Practice Management Alert

Hint: They're useful for hiring decisions, too.

Personality tests can serve as a "legend" for the often-confusing map of interpersonal relationships, especially in the workplace.

For better or worse, many problems within the healthcare setting stem from miscommunication. From claims denials (were the payer instructions clear and understood by the coding and billing experts?) to dirty mugs in breakroom sinks to team members not performing as well as a manager hoped, clinical settings aren't immune to problems with communication.

Comprehending payer instructions and not stoking passive-aggressive behavior around the breakroom are difficult to fix, but you can pinpoint how to better understand and communicate with each individual on your team through personality tests.

Culture Index (CI), a subscription-based personality test meant to be used companywide and analyzed with expert consultant advice, can help managers understand what motivates employees.

For example, extroverted people may feel buoyed by more public recognition, and introverted people may feel embarrassed by being made the center of attention, says Suzanne Rupert, director of recruiting at Eli Global. Knowing whether to praise your employees privately or publicly, when you're acknowledging employee success, can go a long way in helping them feel both valued and understood.

Personality tests can also illuminate employees' preferences and improve interactions between team members. You may have noticed that a colleague in billing always looks shocked when you knock on her door to drop in for a chat, and a personality test can reveal her preference for having some forewarning, like an email or even a setappointment.

If you, as a manager, are getting caught up in the minutiae of tasks, consider how personality tests can also help you delegate tasks your team members could accomplish, saving yourself time and headaches while also playing to their strengths. You may have long suspected that details weren't your forte, and then compare your personality test results to your team members' results and see that someone is very precise and naturally notices subtleties you don't have the time or inclination to see.

When coupled with behavioral-based interviewing, personality tests can help you make sure you hire a candidate with the best-suited tendencies for a particular job or role. For example, if you need to fill a front-desk position and are deciding between two candidates, a personality test would reveal their comfort in engaging with strangers continuously throughout the day and week, as well as attention to detail. The candidates' resumes and interview answers could all suggest that they have the skills the role requires, but a personality test, when used in conjunction with a resume, references, and interviews, can give the hiring team an extra edge in determining whether a candidate has the natural tendencies to excel in a role.

If any clinicians in your office use scribes -  someone who accompanies the physician to take notes of each medical encounter - a personality test can make sure the candidate is well-suited to the task, Rupert says. "A scribe will need to have attention to detail. Patient-friendly, of course, but they're going to need to have someone who has more attention to detail and is more methodical in their thinking because of the repetitive nature of the role and task," she adds.

Of course, if you're hiring a physician or nurse, you want to make sure that their qualifications and skills are top-notch before you think about how their personalities mesh with the rest of your team's. But hiring a physicianwho's naturally inclined to enjoy spending time with people could reflect well for your practice's reputation, because that physician's bedside manner may seem more genuine and patient than that of more introverted clinician.

Subscription-based personality test services like CI come with expert training and consultation, and can be very useful for the whole team.

"Overall, it helps when you're interviewing," Rupert says. "If someone is in a role where they may have competing priorities, you can tell from their CI results how they'll deal with it, you can ask behavioral interview questions based on their CI. I think it's best and most effective behavioral-based interviewing."