High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI) | Thomas.co

High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI)

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High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI)

Predict workplace success & get insight into strengths & weaknesses

  • Recruit smarter with people science
  • Improve interactions between individuals
  • Understand your peoples’ resilience
  • Increase manager & leader effectiveness
  • Better support wellbeing
  • Build more cohesive teams
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The Thomas High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI)

The HPTI gives you the people insights you need to make smarter recruitment decisions, protect your peoples’ wellbeing and improve business performance.

How the High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI) works

The HPTI is a workplace personality assessment grounded in the 'Big 5' model, assessing traits that predict job success and risk for derailment.

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Simple assessment

Within just 10 minutes of your candidate’s or employee’s time, you will gain a comprehensive insight into the suitability to a role.

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Detailed insight

Understand more about an individual’s openness to change, whether they thrive in competitive environments, how they adjust to stressful situations and whether they are more likely than others to strive for success.

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Robust science

Based on the globally recognised and respected Big Five psychological theory, it has been extensively validated and optimised for workplace applications following psychometric research with thousands of participants.

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Assessment Information

  • Assessment type: Personality
  • Format: 78 questions
  • Time to complete: 10 minutes
  • Training required: None

Validation:

The Thomas Personality assessment has been extensively validated and optimised for workplace applications following psychometric research with thousands of participants with the acquired data being subject to advanced statistical methods.

Click below to download a sample candidate profile from the Thomas Perform platform

Download example candidate profile

For our senior team members, who are highly skilled and experienced people, HPTI has helped to bring clarity to conversations on where to go next helping us to put leadership action plans in place.

Michela Deegan - Johnsons Workwear
Michela Deegan
Learning and Development Manager
Personality Background

Background & Theory

The High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI) was developed by Ian MacRae and Adrian Furnham at University College London (UCL) and High Potential Psychology Ltd.

The Thomas HPTI, now known as the Thomas Personality assessment, has been designed based on an ‘optimality’ model; this model assumes that a person’s personality traits can be considered ‘optimal’ based on the requirements of a particular job role or position, such as senior executive leadership.

The personality traits measured by the HPTI are as follows:

  • Conscientiousness
  • Adjustment
  • Curiosity
  • Risk Approach
  • Ambiguity Acceptance
  • Competitiveness

A person’s responses on the HPTI will be reflected back as a position on a continuum for each of the six traits, falling into one of four bandings: Low, Moderate, Optimal or Excessive. Too much or too little of a trait will have advantages as well as disadvantages. Certain trait levels can indicate a high potential to succeed, or potentially indicate characteristics that could derail an otherwise successful person.

Download the factsheet for more information on getting the best possible predictive insight into how well someone will fit a job role

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Personality Format

Format

The Thomas HPTI is a self-report questionnaire. Individuals indicate their level of agreement on a 1-7 Likert scale (1 ‘disagree completely’ to 7 ‘agree completely') with 78 unique items. The HPTI takes just 10 minutes to complete.

HPTI Validity

Reliability & Validity

The HPTI has been developed over many years in collaboration with experts, professionals and practitioners through research programmes and in collaboration with researchers at University College London and High Potential Psychology Ltd.

The HPTI has been extensively validated and optimised for workplace applications following psychometric research with thousands of participants with the acquired data being subject to advanced statistical methods.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI)?

The High Potential Trait Indicator (HPTI) is an assessment tool that helps identify employees with prospective leadership abilities and support those who are already in such positions.

What are the ‘Big 5 Personality Traits’?

The Big Five model of personality proposes that an individual’s personality can be measure along five main dimensions: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism.

Thomas’ HPTI is grounded in the Big 5 model but measures six personality traits: Conscientiousness, Adjustment, Curiosity, Risk Approach, Ambiguity Acceptance and Competitiveness.

How does the HPTI work?

The Thomas HPTI is a self-report questionnaire. Consisting of 78 questions, individuals indicate their level of agreement on a 1-7 Likert scale (1 ‘disagree completely’ to 7 ‘agree completely'). It takes just 8 minutes to complete.

A person’s responses on the HPTI are then reflected as a position on a continuum for each of the six traits, falling into one of four bandings: Low, Moderate, Optimal or Excessive.

What can the HPTI be used for?

HPTI has been designed specifically to help employers discover their next generation of leaders as well as support those already in those positions.

Many employers are looking to identify their talent and build strong succession plans. With HPTI, you can assess what skills your leaders need and identify where an individual's leadership strengths are and if there are any areas for improvement.

HPTI can also boost self-awareness and resolve skills gaps in leadership teams. By identifying those with strong leadership potential, the HPTI is able to help managers choose the correct individuals for leadership roles as well as pinpoint those appropriate for fast tracking.

The HPTI also assists with employee retention by helping top individuals progress to more advanced leadership positions that will suit their strengths and by showing that their employer has a vested interest in their development and understanding their approach to work.