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Numerous psychometric tests allow employees to self-evaluate by taking stock of their strengths and skills. They make it possible to highlight the different professional personalities who coexist in a company, in order to help them work better together.
The professional messaging service Slack surveyed more than 15,000 office workers around the world to identify their behavioral skills (the famous “soft skills”) and their mode of operation. She was thus able to discover that there would be five typical worker profiles. They are the detectives, the road warriors, the networkers, the problem solvers and the expressionists.
Detectives or networkers? What’s your profile ?
The most common profile within the Slack panel is that of the detective. It corresponds to 30% of respondents. Detectives are employees who are very aware of what is happening within their company. They are constantly seeking to acquire new knowledge to better help their colleagues. They describe themselves as organized individuals, who like to do things on their own. The determined nature of detectives pushes them to seek meaning in their jobs, as well as some form of stability.
These workers are particularly numerous in France (38%), the United Kingdom (34%), the United States and Germany (33% in both cases). They are much rarer in Singapore (21%) and India (16%), which could be explained by the fact that the workforce in these two countries is younger than that of industrialized economies. Since detectives like to be aware of the rumors, they show a preference for face-to-face work. More than 20% of them say they are opposed to full-time teleworking. An opinion that they share with networkers.
Networkers have the same taste for knowledge as detectives. But they attach even more importance than the latter to making it possible for as many people as possible. The majority of networkers think that it is essential that all employees are informed of what is happening within their company (56% compared to 30% for all respondents). Their extroverted personality pushes them to develop friendships in the office, which explains why they do not appreciate the frequent use of teleworking. The UK, US, Germany and Australia have large numbers of networkers in their workforce, while Japan and South Korea do not.
Road warriors, solvers, expressionists…
Another typical profile highlighted in the study : that of the road warriors. This rather obscure name refers to professionals who like to place their work computer wherever they want. They particularly appreciate flexibility and autonomy. Most of them like to carry out their professional activity wherever and whenever they want (53%). They know how to demonstrate adaptability, which allows them to build relationships with their colleagues without needing to see them “in real life”. There are many road warriors in Japan (28%) and Singapore (26%), but not in India (18%) and South Korea (19%).
If road warriors crave freedom, solvers want to save time at all costs. They have an aversion to repetitive tasks and seek to avoid them by all means. This is why they often turn to new technologies to be more productive, and more particularly to artificial intelligence. Three-quarters of the solvers surveyed are enthusiastic about recent advances in AI, compared to 42% of the panel of respondents. No wonder they are numerous in nations known to be tech-savvy, such as India (23%), South Korea (22%), Japan and Singapore (20% for both).
AI for some, emojis for others
The Expressionists also showed a keen interest in artificial intelligence. But that’s not all: they also like memes, emojis and GIFs. These employees rely everything on visual communication to interact with their colleagues. They want their personality to shine through in their professional interactions, which pushes them to adopt a less formal attitude than their colleagues. Expressionists are numerous in India (21%), South Korea (15%) and Singapore (12%). They are becoming rarer in the United Kingdom (7%), France (7%) and Germany (6%). Generally speaking, expressionists only represent 10% of assets.
Be careful, however, not to take these results at face value. Personality tests can be very useful for initiating reflection on one’s relationship with others, one’s mode of organization, concentration or even the place that emotions occupy in one’s home. But their results are trends, which means there are no good or bad profiles. They can, however, provide insight into the kind of professional environment in which one can best use one’s skills.