To what extent does personality predict employee performance? How do personality traits translate into individual's professional career?
In the last several decades, personality has played a leading role in the study of employee selection and performance. This optimism, to a large extent , is attributed to the Five Factor Model, a comprehensive and empirical model of personality. We can analyse employee personality with respect to the magnitude of consistency in modes of affect, cognition, and behaviour. The Five Factor Model is made up of five diverse elements that encapsulate nearly all the human personalities.
Costa and McCrae (1992) helped to develop the Big Five Model which has now gained popularity as a vital tool for understanding the link between different individual behaviours and personality. Personality traits are an indicator of performance in various domains (Almlund et al. 2010; Hechman 2011. In recognition of this association, militaries, governments and organisations in developed nations have for a long time relied on psychometric assessments during recruitment, training and promotion exercises.
Research studies carried out in the field of economics and psychology show that there is a potential link between employee performance and features of individual non-cognitive traits. For instance, in their study, Hechman et al. (2006) reveal that adolescent assessment of self-esteem and locus control (traits associated with neuroticism) forecast adult earnings in the same way as cognitive ability does. In a separate finding, Nyhus and Pons (2005) carried out a study that was based on the household data of Dutch respondents and they found out that there was a positive correlation between conscientiousness and emotional stability and wages. Elsewhere, Hogan and Holland (2003) in their study sought to concentrate on job task performance as opposed to earnings. Their meta-analysis study revealed a positive correlation between all of the five Big 5 model elements and specific criteria of job performance. In addition, the researchers found out that the more specific the job criteria became, the stronger were the predictions.
Echchakoui (2013) carried out a study in which he endeavoured to determine the link between performance, personality traits, and adaptive behaviour among employees at a call centre. The study's research findings were consistent with the findings of other related studies that have found a positive correlation between employee performance and all the Five Factor traits.
The Five-Factors Personality Model
This model of personality traits examines five key dimensions: openness to experience; extraversion; neuroticism; conscientiousness; and agreeableness (Costa & McCrae 1992) . The dimension of the Five-Factors model transcends nearly all cultures. Also, research studies have revealed that there is a genetic basis to the Big Five traits.
Openness to experiences
This trait is linked to artistic and scientific creativity, political liberalism, and divergent thinking. Typical behavioural inclinations include being curious, cultured, original, foresighted, broad-minded, intelligent, imaginative, aesthetic sensitivity, need for variety, and unconventional values (Costa & McCrae 1992).
Extraversion
This is the tendency to exhibit positive emotions. Extroverts like social settings and have many friends (Costa & McCrae 1992). Their behavioural predispositions linked to extraversion include being assertiveness, sociable, active, talkative, and gregarious.
Neuroticism
It describes personal variations in the predisposition to experience such chronic negative emotions as anxiety, depression, and anger (Costa & McCrae 1992). Neurotic individuals tend to be depressed, anxious, emotional, insecure, angry, and worried.
Conscientiousness
This is an inclination to act dutifully and demonstrate self-discipline. Individuals exhibiting this personality tend to be persevering, organised, achievement-oriented, responsible, hard-working, and careful(Costa & McCrae 1992).
Agreeableness
Persons high in this personality are cooperative, compassionate, and attach a lot of value to getting along with their peers (Costa & McCrae 1992). These individuals are friendly, generous, forgiving, considerate, and ready and willing to compromise.
Although the Big Five Model of personality has continued to grow in dominance, it has not been without its fair share of controversy in what is now popularly referred to as the “bandwidth-fidelity dilemma”. Scholars have argued that there has emerged the need to effect a trade-off between the assessment of diverse characteristics and the assessment of a style trait. Two hypotheses that identifies the bandwidth-fidelity trade-off have emerged: 1) broad constructs ought to forecast broad criteria and they should be characterised by moderate validity; 2) specific criteria are predictive of narrow constructs and are characterised by maximal validity (Judge et al. 1999).
The two concerns have been addressed by Ones and Viswesvaran (1996) in both conceptual and empirical contexts. The authors revealed that broad personality constructs forecast performance at a higher frequency than does the narrow traits . For example, in their study, Barrick and Mount (1994) have revealed that a combination of assessment of conscientiousness manifested enhanced power in as far as performance criteria is concerned, more than any other individual element.
Personality traits and career success
Career success refers to the perceived or real achievement that a person accumulates in the form of work experiences (Judge et al. 1999). Career success is made up of both intrinsic as well as extrinsic factors. Whereas extrinsic success tend to be comparatively observable and objective, and entails such highly observable outcomes as ascendancy and pay, on the other hand, intrinsic success refers to how a person reacts subjectively to her or his own career. This, intrinsic success is more or less tied to job or career satisfaction. Research studies reveal that intrinsic and extrinsic career success can be determined as comparatively autonomous results, seeing as they only share a modest correlation. The most relevant component of intrinsic success is job satisfaction. Persons who are not satisfied with most elements of their current positions care not likely to view their jobs as a source of success.
There is ample evidence in literature as regards the antecedents of career success. Tharenou (1997) undertook a literature review of career success in which he identified a number of factors that impact on career success. He revealed that human capital attributes like work experiences, education and training tended to be the most commonly examined categorise. Other common categories include such demographic factors as sex, number of children, age, and marital status. Even as the aforementioned categories of influence have given useful insights in as far as the determinants of career are concerned, there are far from the only influencing factors. This, there is a need to undertake more studies on a more personological and comprehensive approach to human career success. Towards this end, Judge et al (1999) undertook a research study in which they endeavoured to assess the temperamental correlates of career success. Judge et al. (1999) have explicitly tried to associate the diverse features of career success with the Big Five Model of personality.
In their research findings, Judge et al. (1999) demonstrated that we can predict various elements of career success using general mental ability and relevant personality traits for a span of over 50 years. The study also gave evidence of a lasting association between general mental ability, personality traits, and career success. The study revealed a high level of association between intrinsic career success and high conscientiousness. On the other hand, low agreeableness, low neuroticism, high cognitive ability and high conscientiousness were all liked to extrinsic career success.
Seeing as career success happens to be a slow process that progresses over time, the authors endeavoured to access individual;s in their entire working life. In addition, variations comparative predictive validity of personal differences between adulthood and childhood were also assessed. The authors also sought to determine the link between career success and general mental ability, along with the level to which career success can be attributed to personality, over and above cognitive ability.
Of the Five dimensions of this model, extraversion, neuroticism, and conscientiousness have consistently been associated with career success. Conscientiousness has been linked to effective job seeking behaviour, attendance at work, constructive work behaviour, and retention. Also, the trait is associated with job performance. Openness to experience is also linked to career success in that persons exhibiting this trait tend to be intellectual, philosophical, autonomous, and imaginative.
On the other hand, agreeable persons tend to be cooperative and likeable, and these are definitely desirable traits in career success, especially where customer service and teamwork is needed.
Past research studies indicated that neuroticism is negatively related to job satisfaction. In a study carried out by Judge and Locke (1993), it emerged that individuals with a high inclination towards negative emotions had a higher chance of undergoing flawed work-related thought process like dependence on others, and overgeneralisation. This leads to lower job satisfaction. In the same way, negative affectivity, usually regarded as a component of neuroticism, is associated with enhanced conjuring up of negative work-related information (Necowitz & Roznowski 1994). Moreover, individuals who are periodically exposed to negative emotions while working have a tendency to linger on their failures for longer (Watson & Slack 1993). As a result, their actions might alienate them from the other employees.
Even as evidence and theory point at a negative link between job satisfaction and neuroticism, the opposite is true in regards to extroversion. Watson and Clark (1997) have observed that there is a close association between positive emotionality and extroversion, and this link is manifested in the form of enhanced social activity, positive moods, as well as rewarding interpersonal experiences.
Conclusion
The research findings of this paper have confirmed, in line with past research findings, that there exists a positive correlation between personality traits and employee satisfaction. In addition, certain personality traits have been found to play a leading role in enhancing an individual's professional career. Out of the five traits of the Five-Factor Model, conscientiousness emerges with the strongest indicator of employee job satisfaction, in line with the findings by Mount et al. (1994) who note that persistent, organised, goal oriented and dependable persons also perform the highest in any job. The paper has also underscored the useful attributes of the other traits of the Five-Factor Model that is Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Openness to experience. Such attributes would be useful to future employers in recruiting the most suitable candidates for fill up specific jobs. In addition, knowing the attributes that an individual scores highest in would also help them to enhance their career success.
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