Personal Profile Analysis (PPA)
In just 8 minutes get insight into a person's behaviour at work
- Explore behavioural-fit
- Manage performance
- Improve communication
- Motivate and engage staff
- Identify areas for development
- Recruit the right person
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The Thomas Personal Profile Analysis (PPA)
The Thomas Personal Profile Analysis (PPA) provides information on an assessment taker's fears, motivators, values and behavioural style using four main profile factors: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance.
How Thomas' Personal Profile Analysis (PPA) works
In just 8 minutes, Thomas' PPA assessment provides an accurate insight into how people behave at work.
8 Minute Assessment
In just 8 minutes, Thomas' PPA test provides an accurate insight into how people behave at work, allowing you to gain greater certainty when recruiting and understand how to boost staff morale.
Detailed Profile
PPA tests provide you with an initial profile detailing a person's strengths and limitations, their communication style, their value to the business, what motivates them, their basic fears and how they behave under pressure.
Deep Insight
The Thomas PPA comes with a number of business-outcome focussed reports that you can use to match people to jobs, sift CVs, manage, coach, onboard and develop your people.
Assessment Information
- Assessment type: Behavioural profile
- Format: 24 questions
- Time to complete: 8 minutes
- Training required: None
Validation:
Registered with the British Psychological Society and audited against technical criteria established by the European Federation of Psychologists’ Associations
Click below to download a sample candidate profile from the Thomas Perform platform
Using the PPA has saved the business thousands by helping them to choose candidates who fit the roles better, stay longer, and are more productive.
Thomas Teams Report
The Thomas Teams Audit gives you insight that helps your teams perform to their maximum ability, and ensure that they are motivated and working towards a common set of goals – whether in a face-to-face, physical or hybrid environment.
Teams, used in conjunction with the Behaviour assessment, will help your teams to understand their combined strengths, limitations and the value that the team brings to the organisation. The insights it gives can:
- Boost the performance of your team through more effective management
- Help you to set a template of the ideal culture, roles and leadership style that your team needs to deliver its objectives
Thomas Teams provides you with a comprehensive report that can answer many questions such as:
- What role does each person play within the team?
- Where are the possible areas of limitation in the team?
- How can you address those limitations
- Are you playing to the strengths of each team member?
- Where could conflict be occurring?
- Is there a skills gap, and are there any training needs?
- What leadership style will best motivate and inspire the team towards high performance?
Background & Theory
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dr. Thomas Hendrickson developed William Moulton Marston’s DISC theory to produce the Thomas Personal Profile Analysis (PPA) for the work place.
Marston’s original theory viewed people behaving along two axes, with their attention being either passive or active, depending on the individual’s perception of their environment as either favourable or antagonistic. It was theorised that the way in which the individual interacts takes four basic directions: tendencies to dominate, influence, submit and comply.
The Thomas PPA describes 4 adapted behavioural factors. Each factor is seen as a scale of preference of style as perceived by an individual of his or her own behaviour in the workplace. The factors arise from different human needs, which result in habitual patterns of creating a characteristic “style”. These 4 factors are: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance.
Find out how you can get deep insight into your people’s behavioural styles and motivators with the Thomas Behaviour assessment factsheet
Format of the Thomas PPA test
When doing PPA testing, individuals are asked to choose 2 trait adjectives from a list of 4, one ‘most like’ and one ‘least like’ them. This process is repeated 24 times, giving 48 choices from a total of 96 words. An individual’s response patterns are then compared to themselves rather than the scores of a comparison group.
Thomas International have also developed the PPA+ format which is suitable for people with a reading age of 11+ and for candidates who are fluent in English but for whom English is not their first language.
Reliability & Validity
The Thomas PPA has been subject to rigorous scientific testing to determine its reliability and validity as a psychological assessment. The PPA is registered with the British Psychological Society (BPS) after it was audited against the technical criteria established by the European Standing Committee on Tests and Testing, part of the European Federation of Psychologists' Associations.
Unleash the power of your people with Thomas
Frequently Asked Questions
Thomas’ Personality Profile Analysis (PPA) is a personality test which enables employers to evaluate a candidates’ character traits in a more in-depth way to determine whether they will be a suitable fit for a role as well as how they prefer to communicate with others.
The Thomas PPA is a forced-choice questionnaire where candidates are shown short statements and are asked to choose two trait adjectives from a list of four, one ‘most like’ and one ‘least like’ them. An individual’s choice of adjectives reflects their behavioural tendencies and personality in a workplace setting.
From this, a personal profile is created around four traits: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance. These traits are ranked in order to form one’s unique character. The Thomas PPA only takes 8 minutes to complete.
The PPA is based on Marston’s DISC theory which classifies an individual’s behavioural preferences and splits them into four factors: Dominance (D), Influence (I), Steadiness (S), and Compliance (C).
While most people will show all four of these behaviour patterns at times, an individual will display one or more of them consistently in the workplace. This is because each person develops a behavioural style which places more emphasis on one preference and less emphasis on others.
The PPA provides a comprehensive assessment of an individual including their fears, motivators, values and behavioural style. It gives you insights into how someone is likely to perform under pressure, how they modify their behaviour in their current job and any frustrations or problems they may be facing.
The PPA can also be used as a tool to back up your recruitment decisions and identify behaviours that were not shown at the interview stage. Since the PPA makes employers aware of their employee’s work styles, it also improves people management through a greater understanding of why people behave the way they do.
