Work Relatedness

Introduction

This article discusses the work relatedness of an assessment technique from how it is handled at GRI with the GRI survey and the adaptive profiles being measured, learned and used by its users.

“Work relatedness” refers to the applicability of an assessment technique in the context of work and employment as opposed to making use of the technique for applications in other fields such as forensic, clinical psychology and psychiatry.

Adaptive Profiles

Before examining “work relatedness”, below is a high level overview of four key characteristics of the GRI’s adaptive profiles and survey for use in a professional context:

• The GRI measures social behaviors that are “normally” expressed, including at work. It doesn’t measure clinical behaviors. These social behaviors are some of many components of our personality. We always consider the GRI behavioral measurements as one part of the picture, together with other characteristics and in relationship to what is expected from a given position.
• The GRI does not measure competences, cognitive abilities, skills, aptitudes or experience, and many other characteristics that need to be understood for a specific job. Typical measurements include aptitudes in software development, mathematics, statistics, law, and other areas. The measurement of these characteristics is in a different category of assessment than GRI’s adaptive profiles.
• Nothing in the GRI measures other aspects of personality, such as those needed for clinical therapy, family therapy, forensic applications, psychiatry, or more generally any component of personality that would not be related to the professional environment. The way these other techniques operate is not related to the GRI.
• The GRI Survey is taken in a professional context, either by candidates for a recruitment, or by employees for outcomes such as performance review, career counseling, promotion, leadership and organizational development, or any other work related use.

These points and others below are typically discussed during the GRI masterclass when participants learn about the adaptive profiles and how the GRI works.

Behavior at Work

Working with social behavior in a professional context requires an examination of workplace behaviors at large; not just behaviors that someone has more sympathy with, or is more attracted to. The workplace requires very different behaviors for a variety of jobs and situations. This is particularly evident in highly competitive global environements.

Accounting, finance, and paralegal works, for instance, require different behaviors than what is typically found in sales, public relations, client service, coaching, or nursing. A serial entrepreneur will typically behave differently than a government agent. It rarely happens that we may observe the same behavior for such different professions.

Adjective Lists

The GRI Survey only asks two questions to participants. It invites the person completing the survey to select adjectives among a list of 89. The respondents are exposed to free rather than forced scenarios, to select adjectives they like and not select others they don’t. Statistics are applied to make more objective sense of what has been selected by answering the two questions.

The adjectives have been carefully chosen for measuring important work related behavior dimensions. The adjectives, per se, are of no interest and are simply used for their relationship to an underlying work-related factor. For instance, we do not assume that because someone has checked the adjective “perfectionist’ that the person is in fact a perfectionist.

We analyze how an adjective accrues to a specific dimension or factor that is more meaningful and useful than the adjective itself. The result of the assessment process is not the adjective checked, but the GRI Profile, graphs, factors, and other information.

The Two Questions

The two questions are purposely left open to be interpreted by the respondents rather than forcing them into specific situations.

For the first and second questions, forcing the answers to a specific work environment at a specific time would not enable to include all the behaviors that the person can potentially express in the workplace at large. If respondents taking the GRI Survey receive support from their outside work environment to behave in a certain way, it needs to be considered as well. The person completing the survey decides if this is appropriate or not.

For the first question, some respondents may ask what "others" means. We instruct to let them decide, and for them to trust their own judgment. They will answer based on what “others” means for them in their current situation, when they take the GRI Survey. The survey is taken for a purpose that is implicit in the invitation, such as recruitment in the case of candidates, or other usage in the case of employees.

When candidates answer the first question and are unemployed, forcing them to answer in a specific workplace does not make sense, because there is no workplace yet. Those who are already employed generally answer in their current workplace. For candidates, "others" means others at large, and for the purpose of being recruited, which is why they are invited to answer the GRI Survey.

For employees answering the first question, it works similarly as for candidates, although “others” are from the work environment most of the time. They are invited in a work related context, not another one, and the work relatedness is implicitly stated in the invitation.

Outside Work Environment

Should there be any concern of ambiguity, because of how the GRI Survey is sent, that the context of taking the GRI survey would not be work related, we then suggest adding an instruction prior to answering the two questions, that the survey, for instance, is for recruitment or performance review.

Work relatedness, validity, and reliability of what is measured by the GRI is of critical importance for the results to be meaningfully used and interpreted.

Forcing the instructions to a specific work environment at the time respondents take the GRI, as opposed to the environment at large, would negatively impact the integrity, interpretation, and use of the measurements, including those uses for the individuals themselves. The survey would not include important aspects of their behavior that could assist them in performing better.

Job related demands

To understand the power of the GRI measurement in a professional context, it is important to relate the individual’s measurement on the one hand, to the demands of a job on the other. People’s behavior cannot be understood in the abstract, but rather in the context of what is expected of them.

The GRI platform also includes the behavior requirements for jobs, or the PBI (Position Behavior Indicator). With the PBI, we can then compare people’s behavior and the demands of jobs in a more meaningful way. The PBI is also helpful for establishing a consensus amongst decision-makers and managers of what is required for a given position in an organization.

The GRI factors were built from observations and research conducted in the field of personality psychology, as well as those of organizational development and industrial psychology. The focus on jobs and teams, rather than on individuals alone, and the development of their talents and career, allows for the consideration of both individual and job-related behavior dimensions. This process ensures that the measurement of each dimension accurately reflects the intended work-related content.

Validity, Reliability, Privacy

Growth Resources regularly performs validity and reliability studies, and other work to ensure that the GRI does not have adverse impact on protected groups, that measurements are work related and properly used. We comply with various standards such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (1978), the American Psychological Association (APA), the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and ISO 10667.

The behavior being measured is analyzed in the context of the position an individual fills or is being considered for – in the same way that employers also request information about professional competencies and experiences, education, etc.

Nothing in the survey suggests or implies that respondents would reveal private information that they would not want to reveal, or would not feel positive about, appreciative of and fair for them, or would be forced to answer, and that would not be work related. By the free open-scenario nature of the GRI Survey, respondents decide what they want to respond. There are no forced responses.

In practice, we observe only rare situations where the GRI does not accurately measure a person’s behavior. Those cases include respondents who deliberately want to sabotage the results, who are against the process, and who have had negative experiences with personality assessments in the past. The same issues occur in other techniques used in the hiring process, such as interviewing.

In the case when the GRI does not accurately measure behavior, these situations are handled by certified Advanced GRI users. Respondents may retake the survey again, or be provided with a feedback and some explanations. At the request of Advanced users, we remain at Growth Resources to assist. No such issue has ever been brought to our attention in thousands of profiles completed over the years.

Appropriate use

It is of critical importance that the GRI survey be administered and answered correctly to fully benefit from its results. The GRI answers many questions typically asked about people, for complying with various industry standards.

There is a myriad of assessment techniques in the market that function differently from the GRI survey. Executives, managers, or legal counsels have been exposed to some of them, and it’s important that they understand those differences.

For instance, the GRI does not measure traits or types. Most techniques attempt to measure selected traits and types and then simply print reports. Instead the GRI measures a limited number of factors, and a dynamic component that adds insightful nuances on how people adapt to a role, engage to act, and with what intensity they do so. The GRI approach also considers and assesses a job's demands, teams and organizations.

For the GRI to be appropriately used for work related applications, GRI users, either in the operations as executive and managers, or as HR experts and recuiters, are required to participate in the masterclass, be adequately trained and instructed to make use of it for these applications, and be provided with adequate support.