Managing different personalities in the workplace is crucial to create a healthy and positive environment. But, all of HR’s good work can be for nothing if the organisation’s leaders fail to find ways to encourage employees to thrive.
“Everyone wants to get the best out of their people, but there’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution to managing all of your staff, said Phil Schibeci, author of
How to get out of the Rut Race and founder of Phil Schibeci Seminars.
It’s both HR and a boss’s responsibility to adapt their behavior in order to foster strong relationships and create tailored feedback links, he said, which can be achieved with tools such ‘Extended DISC’.
“It’s a behavioural style that is very simple and very easy to implement,” Schibeci said of Extended DISC, which categorises people’s personalities into four main behavioural styles:
| D |
Dominant |
Task-driven, focused, sense of urgency, likes facts |
| I |
Influence |
Sociable, people-oriented, friendly, motivates others |
| S |
Steadiness |
Reliable, thorough, supportive, good listener, team player |
| C |
Compliance |
Precise, details-oriented, likes rules, good at following instructions |
If those in HR and leadership roles can identify an employee’s most appropriate characteristic, “we’re then able to adapt how to manage or communicate with that person,” Schibeci said.
“For example, a dominant person doesn’t like waffle, they don’t want to have a good chat over a coffee about a particular issue you want to discuss. They just want to focus on what needs doing,” he said.
“The influencer, on the other hand, is the chatty type. They like to socialise and discuss things over a latte.”
Clearly, it would be valuable to know which behavioral type you’re working with when dealing with HR issues, to help you to individually tailor your communication, feedback and incentives to get the best outcomes with each employee.
“Some people respond well to a fixed deadline, while others respond well to getting confirmation that they’re doing a good job – that positive feedback motivates them,” Schibeci said.
“The key is unlocking what I call the ‘platinum rule’, which simply means, ‘Do unto others as they actually want to be done unto’.”
