To succeed in any tough market, employers not only need employees who are committed to its vision, products and services, but they also need staff who can work together in harmony.

Getting this type of employee, and keeping him or her is the challenge facing employers today.

The Myers-Briggs personality test may be something that human resource managers are looking for to not only help them become better managers but to encourage better communication among employees. Managers from top U.S. companies are using the test as a tool for team-building and project improvement.

Myers-Briggs test
The tool, the MBTI, addresses four distinct preferences and organizes personality traits into 16 types.

These preferences are: introvertion-extrovertion; feeling-thinking; sensing-intuition; judgement-perception. According to the test, everyone has a personality type with four letters; for example, an accountant may be an ISTJ - introvert, sensing, thinking, judgement.

These personality types can tell an employer what type of person the employee is and how they interact with others (peers and managers). An employer can also discover what types of skills they bring to the table, how they work in a team situation, as well as what type of an environment an employee works best in.

This article offers advice on the following:

• Valuing the personalities of each employee
• Learning to communicate better with other personality types
• How to put together effective teams using personality type knowledge
• The risks and ethical considerations of using the test in the hiring process

HP Systems specializes in leader development, team development and emphasizes valuing people through the understanding of psychological type.

Thompson invented the CommunicationWheel, a widely-used tool that is used to help people learn how to speak others' personality "languages." There are four 'languages,' one for each type of major personality -- thinking, intuiting, feeling, sensing, Thompson explained.

"Everyone doesn't hear what we say the same way we say it, because they see the world through different lenses," Thompson said. "And very often, that is where conflict comes in."

Learning how to value each employee
Myers-Briggs personality types allow employers to see that an employee's talents should be treated as assets to be developed, leveraged and shared company-wide. By utilizing the information gleaned from the test, an employer can create a highly motivated work force capable of exceeding organizational objectives.

Thompson usually begins the training process by helping managers learn their own personality type and how this effects how they manage groups.

For example, if a manager is someone who tends to look at details instead of the big picture, oftentimes that manager will tend to suppress "Big Picture" personalities. Or vice versa. But if a manager can learn how to bring out the best in all personality types, the group will be much more effective and dynamic, Thompson said.

"We need both. The leader needs to draw those out," he said. "The big key is valuing those differences and capitalizing on them"

The accounting and high-tech industries are usually driven and task-oriented professions, he said. People can become second to the task that an employer is asking of their employees. This might bring about complaints, which the human resource manager must deal with.

Communicating with other personality types
Jeanette Meluch, associate professor of management development at the Management Institute of the University of Richmond has served as an MBTI consultant for a work environment similar to this one.

A manager of an architectural firm asked her for help: his employees had low moral and he was having a hard time at work. He was the type who didn't share information about himself, was not one for small talk and would not take the time to chat in the morning. He was considered an introvert. He told Meluch he just wanted to do his job quietly. He was very task-focused.

On the otherhand, when Meluch interviewed his employees, they said their boss was arrogant and did not give enough feedback. "All that is, is a Myers- Briggs difference," Meluch said.

She told him to take a minute to say hello in the morning and she told his employees that they needed to understand that everyone is not outgoing or likes small talk. "Both sides need to understand," she said.

Accountants are not all one personality type, Thompson emphasized. Accountants who tend to go out and interact with many people are probably extraverts; whereas, those who work by themselves or with limited persons are introverts. People tend to gravitate toward jobs that fit their personality type, which is why personality types are used in career counseling.

Putting your team together -- find different types, not identical
By using tests such as Myers-Briggs, a company can conduct a comprehensive assessment to determine style, motivation, values, skills, knowledge and barriers of its employees.

Employees benefit from this testing process because it helps them take full advantage of their skills, abilities and competencies. In addition, the test will also help test takers make notes of any impediments that may be preventing them from moving ahead in their work life.

Ultimately bringing together a group that reflects a cross section of the various preferences can enhance team building. The goals set by the manager for the group must be compatible with the people who will strive to meet them. Whatever the goals, they must be reachable.

Teams that have people who are alike in personality work faster but do not have the benefit of ideas from other personality types, Meluch said. On the otherhand, teams that have different types have more conflict in communicating but have more ideas.

"You don't want to keep duplicating yourself," Meluch said. Making teams up of different personality types gives you insight you would not otherwise get.

For example, managers who are extroverts may have a habit of not allowing others to talk in group situations. If you are this type of leader, then it is important to allow introverts to speak because oftentimes they have valuable input that will enhance decision making.

"Their silence doesn't mean they don't understand; they just might not have had time to process it," Meluch said. "The key to Myers-Briggs is you need the balance of all preferences."

Employee testing: putting the round peg in the round hole
Hiring new employees or promoting from within should not be a seat-of-the-pants decision and requires a tremendous amount of research and effort from the employer. Once a firm has pinpointed its requirements, it can choose from many avenues to hire the "right" employee.

An employer needs to outline the kind of skills required for each particular job. This knowledge will lead directly to the type of test to be used.

Although managers can learn how to use the Myers-Briggs personality indicator to become better managers, the test itself should never be used in the hiring process, Thompson said. Likewise, information about an employee's personality type should never go in a personnel file.

Lawsuits can arise when employers base a hiring decision on personality type. If the test is used for training purposes, it needs to be administered by someone who knows how to use it.

Different strokes for different folks
The concept of employee testing has been complicated by court cases, which have indicated that these tests have to relate to the job. This, however is open to interpretation. It is illegal to turn down a job applicant solely on the basis of type, experts on the test say.

For example, police officers have to go through an extensive battery of tests because psychological stability is relevant to the performance of the police officer. Psychologists encourage employers not only to look at the test results but also to look at a candidate's past work record and supervisory ratings from previous jobs.

"Unless you can prove the MBTI scores relate specifically to performance in a specific job, it would be unethical and unwise to hire on the basis of MBTI," wrote Mary McCaulley in the Bulletin of Psychological Types. "

Deborah G. Thompson, wrote in a 1997 Georgia Association for Psychological Type Newsletter: "The bottom line: While some careers seem to attract greater number of certain types, there is no evidence to indicate that any of the 16 types are capable of performing any jobs."

Making sure the test is administered correctly
If you are an employer who is thinking about utilizing employee testing, make sure you contact a reputable person who is trained and knowledgable in this filed. (The Myers Briggs Type Indicator is a finely tuned psychological instrument, which only trained, qualified individuals are allowed to purchase and administer).

Before any company chooses to go down the employee-testing avenue, they should know that one of the biggest problems associated with employee testing is that many employers believe that testing will enable them to make a quick decision. This could not be further from the truth.

The idea behind testing is not to help an employer make a quick decision, but to aid the employer in making a knowledgeable decision - putting the proverbial round peg in the round hole.

Yet many companies seem to know the power of using Myers-Briggs to bring out the best in their employees.

Meluch said many companies are using Myers-Briggs at all levels of a company, not just at the management or middle levels.

"It's not just for upper level, the more you can cascade it down, the more effective," she said. "It's not just for the elite, it's for everybody."