What is openness to experience? It is one of the elements in the ‘Big Five’, and a very important one at that. When building your team of employees, you want more than team players. You want a team of employees that can evolve and grow with your business. Hiring employees who are comfortable with change and new experiences can be critical for healthy business growth. Even past that; the more inclined your staff is to being open to new experiences, the more confidence you as a business owner will have to allow them to help you grow your business. Openness to experience displays the ability to be flexible enough to quickly learn and understand tasks.
Openness to experience has been heavily associated with quality of life, level of happiness, and an overall positive affect. Imagine a work environment with a high level of happiness simply because your team was open to, and accepting of new challenges.
But what methods can you use to discover whether the employees you may be hiring are capable of being open to new experiences? A valuable method is pre-employment testing.
Pre-employment testing can give you an accurate read into the future candidate’s willingness to be open to experiences, allowing you to put the perfect team together. Think about this fact when you are considering openness to experience and the Big Five: 66% of companies surveyed in 2014 said a bad hire has cost them between $25,000 and $50,000. That simple fact is your bottom line.