WORKPLACE BIG FIVE PROFILE®
The validated Five-Factor assessment built for workplace decisions.
The WorkPlace Big Five Profile® measures 5 supertraits and 23 subtraits on the Five-Factor Model—continuous traits, not categories, applied to workplace decisions and used in 28 countries across 40+ years.
What is the WorkPlace Big Five Profile®?
The WorkPlace Big Five Profile® is an application of the Five-Factor Model—the framework recognized as the scientific standard in personality research—built specifically for the workplace. It measures each person on continuous scales across 5 supertraits and 23 subtraits, then interprets those results against the demands of actual work: how people focus, decide, collaborate, and respond to pressure.
It takes about 15 minutes and is administered by Paradigm.
What does it measure?
Five supertraits, each supported by a set of subtraits (23 total) which provide additional, actionable detail. Paradigm uses workplace-specific names for several supertraits; the underlying constructs align with the recognized Five-Factor dimensions.
Five-Factor Model: Emotional Stability
WorkPlace Big Five term: Need for Stability
What it describes at work: How a person responds to pressure and stress
Five-Factor Model: Extraversion
WorkPlace Big Five term: Extraversion
What it describes at work: How a person tolerates sensory stimulation from people and situations
Five-Factor Model: Openness
WorkPlace Big Five term: Originality
What it describes at work: A person’s appetite for novelty, ideas, and change
Five-Factor Model: Agreeableness
WorkPlace Big Five term: Accommodation
What it describes at work: How a person balances their own needs against others’
Five-Factor Model: Conscientiousness
WorkPlace Big Five term: Consolidation
What it describes at work: How a person orients toward goals, structure, and follow-through
Paradigm focuses interpretation and exercises on the 23 underlying subtraits because they provide specific, targeted grounds for actionable insights and workplace alignment.
Why does the instrument use continuous traits instead of categories?
Continuous scores support nuanced comparisons. A number on a scale can be tracked over time and compared across people in ways a category cannot. Category labels resist that kind of comparison: two people in the same box can be quite different, and the box itself carries no information that scales up.
What makes it a workplace instrument rather than a general personality measure?
Paradigm also maintains separate normative samples for the instrument, drawn from working populations. For the U.S. sample specifically, age and gender composition is selected to reflect the demographic structure of the U.S. workforce, using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data as the benchmark.