivated during weekly calls or Zoom parties, but it is harder to spot who is really struggling with the challenges of remote work. It is important for managers to gain the trust of their employees so that they can have open and honest conversations about engagement and what can be done to keep them motivated.

One advantage of remote work is that there is less room to confuse activity with productivity. Some employees are great at being ‘seen’ in the traditional workplace without accomplishing much, so remote work will require these employees to produce tangible results, as their political skill will not be as effective. For all employees, leaders should double down on regular goal setting that involves targets and deadlines, just as they would in face-to-face settings, but be careful not ‘micro-manage’! This way, employees with discretionary effort who are engaged and meeting objectives will be easier to spot.

Engagement cannot be ‘done’, it must be earned
With the shift to remote work, companies are now adapting to deliver several employee engagement and wellbeing initiatives, designed to make working life easier for staff and to maintain cohesive and engaged teams. Actions that employers are taking to boost employee engagement in 2021 tend to fall into three categories: technology, social, and employee wellbeing. Whether these actions really increase engagement is an open question, but they likely do make employees’ work and non-work lives easier to manage, which may lessen stress and burnout potential.

Employee wellbeing initiatives include stipends for home-office equipment – to assist productivity and ergonomic-related health – and schedule flexibility. Some companies have adopted a culture of relaxed protocol, making it known to employees that every day at-home interruptions need not be apologized for. Other companies directly offer employees the chance to tailor their work schedules/online availability to accommodate their non-work responsibilities while working remotely. This flexibility to designed to support staff as they navigate the transition to remote work and ultimately maintain employee engagement.

Examples of social initiatives that companies are putting into place include ‘Humpday hangouts’ and virtual happy ours – held with the intention of fostering a connection amongst team members while working remotely. Paired one-on-one virtual coffee breaks, such as Coffee Ninja, are also prevalent – the goal being to foster employee relationships informally, much like what might happen when running into someone in the lunchroom in a physical office.

It is important for companies to note, however, that these initiatives are not enough to boost employee engagement on their own. If there is poor communication between managers and employees, and pre-existing feelings of resentment brewing amongst team members, virtual social gatherings and coffee-breaks will likely fall on deaf ears and could further contribute to ‘WFH burnout’. Engagement is not something that is ‘done’ for employees, but rather something that is earned from them through continued support and strong leadership. The single most powerful step a company can take to boost engagement is to ensure that managers are communicating and collaborating effectively with their teams, with wellbeing initiatives like the above re-enforcing this support structure.

The picture is brighter than it seems
Finally, while the conversation surrounding employee engagement in 2021 may seem daunting, companies will be pleased to know that remote work does not necessarily translate into ‘bad engagement’. A recent survey carried out by Hogan Assessments, which consisted predominantly of mid-level managers from mid to large-sized companies across Europe, revealed that, although 60% of professionals find remote work mentally challenging, 86% report that they are engaged with their organization, and a further 42% claim to be highly engaged. These latest findings indicate that while challenges arose for workers following the shift to remote work, attitudes towards leadership and engagement remained stable and positive throughout Europe.

Many employees understand that the challenges of remote work are not the result of their employer’s incompetence, but rather the result of a global pandemic. Employees also know that everyone is going through the same challenges – managers included – and as a result, their emotional commitment to their organizations remains as high as, or perhaps even higher, than it was before working from home.

Scott Gregory, CEO at Hogan Assessments, adds:

“The global shift to remote work following COVID-19 has presented several key challenges for business and HR leaders, many of which stem from communication obstacles and the disruption of daily social activities. With teams suffering interpersonally right now due to remote work and lack of in-person interaction, leaders now more than ever must pay close attention to employee engagement. Employees are engaged when their work and company’s culture aligns with their motives and values, which in turn motivates them to exercise discretionary effort.

While wellbeing initiatives like Zoom parties and increased flexibility can make remote work easier for employees, companies must go beyond these remedies to select leaders that are well-adjusted, strong communicators, and deeply compassionate when it comes to their teams. While some evidence suggests that the picture across Europe is positive for employee engagement, companies that are struggling with a poorly engaged team must be strategic when selecting leaders and examine closely how their managers are behaving with employees.”

Virtual - Hogan Certification Workshops

Tue, 29 Sep 2020 16:40:05 Z

Hogan Assessment Certification Workshops are now offered Virtually.

Authorised distributor APS was the first to run a Virtual Hogan Certification Workshop, and the feedback from participants has been 'excellent'.

Each virtual UK-based Hogan workshop will be delivered over 2-days, starting at 9.30 am both days. The cost to attend the UK Hogan Certification is £1995+VAT.

The Hogan Certification workshop is required for use of the Hogan Assessment suite.

This course teaches professionals to interpret and apply Hogan’s three core personality-based assessments:

Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI): measures the “bright side” of personality; strengths that facilitate successful performance
Hogan Development Survey (HDS): measures the “dark side” of personality; potential career derailers that impede performance
Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI): measures the “inside” of personality; values and drivers that powerfully influence organizational fit and leadership style

Participants who successfully complete the workshop will be certified to use and interpret the Hogan inventories. Insights acquired during this intensive workshop will challenge and change the way you think about human nature, leadership and performance.

Find out more and book today

Revisiting Hogan Results

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 00:00:00 Z

Many of our clients use Hogan Assessments to support selection programmes and development activity, both individual and collective.

In the current environment, understandably, selection has been dramatically cut back and HR teams are having to focus their attention on more difficult people issues while, perhaps, learning and development programmes are pushed back.

However, we still speak to HR professionals and coaches on a daily basis about support for different types of people initiatives. As one might expect, at a time when leaders of organisations are having to make decisions in extremely pressured circumstances, with budgets tighter than ever, our clients are forced to limit their choices in a number of areas, so we are keen to encourage the use of valuable resources they may already have available at their disposal.

To some, the following might seem obvious, but we know from our conversations that many have not thought about using existing resources to support pressing interventions which, although most of us may prefer to avoid, are often unavoidable in the present environment. Here are three of the most common examples where we have been able to recommend organisations take another look at the Hogan Assessment data they already hold.

Leaders under pressure: There is no doubt that the last three months have been unprecedented in terms of additional stress for those in senior positions, balancing the future survival of their organisation with the welfare and motivation of their workforce. Many will be showing signs of derailing risks which are starting to impede their effectiveness or creating problems with relationships. We also see many cases of leaders who appear to thrive despite what is happening – seeing present problems as a new and interesting challenge. Revisiting Hogan HDS scores can provide real insight for leaders about how their natural coping mechanisms may be showing up as well as helping to identify strategies to manage them.

Virtual Teams: While there was already a push to more remote working and less travel, there has been an exponential rise in teams meeting virtually with little or no face to face contact. Some will enjoy independence while others miss the close collaboration. Some teams must completely adapt the way they work to stand still let alone become a high performing team. Collective Hogan data can help understand the strengths and skills gaps across the team, how they are likely to communicate, innovate and adapt, and how the culture and values of the team may influence their approach.

Organisational Restructure: Inevitably we are hearing more cases where downsizing or mergers of departments and functions mean people are displaced and roles disappear. Existing Hogan results provide information to help identify candidates who will be best placed to succeed in new roles with changed responsibilities and requirements – additional objective data at a time of difficult decisions. For those who find themselves in the really unfortunate position of losing their jobs, Hogan profiles are being used to support outplacement – helping to identify how people work through the emotional rollercoaster, highlighting roles and environments that are likely to play to their strengths and values in future.

While the dynamics and focus may have changed, HR professionals and coaches are still supporting people on a daily basis. The Hogan Suite of tools identifies how people are likely to show up at their best and, in times of pressure, at their worst - providing insights during difficult, ambiguous and potentially emotive times. Maybe it is worth taking another look at those existing Hogan reports!