FAQ – Prep Advanced Insights

FAQ Frequently Asked Questions

We’ll post Q-A in our Blogs and move general questions to our FAQ’s. We have 4 basic Question sections:

GENERAL, RESEARCH, LEGAL & TECH SUPPORT

GENERAL

Why use PREP at Work?

PREP was specifically designed to be a common-language based system to be used throughout an organization – from the most entry level position to the senior executive team. The ease of completing the 5-minute survey applies to people with an 8^th grade common reading level and higher. The survey was developed for the everyday work situation with further applications in ones personal life. The personal resiliency insights are unique to PREP and so powerful when understanding people – their motivations, current capacity to take on new learning and complicated projects/tasks and how well their current expectations are being met.

How does your system benefit an organization?

Our reports, insights and charts offer groups and organizations comprehensive program materials that takes full advantage of developing peoples’ strengths and talents: from training to team development to on-boarding to career promotion to coaching to organizational- and succession planning and customer service–in the end, building greater trust and rapport and understanding each other both day-to-day and future potential.

Assessing individual styles for current and prospective employees, teams, supervisors and succession planning.
Helps managers, team members and HR professionals understand behavioral styles.
An integrated recruitment system—from statistically bench-marking positions and validating roles to hiring the best-match, then coaching the difficult situations and training ‘the difference’.
Increase customer satisfaction through placing your people in positions that will best be able to handle your various customer situations: by matching round pegs to round holes, your customers will recognize they are important enough for you to do things ‘right’.
Build the leadership pipeline, as well as strengthen the team interactions: trust, improve communications and productivity.

The myCORE series allows ice-breaker and introductory level assessment and interaction that unites your new or relatively ‘loose’ groups to begin to understand and appreciate each other – in an easy fashion that builds trust, based on native or Natural Style preferences.

The Personal Strengths Profiles offers the subscale version for CORE and PREP’s full personal resiliency and coaching based on current motivation, first impression, long-term stress and energy resiliency measurements. Here is where Coaching reports, Pair-matching between individuals and team reports are offered. These reports help managers and HR professionals do the people-side of their work with greater ease and trust-building fun.

Can this survey be manipulated?

When the PSP is administered properly the chances of the survey being manipulated are greatly reduced. It would be virtually impossible for a psychological or behavioral profile to be completely foolproof.

However, PSP has taken several steps to safeguard against such a situation:

Surveys are administered by PREP Certified Coaches. They oversee the process and questions from survey-takers. PREP offers support to these Coaches for their tougher questions.
Eighth grade and simpler words are used, leading to less difficulty and stress in the process.
The adjectives were chosen specifically for their subtle measurement of their associated culturally and generationally unbiased traits. We use common-academic/eeryday words – setting us apart from most of the psychologically early to mid 20^th century highly academic, even archaic vocabulary and survey-design assessments. There are built-in metrics that provide a “check” if trying to ‘game it’ is detected.
The survey results are validated or corrected by the individual immediately for appropriate and accurate interpretation of the PSP. This helps reduce the temptation to “cheat”.
The greatest chance of manipulation on any test occurs during low-trust situations — a hiring interview, a promotion interview, a probation interview, etc. We recommend that the PSP be used in the final stages of interviewing when the candidate typically has a stronger confidence level, and will probably answer more honestly- and that the individual verify the overall results through a user-friendly report.

Won’t the results differ depending upon the test environment, timing?

If the testing environment is disruptive in any way, there is a high probability the responses will not be as duplicable as when the testing environment is calm and unpressured. Online/email offers the best opportunity for a calmer environment. Additionally, there are individuals who are more environmentally sensitive than others. Their profiles usually indicate they are environment sensitive. After 40 years of research, as long as the stress resiliency is in the normal range, individuals reflect strong consistencies within their profiles. Example: The adaptive personality type is often environmentally responsive. The profile width usually remains within one inch or less, even though their traits may fluctuate.

When an individual experiences a low personal resiliency (high stress, personal crisis, intense changes of life circumstances) there will often be changes in CORE traits… part of the definition of stress is “change of personality”.

Can PREP Help me discover my natural talents?

Yes! While there are many more natural talents than just those linked to personality, PREP’s assessments and reports help you understand how you can make the most of your natural talents and gifts. Remember that we do not identify your areas of interest, but rather your behavioral traits of how and what roles/tasks you’d likely prefer in your chosen field. For instance, if you’re interested in a medical career, the application of your talents and strengths would indicate how you would prefer and enhance your strengths- say being in the Emergency Room or more of a Clinician or Researcher. Our Certified Coaches are trained to support you in your career and life choices.

How does knowing a PREP help me as a manager?

By knowing what your people’s styles are, you’ll be able to do a better job:

Probing for insight into applicants in interviewing and reference checking.
Reinforcing team building on a daily basis.
Enriching inter- and intra-departmental team communications.
Matching customer needs to your staffing / team.
Evaluating current employees for alternate and leadership responsibilities or public speaking and interactions.
Monitoring ongoing employee morale, energy levels and stress levels for engagement and support that is so critical to your employees’ well-being.

How do I get started using PREP’s Profiling tools?

Depending on your goals and needs, next steps could be:

Continue to evaluate whether our service is a fit for your organization.
Contact us to sign up to become certified to use PREP at work or personally.
Schedule a consultation or training program for your company with a Certified PREP Coach/Consultant.
Become a Certified Coach for your company.
Become a Licensed PREP Consultant for the PREP Advanced Insights. Since every situation is different, the best approach is to contact us. In one conversation we can review your needs and support you in establishing your next step!

What is your motive for offering a free online behavioral style quiz?

PREP Personality Profile Systems has developed one of the most accurate and cross-culturally non-biased Personal Resiliency and Personality Survey available, and you can help us to keep it that way! Our personality tests are based on research and surveys conducted over a span of forty years, but the work is never done. In order to stay current, we continually administer surveys to confirm the accuracy of our tests and better understand the personality factor across our globe. From this study, we have updated key norming – invaluable in our fast-changing world!

What are you trying to find out in Your global personality and resiliency research?

Who matches what kind of job best?
How do stress and personal resiliency impact personality?
Does personality change with age?
Do people from different cultures have substantially different personality traits and factors? And, does personal resiliency vary?
Are there differences noted in personality and personal resiliency in different generations? By gender?
Does personality change over time? What drives that?

How hard is it? Can I fail?

The PREP survey is an easy, non-threatening 5-minute questionnaire that is quick to complete. There are no right or wrong answers. You cannot fail! And it is our policy that the survey should be verified by the survey-taker and used only as additional insights, never as a singular decision making ‘test’.

Is my information ever shared with anyone else?

No! We understand and appreciate your right to privacy. Our privacy and confidentiality policies follow the EU guidelines. Our programmer setting up the original online system was German and steeped in the critical nature of protecting personal data. That policy will never change. The PREP Research Team will protect your data, not sell to another party, nor identify any individual responses in the analysis of the study. Contact us if you have further questions.

RESEARCH

How does the PREP Personal Strengths Profile (PSP) compare to other instruments?

The cross correlations in the initial validation and norming of the PSP were done with Cattell 16-PF and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in the early 1980’s. In our follow up renorming studies, we cross-validated with The Big 5.

Other than PSP’s Natural Style Profile, there is not a great deal that is duplicated in the Big 5 and M-B instrument or 16 PF. The Personal Resiliency and Stress components are unique, as well as the First Impression Profile.

The PREP test-retest reliability, due to its 8^th grade common reading level is close to 90% for most PREP survey takers.

BIG 5: This assessment uses a more college-level vocabulary, which works fine for managerial positions. Some academic language is a bit archaic, with some culturally biased terms that PREP specifically does not use.

Big 5 uses different research approach that appears not to be based on strict EU confidentiality and privacy policies that PREP embraces. The overall cross validation from Big 5 was strong for the Natural style. From our research studies, MBTI was less than 75% accurate for test-retest reliability. MBTI words and sentence usage/ yes-no structure were not been normed for the eighth grade reading level. Statistically, PSP tests stronger internally and has fewer internal correlations than the M-B Type Indicator.

MBTI: Of all the personality assessment instruments, The CORE Profile is most like the Jungian-based assessments. However, we were specifically normed following the Affirmative Action and EEOC guidelines of the early 1980’s that structurally are similar to DEI today. MBTI was developed during the 1920’s-30’s, a time where psychology was more eugenics driven, which is a difficulty in updating norming from that era in many ways.

DiSC: The DiSC is a popular profile measuring the same four basic traits (quadrant model) that PREP does with its CORE traits. The DiSC survey words are from a college-level or greater vocabulary, also developed in the same timeframe as the MBTI, so language and survey structure are reflective more of the early 20^th century, rather than PREP’s multi-dimensional statistical derivation. The DiSC takes about twice as long to complete as the PREP does. The views of self measured in DiSC are covered by PREP with greater statistical reliability and more detail. The current motivation, personal resiliency energy reserve, stress level measures are unique to PREP and are not covered in the DiSC instrument.

Birkman: The Birkman offers a color quadrant (corresponding to Implementer/Controlling, Administrator/Exacting, Planner/Relaxed, Communicator/Outgoing) with a “motivation” analysis, using 11 factors (empathy, change, etc). PREP uses color to highlight traits and counter traits, using opposite colors and reinforcing the key combinations by the appropriate color. Birkman colors do not correlate to PREP or to opposite traits. PREP based its color selections on research and educational principles.

The Birkman is used in business for team building, coaching and some hiring, much like the PREP Personal Strengths Profile. The Birkman is significantly more complicated to administer, complete and interpret. Both the instrument and the certification training are substantially more expensive than PREP and require a greater time investment to become accomplished as an Administrator. Feedback from those who work with both the Birkman and PREP indicate that the PREP is much more practical, simpler to use and more straightforward in analysis than the Birkman. The PREP personal resiliency, stress analysis and current motivation are unique and not covered in the Birkman instrument. The Birkman has unique measurements that PREP does not have, so both instruments may be used as complements to in-depth understanding of career preferences, personality and motivation.

MMPI: The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is an extensive psychological profile that measures abnormalities within the personality. It is a clinical instrument that has high validity in detecting a great number of personality abnormalities. The instrument was normed for the abnormal population. The PSP should not be used in place of the MMPI in detecting abnormal personalities or behavioral preferences. The PSP was normed on a normal population and therefore should be used with individuals in the normal population range.

Strong Campbell: The Strong Campbell Interest Inventory indicates career preferences according to interests of individuals within those careers. The instrument has a strong database and gives a wide variety of careers to consider, but without regard to a person’s specific personality type. Combining the Strong-Campbell with the PSP can give a strong picture of the optimal careers by superimposing the PSP career data base and matrix onto the Strong-Campbell results. Regardless of how sophisticated or comprehensive, no career inventory can take into account specific personal values an individual may have that may be key in job satisfaction and success!

Other Personality Profiles: The PSP’s Natural Style will usually correlate strongly with other personality instruments based on either the Jungian or Hippocratic (Quadrant) personality trait preference models. PSP specifically combines these two models into one with the combination of traits along with problem-solving and communication styles.

What is the cost of a poor hiring decision?

The cost of turnover is an elusive figure that can sabotage your bottom line without you ever seeing it. Calculating its dollars-and-cents impact isn’t that exact, but those who have analyzed the effects of turnover say that as much as 80% of its cost is hidden.

There are a variety of estimates about the cost of turnover and its effect on various industries. Some studies indicate that labor turnover costs are between $10,000 and $20,000 just for the administrative components!. A study of upper-level managers and executives estimated the average cost of turnover at 1.5-2 times the annual salary of the job. It also said that it took an average of 13.5 months for new employees to get up to speed, optimizing their efficiency.

Other studies indicate that within the first 6 months of employment an organization will spend between $5,000 and $50,000 on every new employee in onboarding associated costs. It will be more at increasing levels of organizational responsibility and increasingly complex global nature of the organization.

What industry benchmarks have you conducted?

Using the PREP Job Benchmarking statistical process, a number of positions have been extensively analyzed over the past sixteen years. The following is a sampling:

Accounting: Bookkeeping, CPA’s, payroll
Athletic Clubs: Front desk, sales, aerobics instructors, general managers, back office, fitness instructors
Banking: Tellers, new accounts, branch managers, credit administrators, marketing, trust
Car Dealerships: Sales, sales managers, service, parts, administration
Education: Teachers, principals, special education, librarians, counselors
High Tech – R & D: Scientists, bench chemists, test engineers, design engineers, PhD’s, analytical chemists, programmers, computer specialists; both entrepreneurial and multinational firms represented
Hotel – Restaurant: Front desk, housekeeping, general managers, human resource directors, food servers, cooks, host staff, reservations, concierge, sales & catering
Human Resources: Directors, benefits administrators, interviewing specialists, generalists
Land – Developers: Contractors, land developers, real estate transactions, public relations, recreation specialists
Legal: Corporate attorneys, trail attorneys, legal assistants
Manufacturing: Supervisors, entry , leads, computerized systems, manual processes
Medical Offices: Front office staff, back office staff (clinics); hospital nurses, physical therapy, physicians, physician assistants, hospital and private clinic staffing, collections, filing
Office: Clerical, reception, customer service, filing, administrators
Radio Media: Sales, programming, sales managers, office managers
Real Estate: Sales, brokers, clerical
Ski Resorts: Lift operators, ticket collectors, information and guest services, cafeteria staff, managers, sales
Social Services: Counselors, social service staff, fund raisers, clerical
Stock & Financial: Brokers, office administrators, assistants
Utilities: Managers, line workers, night supervisors, office staff, engineers

LEGAL

Does this profile meet DEI and EEOC requirements?

EEOC set clear guidelines for skills-based testing. DEI has built on that. Personality profiles do not have such specific standards. A personality profile is considered validated when statistical studies for internal correlations, cross correlations, reliability and other test constructs prove the instrument measures what it intends to measure. The PSP has met all those requirements with strong test reliability, consistency and validity in test/re-test situations.

When using PSP as a hiring tool, the instrument must be validated for the specific position by a relatively simple process of measuring and comparing top and lower performers’ PSP scores and using the data that shows to be statistically significant.

Has this survey been challenged in court and will the PSP Stress measurements/interpretation stand up in court?

The PREP Profile Systems Personal Strengths Profile has never been challenged in court. There have been cases of abnormal personality instruments (e.g. MMPI not PSP type surveys) being challenged in court. (e.g., 1989 California vs. state employees.)

The chances of the PSP being challenged in court are decreased when an administrator follows certain guidelines:

Offers survey feedback to all those completing the survey
Reassures those taking the survey that this is one of several tools used to evaluate them and will be considered valid only when the test-taker validates the results.
Uses the Survey results as part of the decision process, never as a single decision-point.

These measurements were not designed for evaluating psychological stress for court cases, but rather to be a tool for professionals that signal barriers to optimal personal productivity. PREP Profile Systems, Inc. does not recommend the use of PSP as an applied court test. Certified Coaches are advised to use the personal resiliency and stress indicators and subsequent interpretations as red-flag discussion areas and pursue further analysis using other instruments with substantial legal and medical documentation that would be specifically diagnostic for apparent symptoms.

When combined with other medical findings, the PSP appears to have a strong correlation in identifying depression behaviors and support health care professionals to successfully communicate and approach treatment with patients. Medical validation studies have strongly indicated PREP’s personal resiliency factor can identify a lessening sense of well-being and an awareness of how current personal resiliency is impacting an individual’s behaviors. Contact us for more of our ongoing research findings in this area.

TECH SUPPORT

How does your online survey program work?

There are 2 ways to take the survey: For individuals who have not been certified or are not taking the profile through a PREP Certified Coach, you can take the survey and receive the myCORE Intro report. This allows you to take the PREP Survey and receive simple, easy-to-understand reports to improve your personal communications and career decisions. We can recommend an online Certified Coach to work further with you!

Through our Coach Certification program, email links are sent out to clients and staff, also with results. It is easy! They simply click and take the survey. Your Certified PREP Coach manages the report selection and distribution system to either auto-generate for the report to view first or to email links to subsequent reports to view. To become a Certified PREP Coach, please view the Certification section of our website and/or contact us.

How do I get support for questions about the Profiles?

For questions regarding profiles, you can contact your Certified PREP Administrator or Licensed Professional Consultant directly or you can reach us at (541) 382-1401. You can also email your inquiry.

How do I get technical support?

Our Certified Coaches can reach our technical support to resolve Technical Support issues through our backend Coaches Portal.

Have a question that’s not answered here? Please contact us using our contact form or by email at info@prep-profiles.com