MBA (HRD) Department of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics organised a Guest Lecture on the topic ‘Importance of Personality Testing in Industry’ on 21st September 2017. To present the lecture, we invited Dr. Pooja V. Anand, Assistant Professor, Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi.
Dr. Pooja V Anand carries more than eleven years of experience in teaching Psychology. Her teaching and research interests include Positive Psychology, Organisational Behaviour, Human Resource Management and Social Psychology. She has authored the book ‘Emotional Intelligence – Journey to Self-Positive published in January 2017. She is a member of Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organisations. She was also awarded as the best speaker in a scientific session at the International Conference on Public Health 2016.
The session started with a brief introduction about the current scenario of the Psychological Testing and how it is perceived by the industry. Even though Psychological testing is regarded as an integral part of the talent identification and acquisition strategy any organisation, the companies are still not too eager to use these tests. However, it is expected that there will be a rise in the number of companies adapting to these kinds of assessments.
Some of the advantages of Psychological Testing for the organisations –
- Such tests can predict how an individual will work and will his or her working style align with the company’s culture and goals. Certain traits which may or may not be desirable for certain jobs can also be identified through psychological testing. It ultimately helps in placing an employee in the right position.
- A new recruit can be understood in a better way and that may in turn help in deciding what kind of training is needed for him or her. In this way, organisations ensure that the goals of the individual aligned with the goals of the organisation.
- If the employee is recruited after his personality traits are identified, the organisation will know if that employee will be happy being a part of the organisation. Happier employees are much more motivated, perform better and can be easily retained in the company. Employee Retention saves both time and money.
Dr. Pooja further talk in brief about some of the most commonly used Psychological tests across the industry which included –
- Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
- Five Factor Model (Big Five)
Lastly, she spoke about the framework of Psychological Capital and it's building blocks which is called as HERO model offered by Fred Luthans and his colleagues.
- Hope is a positive state where our feelings of agency (goal-oriented determination) and pathways (proactively planning to achieve those goals) interact.
- Self-Efficacy is depicted as confidence in our ability to achieve a specific goal in a specific situation.
- Resilience is defined as successfully coping with adversity or stress. In organisational settings, it is characterised by the ability to “bounce back” from the high workload, conflict, failure, and ongoing organisational change.
- Optimism is theorised as a realistically-positive view of what can or cannot do.
The session ended with a Q&A session where the students got to interact with Dr. Pooja, making the session even more fruitful for all the inquisitive minds.
It gave us immense pleasure to have Dr. Pooja on the campus and we sincerely thank her for giving us her precious time and knowledge.