DISC assessments are powerful tools for career development and gaining self-knowledge. They improve teamwork, build workplace culture, and boost skills across multiple business functions.
The right DISC assessment can:
- give highly personalized insights around individual workplace preferences and strengths
- facilitate meaningful discussions between teammates, giving them the opportunity to explore differences and share experiences
- allow teams to identify current and future challenges and establish group norms to overcome them
When searching for where to take a DISC assessment, you’ll find numerous options at a variety of price points. You’ll even find some that are completely free. As a result, you may find yourself wondering, “Why would I pay for a DISC assessment when I can just take one for free?” This question is understandable, especially when you’re on a budget!
For individuals who simply want to try the test for fun, a free DISC test might be the right tool. It will give you a general idea of the traits associated with each DISC style. However, free DISCs fundamentally aren’t representative of the depth of information a DISC assessment can provide. They don’t offer detailed insights or information about how DISC can be applied in life and in the workplace.
On the contrary, paid Everything DiSC® assessments are backed by research, include detailed, personalized results, can be catered to your business needs, and offer tools for continued learning. Everything DiSC profiles have a 95% satisfaction rating among organizations.
Ultimately, paid Everything DiSC assessments generate a more robust ROI for your organization’s money and time. Read on to learn about the features that set Everything DiSC assessments apart and make them a better tool for helping you reach your business goals.
Everything DiSC® profiles have a 95% satisfaction rating among organizations.
DISC vs DiSC®
Because the basic concept of DISC is not copyrighted, anyone can use it to create an assessment. The suite of research-backed Everything DiSC® assessments uses a lowercase “i” to distinguish these products from others based on the general DISC model. Learn more about the differences between DISC and DiSC.
Are free DISC assessments accurate?
If you’re planning to use a psychometric testing tool in your organization, it’s important to find one that is backed by research. People don’t want their time wasted with a tool they can’t take seriously.
Some free personality testing tools are constructed like an online quiz. Everyone receives the same set of questions, and results that show you which style your answers resemble most closely with little additional analysis. While these are suitable for individuals who want to take these tests for fun, the process isn’t validated and doesn’t provide insights for individuals that wish to apply their results in a professional context.
In contrast, Everything DiSC assessments use sophisticated, well-researched testing methods to produce exceptionally precise results. Everything DiSC is backed by 40+ years of research-based assessment experience and 200+ years of publishing excellence at its parent company, John Wiley & Sons.
You can see the reliability of Everything DiSC in its excellent test-retest scores: When someone takes the assessment, then takes it again at a later time, how stable are the results? Reliability scores above .70 are considered good reliability. Everything DiSC assessments have a median test-retest reliability of .86.
The accuracy of Everything DiSC is also proven. People agree with the narrative descriptions of their styles 90% of the time.
Studies analyzing the validity of Everything DiSC assessments also show strong results. This basically means the test measures what it says it measures. Evaluation of the eight DiSC style scales strongly reflect the expected pattern of correlations.
Want to dig into the science a bit more? Here’s a 72-page validity research report for Everything DiSC (PDF).
In addition to the validity research mentioned above, each Everything DiSC product must achieve very high satisfaction scores in beta testing before it is offered for sale. For instance, Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict went through three full rounds of beta testing with nearly 14,000 participants and 250 facilitators before it launched.
Adaptive testing
Everything DiSC assessments use computerized adaptive testing to produce more precise results for assessment takers. A sophisticated algorithm analyzes a person’s responses to core questions, and asks questions based on those responses to get a more accurate depiction of their whole personality. This allows the test results to reflect all of their priorities, even if those priorities aren’t expected of their assigned DiSC style. In other words, adaptive testing delivers results far more complex than “You have a D style” and will identify priorities outside your dominant style.
Everything DiSC® profiles using adaptive testing are 12% more accurate than previous non-adaptive versions, and 32% more accurate than the 28-question DiSC Classic assessment.
Detailed results reports
When organizations introduce personality assessments as part of their professional development programs, assessment takers often have a lot of questions. “How does this apply to my work and life? Will people use my results to pigeonhole me? How can I use this information in my relationships with other people?”
Results from free DiSC assessments are not detailed enough to answer these kinds of questions. They offer only surface-level insights and aren’t tailored to the individual taking the test.
With Everything DiSC, nearly every page of the 20+ page profile report is tailored to the respondent. Both the content and the language used are personalized based on the person’s style and how they answered the questions. The testing and scoring model of Everything DiSC assessments accounts for all of a participant’s unique answers and ensures that those are reflected in the report.
The report offers information about the test taker’s style and the meaning behind their placement in the four quadrants. Participants will read about the priorities and needs that shape their workplace experience. The report also explains if there were priorities that fall outside the norms for their assigned style. It covers motivators, stressors, and how they can improve interaction with individuals in other style quadrants. To see how these elements come together and discover other portions of a report, you can view an Everything DiSC Workplace sample report on discprofile.com.
Non-judgmental language
Additionally, all Everything DiSC assessments share two core principles that prevent results from being misinterpreted or misused:
- All styles are valuable, and everyone is a blend of all four styles.
- Your work style is also influenced by other factors such as life experiences, education, and maturity.
Everything DiSC results reflect these principles by illustrating how participants are a blend of all styles. They avoid making learners feel pigeonholed by their styles and serve as a foundation for discussion about individual experiences that shape preferences.
Know and grow
Free online DISC tests are information focused, as they simply describe the learner’s style. On the other hand, Everything DiSC is development focused, and guides the learner through the process of developing stronger relationships. It goes far beyond description to give learners personalized, actionable goals and tips for reaching them to help build interpersonal skills in the long term.
This focus on behavior change and personal development is a key component of the increased ROI that comes from a paid DiSC assessment.
Products tailored to your goals
When selecting a DiSC assessment, it’s also important to ask why you’re investing in DiSC. Looking to improve how your sales team relates to customers and each other? Wanting to learn about more effective methods of interpersonal conflict resolution? Want to give participants an opportunity to learn more about themselves and their teammates? Everything DiSC has distinct assessments that are tailored to these specific needs, among others.
One key challenge that organizations across multiple industries are facing is a soft skills gap in new employees. Soft skills are the behaviors and traits that aren’t technical or job-specific but lead to more productivity and engagement at work. Examples include critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and time management. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the most in-demand soft skills include collaboration, problem solving, flexibility, and dependability. One of the benefits of an Everything DiSC assessment is that it gives learners the opportunity to learn about their soft skill strengths, gaps, and blind spots. Learners’ reports offer them concrete tips for developing soft skills that they might need when working with different kinds of people. It goes a step beyond simply developing soft skills, teaching learners how to read people and determine their preferences, and then adjust which soft skills they use when collaborating. This kind of skill development adds even more ROI to Everything DiSC assessments and programming.
Paid Everything DiSC assessments meet a much wider range of organizational needs than free assessments. This ensures that the money and time spent on your DiSC program produce insights that are immediately applicable to your teams and ultimately help them reach their goals. It increases the overall value of your program.
Interactive tools for continued learning
After taking a personality assessment, teams often ask, “That was neat, but now what?” We’ve all been in workshops and classes where we knew the material would never be used or applied in the future. This makes the experience less engaging and keeps us from buying in. If you’re looking to invest in a DiSC program, investing in options that promote continued application of the concepts will lead to a better learning experience.
Catalyst™ is Everything DiSC’s interactive learning platform that allows participants to continue to learn about themselves and their colleagues and explore ways to apply DiSC knowledge to their work beyond the initial session.
With the “Your Colleagues” feature, participants can view and read about their colleagues’ DiSC styles, preferences, and priorities. They can explore new ways to effectively collaborate and communicate with their coworkers. With the “Your Groups” feature, learners can create group maps and discover where their team members fall along eight different behavioral continua. Which team members tend to be more accommodating? Which ones tend to be more strong-willed? These kinds of insights can be valuable when organizations launch new projects or face new obstacles.
These tools for continued learning make the investment in DiSC last beyond one stand-alone session. They will help your learners use your DiSC program to make a real impact on workplace culture.
Conclusion
If you want to invest in a DISC program, purchasing Everything DiSC assessments is the way to implement a program that gives your participants all the benefits of DISC and maximizes your ROI. Everything DiSC assessments are backed by research. They come with highly personalized, detailed results, and offer learners opportunities for continued learning. These benefits don’t come with free DiSC assessments, but they are crucial to giving your participants precise results, actionable insights, and an energizing learning experience.
