Understanding the pi behavioral assessment: a guide for workforce planning

Understanding the basics of the pi behavioral assessment

What is a Predictive Behavioral Assessment?

When organizations talk about workforce planning, the question often comes up: what tools can help us make better hiring decisions? One answer is the Predictive Index (PI) Behavioral Assessment. This assessment is designed to measure behavioral drives that influence how people work, interact, and fit into teams. It’s not just about what a candidate knows, but what motivates and drives their behavior in the workplace.

How Does the Assessment Work?

The PI Behavioral Assessment is a short, science-backed tool that asks assessment takers to select adjectives that describe themselves and how others expect them to act at work. This process helps identify key behavioral drives such as dominance, extraversion, patience, and formality. These drives are then mapped to reference profiles, which provide a data point for understanding how a person might approach a job or fit within a team.

• Dominance: The drive to influence people or events
• Extraversion: The drive for social interaction
• Patience: The drive for consistency and stability
• Formality: The drive to conform to rules and structure

Why Use Behavioral Assessments in Hiring?

Behavioral assessments like the PI are increasingly used in the hiring process to help fill roles with candidates who not only have the right skills, but also the right behavioral fit for the job and team. By understanding what drives people, hiring teams can make more informed decisions, reduce turnover, and build stronger teams. These assessments provide a structured way to learn what behavioral traits are needed for a specific job target, and how candidates align with those needs.

For those new to workforce planning or looking to deepen their understanding of behavioral assessments and their role in hiring, you can explore this comprehensive guide to workforce planning for further insights.

How the pi behavioral assessment works

How the PI Behavioral Assessment Measures What Drives People

The PI Behavioral Assessment is a science-based tool designed to help organizations learn what drives candidates and employees. It focuses on four primary behavioral drives: dominance, extraversion, patience, and formality. Each drive is measured through a series of questions that ask assessment takers to select adjectives that describe themselves and what they believe is expected of them at work. This approach provides a data point for understanding how a person is likely to behave in a job setting.

What the Assessment Process Looks Like

The assessment is straightforward and typically takes less than 10 minutes to complete. Candidates and employees are presented with two lists of adjectives. The first list asks them to choose words that describe their own behavioral tendencies. The second list asks them to select adjectives that reflect how they think they should act in their current or desired job. This dual-list method helps uncover both natural behavioral drives and perceived job requirements.

• Dominance: Measures the drive to influence people or events.
• Extraversion: Assesses the drive for social interaction and collaboration.
• Patience: Looks at the drive for consistency and stability.
• Formality: Evaluates the drive to conform to rules and structure.

After completion, the assessment generates a reference profile that summarizes the candidate’s behavioral pattern. This reference profile is a valuable tool for hiring teams, as it helps match candidates to job targets and team dynamics. The assessment is not just for hiring; it can also help with team building and workforce planning by highlighting what behavioral strengths exist within teams.

Using Behavioral Data in the Hiring Process

Hiring teams use the PI Behavioral Assessment to fill roles more effectively by comparing candidate profiles to job assessments. The job assessment defines the behavioral requirements for a specific role, creating a job target. By aligning candidate drives with job targets, organizations can predict how well a person will fit and perform in a role. This predictive behavioral approach supports a more objective and data-driven hiring process.

For those interested in learning more about how assessments can support staffing and recruitment, you can explore this comprehensive guide to starting your own staffing agency.

Key benefits for workforce planning

Why Behavioral Data Matters in Workforce Planning

When organizations use behavioral assessments like the PI Behavioral Assessment, they gain a clearer picture of what drives people at work. This predictive tool helps hiring teams move beyond resumes and interviews, offering a data point that reveals how a candidate’s behavioral drives align with a job’s requirements. For example, understanding if a role needs high dominance or extraversion, or if patience and formality are more important, can make the hiring process more targeted and effective.

How Assessments Improve Hiring and Team Fit

Behavioral assessments help fill gaps in the hiring process by providing insights into how candidates might behave in real work situations. By comparing assessment results to a job assessment or job target, hiring teams can see if a candidate’s reference profile matches the behavioral needs of the role. This helps reduce guesswork and supports more objective hiring decisions.

• Better team composition: Assessments help build teams with complementary behavioral drives, improving collaboration and performance.
• Reduced turnover: When candidates’ behavioral profiles align with job demands, they’re more likely to stay and thrive.
• Faster onboarding: Knowing what drives new hires allows managers to tailor support and expectations from day one.

Supporting Ongoing Workforce Development

Behavioral assessments are not just for hiring. They also help managers learn what motivates their teams, identify development opportunities, and create better work environments. By understanding the adjectives that describe each reference profile, leaders can assign tasks that match people’s strengths and drive engagement across teams.

For a deeper dive into how procurement strategies and workforce planning intersect, check out this guide to procurement white papers for effective workforce planning.

Interpreting assessment results

Making Sense of Behavioral Assessment Results

Once a candidate or team member completes a PI behavioral assessment, the real value comes from understanding what the results mean. The assessment generates a data point for each individual, highlighting their behavioral drives such as dominance, extraversion, patience, and formality. These drives help describe how a person prefers to work, communicate, and interact with others.

• Dominance: Indicates how much control or influence someone seeks in their job.
• Extraversion: Reflects how much social interaction and collaboration a person enjoys.
• Patience: Shows the degree to which someone prefers stability and consistency in their work.
• Formality: Measures the importance of structure, rules, and accuracy for the individual.

Each assessment taker is assigned a reference profile, which groups people with similar behavioral patterns. These profiles help hiring teams quickly learn what drives a candidate or team member, making it easier to match people to the right job or team environment. For example, if a job assessment shows a need for high patience and formality, candidates with matching behavioral drives are likely to thrive in that role.

From Data to Action: Applying Insights

Interpreting the results isn’t just about reading adjectives that describe a person. It’s about connecting those insights to the hiring process and ongoing team development. Behavioral assessments provide predictive data that can help hiring teams fill roles more effectively, reduce turnover, and build stronger teams. When you know what behavioral drives are needed for a job, you can use these tools to identify candidates who are most likely to succeed.

It’s important to remember that no assessment is perfect. Use behavioral assessments as one part of a holistic hiring process. Combine the data with interviews, reference checks, and job-specific requirements to get a complete picture of each candidate. This approach helps ensure that your workforce planning decisions are both data-driven and people-focused.

Integrating the assessment into your HR strategy

Making the PI Behavioral Assessment Part of Your HR Toolkit

Integrating the PI behavioral assessment into your HR strategy can be a game changer for hiring teams. The process goes beyond simply adding another tool; it’s about weaving behavioral data into every stage of the employee lifecycle. Here’s how organizations can make the most of what predictive behavioral assessments offer:

• Define the job target: Start by outlining what behavioral drives are essential for success in each role. Use job assessments to clarify the mix of dominance, extraversion, patience, and formality that matches your needs.
• Align hiring process steps: Incorporate the assessment early in the candidate journey. This helps fill roles with people whose reference profiles fit the job, not just on skills but on behavioral fit too.
• Train hiring teams: Ensure everyone involved in hiring understands what behavioral data points mean. Training helps teams learn how to interpret assessment results and use them to guide interviews and final decisions.
• Use data for team building: Reference profiles and behavioral drives can help managers build balanced teams. Knowing what drives each person supports better collaboration and communication at work.
• Monitor and adjust: Regularly review how assessments are impacting hiring and team performance. Use feedback from assessment takers and hiring managers to refine your process.

Integrating behavioral assessments is not just about the hiring process. These tools help organizations learn what drives their people, support ongoing development, and create a more predictive approach to workforce planning. By making behavioral data a core part of your HR strategy, you can better match candidates to jobs, improve team dynamics, and drive organizational success.

Common challenges and best practices

Overcoming Misconceptions and Barriers

When organizations introduce behavioral assessments like the PI Behavioral Assessment into their hiring process, they often face skepticism or misunderstandings. Some hiring teams may question what predictive tools can truly reveal about a candidate’s fit for a job. Others might worry that assessments will replace human judgment or reduce people to a set of adjectives that describe only part of their working style.

It’s important to clarify that behavioral assessments are designed to help, not replace, decision-making. They provide an additional data point to support what hiring teams learn through interviews and other job assessment methods. The goal is to better understand what drives candidates, how their behavioral drives align with job targets, and how they might fit into existing teams.

Best Practices for Implementation

• Educate your team: Make sure everyone involved in the hiring process understands what behavioral assessments measure, including dominance, extraversion, patience, and formality. Training helps reduce resistance and ensures the tools are used effectively.
• Combine data with human insight: Use assessment results alongside interviews and reference profiles. This holistic approach helps hiring teams see the full picture of a candidate’s potential.
• Set clear job targets: Define what behavioral traits are needed for each role. This makes it easier to interpret assessment results and match candidates to the right jobs.
• Respect privacy and transparency: Always explain to assessment takers how their data will be used. Transparency builds trust and encourages honest responses.
• Review and refine: Regularly evaluate how well your assessments are predicting job success. Adjust your process as you learn what works best for your teams.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Over-reliance on assessments: No tool can predict everything about a person’s work style or team fit. Use behavioral assessments as one part of a broader hiring strategy.
• Ignoring team dynamics: Focus not just on individual candidates, but also on how their behavioral drives will interact with existing teams. A good reference profile match can help, but context matters.
• Misinterpreting results: Remember that assessment results highlight tendencies, not fixed traits. People can adapt and grow in different roles and environments.

By addressing these challenges and following best practices, organizations can fill roles more effectively, build stronger teams, and make the most of what predictive behavioral assessments have to offer.