Any organisation considering using DISC to assess its employees’ personalities will want to know whether the price of the assessments will be justified by the results.
While there’s no doubt that psychometric assessments such as the DISC assessment can be extremely beneficial, both in the workplace, and to individuals’ wider lives, it can be difficult to predict their exact ROI. This is because they have an impact on employees’ soft skills and interpersonal relations, which, although crucial to your business’ success, are hard to measure financially.
That’s why we’ve put together this article to evaluate whether DISC assessments are worth the price. Whether you’re currently deciding whether DISC can be beneficial to your team or are trying to build a business case for the assessment, this article will help you evaluate the potential return on investment.
What is DISC?
The DISC assessment consists of a personality questionnaire that asks individuals to answer questions in order to identify their personality styles, behaviours, strengths, and limitations. DISC identifies four key personality types, also known as DISC profiles:
- Dominance
- Influence
- Steadiness
- Compliance
Each profile has different strengths, limitations, behaviours, work styles, communication styles, and methods of leadership. By identifying and understanding the makeup of DISC personality types within a team, it becomes easier for its members to work more effectively together.
While some people refer to it as a DISC test, we prefer the term assessment. This is because calling it the DISC test implies that you can pass or fail: that there is a desired result. In fact, no DISC profile is better than the others. There’s no way to ‘win’ or ‘lose’ – the assessment simply allows people to better understand the DISC profiles, personality styles, communication, and behaviours of themselves and others.
How can DISC benefit your bottom line?
DISC can help your employees better understand each other, but so what?
Identifying the different profiles within an organisation or team and truly understanding these is the first step in creating a more productive workforce with better communication skills and higher levels of engagement. Here are just a few ways that the personality assessment can provide a great return on investment.
Improved productivity
Individuals who understand and reflect on their personality type are more productive employees. A DISC profile allows them to play to their strengths and work on their weaknesses.
Moreover, a DISC assessment might reveal an imbalance of personality types in your organisation or team. While a team that is mostly made up of people with the Steadiness type is likely to be reliable, hard-working, and trustworthy, without a more decisive Dominance type on the team, they might struggle to make decisions or take risks. Likewise, a team that is high in Influence personality types will likely be enthusiastic and high-energy, but they might struggle with the finer details of a project because of a lack of attention to detail and a reluctance to challenge others.
By using DISC to create balanced and complementary teams, it’s easy to boost productivity and enjoy superior performance from all employees. For a report that can help your team work better together and make the most of their strengths, try the DISC Flow® GROUP Report.
Increased employee engagement and retention
By learning to better understand one’s coworkers and managers, communication and conflict resolution can be greatly improved. This leads to a better workplace culture where employees feel that their unique personalities are valued and understood. In addition to creating a more engaged workforce, this can have a real impact on employee retention.
With a talent shortage currently causing recruitment problems in the UK and high levels of employee turnover damaging organisations’ bottom lines, ensuring that your employees are satisfied and engaged in their jobs is more important than ever. After all, engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave an organisation than disengaged employees. Higher levels of employee engagement are linked to 24% lower turnover and 21% higher profitability, according to Gallup.
Overall, investing in DISC training and assessments not only helps your employees feel more engaged and satisfied, but it also reminds them that the organisation values their personal development.
Leadership development
Every profile in the DISC assessment has its own unique strengths and challenges in a leadership context. Recognising the challenges and limitations of their profile can help employees improve their leadership abilities.
For example, a person with the Dominance trait may think of themselves as a natural-born leader. After all, they’re decisive, ambitious, and they focus on the big picture – all good leadership qualities. However, not all behavioural traits associated with the D style make good leadership: their assertiveness might alienate the people on their team and they might struggle to listen to the ideas of others. By recognising these limitations, an ambitious D style individual can work to overcome these and secure that big promotion at last.
With the DISC model providing key insights such as these, it’s possible to unlock the leadership potential of employees and create a strong group of current and future leaders. For a report with an emphasis on leadership, try the Disc Flow® LEADER report.
Conclusion: Is DISC worth the price?
While it’s hard to prove the ROI of improving your employees’ soft skills and interpersonal abilities, the resulting improvements to productivity, retention, leadership, and overall financial performance are clear. When you consider these benefits, the cost of DISC assessments and reports is minimal.
At the end of the day, investing in DISC means investing in your people. By giving them the tools to work more effectively and better understand their strengths and limitations, you can create a more engaged and motivated workforce who will drive value in your business for many years to come.
Interested in trying out DISC in your organisation? Choose from our variety of different DISC personality reports or try our DISC trainer certification to embed these values in your organisation.
To find out more about how DISC can boost your business’ bottom line, contact us today.
