Many employers throughout the world use an effective tool known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) as a way to gauge their workforces and advantageously place them into position on teams or throughout the company where they will be most effective. Based on their inputs, this psychological survey places individuals into four categories focused on their attitudes, perceptions, judgment, and lifestyles.

The uses of MBTI results can be used in almost every type of work. Employers can use the results for employee placement based on communication aptitude, ability to solve problems, marketing traits, and other important factors to building a productive workforce.

A common misconception of this test is that it measures the skills of the employee. The fact is that it does not. Instead, it is used to provide an image of the individual work preferences of an employee. Utilizing this data, employers can place workers into environments that are more fitting to their preference and the result is efficiency.

Using the four categories, employees can be broken into four key groups. Each of the four groups is further broken into two classifications, which are each given a single letter. The final results are published as a four character readout that breaks out each of the classifications of each category such as ENTP or ISFJ.

Category 1: Attitude. Attitude is broken into the subcategories extravert (E) and introvert (I). An extravert is expressive of their emotions, is very social, and works better when they are in groups. Opposite of extraverts are introverts, who prefer working alone and possibly in pairs. They have their own internal motivations and often keep their thoughts to themselves.

Category 2: Perceiving. Subcategories: Sensing (S) and Intuition (N). An employee that scores high in sensing desires to have solid facts and would like to have information given to them in pieces rather than all at once. Someone who has higher scores in intuition would rather be given the overall idea and are willing to experiment with new ideas and theories.

Once perceiving functions are established, judgment can be measured. Judgment is split into thinking (T) and feeling (F). People who are categorized as thinking use logic, reasoning, and set rules to solve a problem. People who are generalized as feeling are more adaptive to unfamiliar situations and do not usually require a set of conventional rules.

Category 4: Lifestyle. Subcategories: Judging (J) and Perceiving (P). Do not get these subcategories of lifestyle confused with categories one and two. A judging individual favors having everything set up for them by someone else. They want timelines and rules established for them. Most of them will take thorough notes and adhere to schedules and checklists. Perceiving individuals differ in that they are more spontaneous and work better when they do not have strict deadlines or rules. Because of this, they are far more flexible.

Using this data, employers can have a better picture of their employee and their individual preferences and working styles. They can take full advantage of this data and assign work and form teams accordingly, greatly improving workplace productivity. Regardless of the reasoning, the MBTI is a great tool for any employer.

INTJ Brazil is a multi-language forum that has followers around the globe, thanks to the Internet. Threads about MBTI is one example of a topic of interest to posters.