Скачать или смотреть The Workforce is Changing… But Should We Trust the Data? #70

Sylvia Olah’s article, "Forget Skills Gaps — We’re Facing a Personality Gap," argues that the average personality of the working-age population has significantly changed since 2014, impacting workplace dynamics. The article highlights a sharp decline in conscientiousness among younger adults, along with rising neuroticism and decreasing agreeableness and extroversion across various age groups, using data from the Understanding America Study. Olah contends that current Human Resources (HR) systems, including onboarding, performance models, and team design, are built for a workforce personality that no longer exists. She suggests that HR must adapt its strategies to address these personality shifts, such as providing more structured support for less conscientious individuals and fostering psychological safety for those with increased neuroticism. Ultimately, the piece emphasizes the need for HR to recognize these profound psychological changes to effectively manage and support the modern workforce.






BUT, before we panic about the personality shift…This chart is making the rounds, often presented as proof that today’s workforce is less disciplined, less cooperative, and less resilient than in the past.But personality traits — especially the Big Five — are largely genetic and generally stable. They don’t usually swing dramatically in just a decade. The original 2022 study on this topic found only tiny changes (effect sizes around d = .10), which is well within the range of methodological noise.So if we now see a sudden drop in conscientiousness, we should pause. Maybe the data is flawed. Maybe the methodology changed. Or maybe our long-held assumption about stable personality traits is wrong — in which case, we must ask why they were stable before and what’s different now.There are other plausible explanations:Expectation gap: Do lower scores reflect the feeling that too much is being asked compared with available resources?Declining optimism: Could declining optimism and self-efficacy be shaping self-assessments?Social mirroring: Are people echoing society’s negativity bias, leading to higher neuroticism and lower agreeableness and extraversion?Also note the narrative shift: for years the focus was on neuroticism. With little real movement there, the conversation has pivoted to conscientiousness — a post-hoc adjustment, not a pre-declared hypothesis.Bottom line: don’t accept this at face value. The questions matter as much as the answers. But if — for the sake of argument — we take the data as accurate, the implications for HR and the structure of work are significant.