How Personalities Influence Workforce Planning
Relation between workforce Planning and our Personality
What if factory foremen treated their workers less like
the machines they operate, and more like people, with personality strengths and
differences? Surely the workers would benefit, but might the employers also see
positive results in the workplace, as well as being able to cut costs?
That's what Concordia researcher Mohammed Othman set out
to prove in his paper "Integrating workers' differences into workforce
planning," recently published in the journal Computers & Industrial
Engineering.
Currently, explained Othman, two types of researchers
study production workforces: industrial engineers like him, who try to organize
machines and people to maximize efficiency; and industrial psychologists, who
design personality tests. Beyond personality type, such tests can determine a
worker's motivation level and triggers, work capacity, and even his or her
ability to learn. But the test results are generally only used in a pass/fail
capacity, to determine whether or not to hire an individual, says Othman.
"There are many things you could use this rich data for -- training,
motivating workers, determining salaries -- but they don't use it."
Othman's model takes this psychological data and,
crossing disciplines, employs it to better engineer workforce planning --
hiring, firing, scheduling and training. "Workforce planning is usually
done in the manager's mind -- what he or she knows about the workers and their
abilities," says Othman, adding that the manager seldom notes down these
estimated measures.
In fact, fearing charges of unfair discrimination leading
to union grievances, many managers and foremen expressly avoid taking
personality into account when assigning tasks, because they "don't want to
make it a personal thing." But, Othman insists, such grading systems do
not aim to harm or downgrade workers. "You're trying to help them, by
putting them in an appropriate position. At the same time, you're trying to train
them and improve their skills -- at their level."
In his paper, Othman ran a complex mathematical model to
determine the cost of running a manufacturing shop floor over an eight-week
production period. He first ran a control in which workers deemed hirable were
slotted into positions without regard for their training, skills, capacity for
work, personality or motivation. Then, using his mathematical model, Othman
took these factors into account before the production period began, placing
workers in more appropriate positions with a view to minimizing hiring, firing,
training and overtime costs.
The result? Othman's model created a cost savings of 7.1
per cent, a significant figure that could keep more jobs in Canada, in this
competitive, globalized economy.
Beyond manufacturing, Othman says his model could also be
applied to the service industry. What's more, "there is also an
opportunity for another researcher to incorporate cognitive ability," he
adds, "clearly an important factor in human differences." And,
clearly, the factor that most differentiates us from machines.
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