5 personality traits can predict employee engagement
Want to get a sense for how a new hire will fit in and adapt? Try to gauge their levels of conscientiousness, neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness and openness to experience.
Internal communicators can use various tactics to help employees engage physically, cognitively and emotionally.
People think, feel and act in their own unique way, so they’ll react differently to attempts to help them connect with the CEO or commit to organizational change. Emerging research suggests that five personality traits can help you predict people’s level of engagement at work:
1. Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is one of the five basic personality traits—or factors—examined by psychologists Robert McCrae and Paul Costa in their influential Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality.
2. Neuroticism
3. Extroversion
Another explanation centers on the psychological condition of meaningfulness, an important predictor of engagement defined as the positive feeling that one’s work is worthwhile and important. According to Woods and Sofat, employees high in the “assertiveness” sub-factor are more likely to be engaged, because their high energy and ambitiousness lead them to attach greater meaning to their efforts at work.
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