Prioritizing Well-being with Psychometrics
Circa 2019, well-being and soft skills were hot topics of discussion around personal growth and internal fulfillment. However, as we moved into 2020, individuals had new norms to navigate, from social isolation, economic stress, and round-the-clock news coverage for the COVID-19 pandemic. Anytime someone goes through a change, it’s not uncommon for anxiety and stress to increase, and this pandemic is no exception. Based on a study completed by Inpulse, featured in Four Ways Leaders Can Support Anxious And Lonely Teams¹, in mid-April 2020, research found that 65% of employees have felt nervous, anxious or on edge, and 43% have not been able to stop or control worrying. Further, pre-COVID19 pandemic, it was found that people with depression have a 40% higher risk of developing cardiovascular and metabolic diseases than the general population, and globally, depression is the leading cause for disability². For individuals, the ability to identify depression, anxiety or stress plays a critical role in managing their well-being. Luckily, individuals aren’t alone in this, as psychometrics and technology are here to help!
Understanding yourself
Simply put, your well-being is the level at which you feel comfortable, happy and healthy³. The tricky thing about well-being is there’s often more than meets the eye. As humans, everyone is unique in how they interpret their anxiety (or stress), and they’re unique in how they make time — assuming they do — to address their mental and physical health challenges. For many, it’s often easy to prioritize work, family and other responsibilities over one’s own well-being, but that doesn’t make it a healthy or sustainable practice. With the use of technology, companies like HealthPersonas and Talentoday are leveraging psychometrics to uncover the obstacles a person is dealing with and empower them with their soft skill strengths. In both cases, the overall goal is to help individuals increase their level of self-fulfillment, and ultimately their well-being.
Prioritizing your well-being
Now more than ever, psychometrics have the ability to positively impact us and those around us. Even for the most selfless people, taking care of those around you means taking care of yourself first. We are all aware being healthy is more than just physical. HealthPersonas measures and improves emotional and behavioral health, the way we feel and think, taking a well-being approach to healthcare and unlocking personalized results along the way. A key component of HealthPersonas success is their KnowMe™ assessment, which was developed in partnership with Talentoday. KnowMe™ offers a fun user experience that allows individuals to quickly identify what makes us unique and how to best seek health and happiness. To complement the KnowMe™ findings, HealthPersonas offers an engaging mobile experience by providing emotional health support with both chat and video-based expert coaching.
HealthPersonas founder, Alex Bitoun, has worked in healthcare delivering chronic care programs to self-funded employers and health plans for the past 15 years. Alex notes, “Emotional health is a key component to overall health, and is too often ignored in the current care paths. By focusing our efforts on how our members feel, we not only improve their well-being, but we are unlocking clinical results that had eluded them in the past.”
Lean into your uniqueness
Just like each person is unique in how they interpret and respond to adversity, everyone is unique in their personality and motivations. When faced with a challenge, we may see how our personality traits and motivations work together to either lift us up, or potentially bring us down. Although there’s a number of things that we can’t control, through understanding our dominant personality traits and motivations, we can make the choice to create a comfortable environment that corresponds to our needs and increases our overall well-being. Through Talentoday’s soft skill assessment, MyPrint®, we leverage psychometrics to empower individuals to understand not only what their dominant personality and motivation traits are, but we also provide guidance on what environments (or actions) will allow them to hone in on their strengths and fulfill their needs. Through having these personalized insights at your fingertips, you can make incremental changes in your daily routine, work style or relationships, to increase your sense of self-fulfillment and even share results with those that you collaborate with most often for additional support.
Expanding your reach
With about half of employees feeling some form of anxiety, worry or sadness, odds are someone close to you is battling some degree of discomfort during this time. With social isolation changing how we interact with people, from limited (or no) in-person conversations to hugging our family, individuals have been relying on technology to create a sense of connection. As a number of people leverage FaceTime, Zoom and other communication platforms, psychometrics-based technology opens the door for a new type of collaboration. Whether it’s sharing your insights with those around you, encouraging them to do the same, or utilizing virtual health services (like those offered by HealthPersonas) you’re empowering the people close to you by removing stigmas associated with well-being and mental health support, while providing them tangible solutions. Similar to how you have to prioritize your own well-being to achieve the positive impact of these digital solutions, you have to encourage those close to you to do the same.
The concept of well-being, seemingly simple when you break it down to its most basic parts — happiness, health and comfort — is anything but simple when you think of the uniqueness and complexities of each individual. Luckily, both the technology and psychometrics used are equally as complex behind the scenes, while providing easy to understand solutions to the end user. For individuals ready to prioritize themselves, even if it’s just for an hour a day, you can get started by taking both the KnowMe™ and MyPrint® assessments. Both assessments can be completed totally free of charge and will give you access to your individual insights, enabling you to put your well-being front of mind.
Looking for additional resources and support for mental health? See National Alliance on Mental Health (https://www.nami.org/home) and Mental Health Foundation (https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/).
For more information on Talentoday visit our company website or you can reach out to us directly at contact@talentoday.com.
Boost Your Profile with MyPrint®
You just completed your MyPrint® assessment, you recognize your strengths and reviewed your personality radar — now what? Luckily for the Talentoday community, there are unique ways to use your MyPrint® results to boost your profile for potential employers, within your network, and possibly to foster internal mobility. In The Hard Truth about Soft Skills¹, David Lambert, the president of Pinnacle Placements, sheds light around the importance of soft skills in hiring, saying “Hard skills will get you the interview — soft skills will get you the job.” To help Talentoday’s community land the job and achieve their career goals, we’re here to provide additional insight on using your MyPrint® assessment results to enhance your resume and boost your LinkedIn profile.
Validate Your Soft Skills with Talentoday
When updating your LinkedIn, creating your resume, or even during a job interview, it’s easy to speak to your soft skills, such as being “detail oriented” and “determined.” However, for recruiters and hiring managers, the ability to validate this before making a hiring decision isn’t foolproof. With MyPrint®, you’re able to change the way you present yourself by backing your soft skills with science. At Talentoday, when developing the MyPrint® assessment, our team of experts utilized premier industry practices, such as IRT scoring (formally known as item response theory scoring) to test and enhance the assessments validity, and also gained an accreditation from the American Psychological Association (APA) to establish credibility and ensure our assessment provides meaningful, scientifically-grounded, results.
Supercharge Your Resume with Soft Skills and Professional Behaviors
When creating your resume, there are a number of ways that can utilize MyPrint® to show your strengths. To do so, we suggest that you add a Talentoday specific soft skills section to your resume. Additionally, you also have the option to download and provide recruiters, and/or hiring managers, with your full one-page report.
For examples on how to use MyPrint® to enhance your resume, see the below examples:
- From the Profile section of the Talentoday app, take a snapshot of your personality radar and include it in your resume.
- From the one-page report, list our top three personality traits and provide the ranking visually from your percentage on the personality criteria pole. You can go one step further by including a brief description of what this trait means, based on the description in the one-page report.
- From the one-page report, insert a snapshot of your top three professional behaviors exhibited.
Showcase Your Uniqueness on LinkedIn
With nearly 675 million members on LinkedIn², Talentoday can be used as a tool to make your profile unique and provide further insights into who you are. To add your MyPrint® profile, or your one-page report, you can use the “Feature” section of LinkedIn to add an image, or PDF, with a brief description (as seen in the images below). We suggest adding a snapshot of your personality radar or the full one-page report. In the Feature’s description section, you also have the ability to add the full URL link to your Talentoday member profile.
Through Talentoday’s application directly, you also have the ability to post your Talentoday profile to your feed on LinkedIn (as well as Facebook and Twitter), by clicking the appropriate social icon as found in the upper right side of your Profile page:
Now that you have the right tools to share your soft-skill insights in a more meaningful way, take another look at your profile and the one-page report. Of the results provided, and our recommendations on how to share your results, pick items that best highlight your professional strengths and allow you to present yourself to potential employers, or just generally within your network, in a unique way that is tailored to you.
Haven’t taken the MyPrint® assessment yet? Set aside 25 minutes, in a non-distracting space, and click “Take the free test” on our company website (www.talentoday.com) to begin.
For more information about our science and product, visit our company website or you can reach out to us directly at contact@talentoday.com.
Sources:
- Mark Tarallo, 2019, The Hard Truth About Soft Skills, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
- “About LinkedIn,” LinkedIn Newsroom, https://news.linkedin.com/about-us#statistics
Use MyPrint® to Engage Your Remote Workforce
In the early months of 2020, HR professionals and managers have been faced with the biggest unilateral shakeup that doesn’t discriminate against industry or country borders, the COVID19 global pandemic. Workplaces with previously strict or conservative remote work policies may find themselves in a non-negotiable situation as “social distancing” is the new norm; that of course, is if you’re lucky enough to work in an industry or position that allows you the ability to work from home. While some may find themselves out of work, others are on the frontline of the pandemic, such as medical staff and grocery store workers. For managers creating an office at home, it poses the question: how do I be present and engage my team virtually?
At Talentoday, we have a passion for unlocking the keys to employee engagement, management and teamwork, which is the driving force behind our MyPrint® assessment. Through our assessment, coupled with our web application, we offer digital solutions to managers for effectively engaging their team. While our assessment wasn’t originally designed to provide instructions for remote team management through soft skills, we’ve been able to identify the direct correlation between results and how to put this knowledge to use in a remote work setting. The below is a step-by-step guide, with advice, on how to leverage assessment results for your remote team.
Step 1: Have your team spend 20–30 minutes completing the MyPrint® assessment.
Immediately after completing the assessment, they’ll have access to their personality radar, motivations and professional behaviors. While some of your team may additionally be experiencing a period of self-isolation, or having limited social exposure, this allows for dedicated time for a bit of self-care and self-reflection, by allowing them to take a deep look into their strengths (or potentially some areas they could seek additional training during this remote period).
Step 2: Look at the unique motivations across your team and figure out what motivates, and discourages, your team.
Working from home, coupled with isolation, some may experience a lag in productivity and engagement. As a manager, this allows you the opportunity to step in and rally for success. Within the motivation poles, managers are given tailored guidance based on individual results for what motivates an employee, as well as insight on what can discourage them. See below for an example:
Step 3: Start tailoring motivation to individual results and empower an engaged remote workforce.
After taking a look at your teams’ results, you’ll notice that there are 11 motivation categories, with two different criteria for each motivation. We refer to these criteria as either the “positive side,” at the high end of the pole, and the other as the “negative side,” with it being on the lowest end of the pole.
In the below graphic, you’ll see engagement examples that align to both the “positive” and “negative” sides of the poles to help tailor motivations to individuals on your team.
Long after the COVID19 pandemic is behind us, Talentoday will still continue to provide quality solutions that help professionals make empowered decisions through data analytics. To keep building on the momentum sparked through remote work engagement, our solution offers additional features and insights; whether it’s learning how to best collaborate with another individual or asking more meaningful interview questions tailored to their MyPrint® results, we look forward to continuing to serve our global community and provide purpose during this time of uncertainty.
Ready to take the MyPrint® assessment? Set aside 25 minutes, in a non-distracting space, and click “Take the free test” on Talentoday’s website (www.talentoday.com).
For more information on Talentoday and how to utilize our reports and features, reach out to us directly at customer@talentoday.com for both existing and prospective customers. For more information about our science and product, visit our company website.
The ROARing Twenties at Talentoday
To be honest, at Talentoday, the new hire experience means entering into a workplace of organized chaos. As many rapidly growing companies can relate to, having a world-class employee experience means that you’re in a balancing act between fostering employee development and driving business results. For Talentoday, we didn’t do it without some help. Following Talentoday’s acquisition by Medix in late 2018, the team adopted a new ambition for achieving results as a double bottom line company, meaning that we focus on both our profit and purpose.
Why do we do what we do?
Early in 2019, the team sat down and asked one simple question, “Why do we do what we do?,” to better understand the purpose of why we really come to work everyday. On an individual level, the Talentoday team is home for industry experts, ranging from software development, to cognitive science and operations, but being a double bottom line company means getting to the unified core of why each person has decided to put their passion into Talentoday. On its surface, the question posed a number of answers from “to provide the best psychometric assessment” to “having the best user experience”, but getting to the true core — our core purpose — it came down to the single idea of “empowering growth.” For our team, we come to work each day to empower the growth of the clients and members that we serve, but also to empower the growth of each other by putting our core purpose at the forefront of our employee experience.
Rally for Success
Working on the Talentoday team, each person is given the freedom to contribute to cross-departmental goals. It may seem out of character for a developer to be updated with sales objectives, but at the end of the day, our goals are connected. Meaning, all people are given visibility into company-wide goals and can contribute by making connections or sharing past experiences, thus winning as a team.
With our departments being highly specialized, creating a proper outlet hasn’t always been easy, but we’ve been able to make strides by offering an open platform through company meetings and communications, while providing an open invitation for feedback. Our team’s contributions are without a doubt how we achieve success, but following those contributions with recognition is key.
Recognition creates space to reflect on how we achieved success while celebrating the wins. It’s important to note that recognition can come in many forms, such as a ROAR (statement of recognition) or a cruise down the Seine, but no matter the size of the success — or the size of the recognition — it’s important to stop and celebrate.
The Only Constant is Change
By the time this article is published, it would be no surprise if within our team, or product, something has changed, but that doesn’t scare us. Change means that we’re striving towards our goals. Product development doesn’t stop, client needs change, and technology improves, so it’s safe to assume that employee needs are evolving in sync. Adopting an idea of constant change has allowed us to take a holistic approach to our employee experience. Remember the balancing act metaphor at the beginning? At Talentoday, our employee experience is a combination of industry best practices, business needs, and real employee feedback, with the goal of fulfilling our core purpose and ultimately people choosing the Talentoday team as their employer of choice.
To date, we’re not far into 2020 and it’s been a busy year for Talentoday — while some may call it ROARing! With a beautiful new office and growing team, we look forward to keeping our chaos organized, employees engaged, and product innovative as we take on the new year.
If you’re looking for more information on joining the Talentoday team, contact our HR department at recruitment@talentoday.com and or visit our Welcome to the Jungle page for current openings!