Work Values & DriversAssessment
Work values are the personal preferences, beliefs and ideals people bring to a job — the things that make a role feel right, or wrong, well before performance is an issue. Our work values & drivers assessment surfaces what genuinely motivates a candidate, so you can hire for fit as well as capability.
What Are Work Values?
Work values are personal preferences, beliefs and ideals about work, distinct from personality traits or skills. Ros, Schwartz and Surkiss (1999) grouped them into three categories, and RightPeople's work values & drivers assessment is built to measure all three.
Intrinsic values
Internal principles that drive someone toward a role — for example, wanting a career that involves helping people.
Extrinsic values
Outcomes external to the individual, such as pay, job security or working conditions.
Social/relational values
Feelings and connections at work, such as good working relationships with colleagues and managers.
Why Work Values Matter
for Hiring
Alignment between a candidate's personal values and an organisation's values and role requirements is a key requirement for job satisfaction and performance. When values are mismatched, even a technically capable hire can disengage or leave within months.
Some values are easy to identify in an interview. Others are more abstract and don't surface until someone is already in the role — which is where formal work values assessment adds evidence an interview alone can't provide.
- Reveals what actually motivates a candidate's day-to-day decisions
- Flags values mismatches before they become retention problems
- Supports selection, career development and training decisions
- Backed by a registered organisational psychologist on every engagement
The Research Behind Values-Based Hiring
The link between values fit and workplace outcomes is well established in the organisational psychology literature, not just RightPeople's own framework. A widely cited meta-analysis by Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman and Johnson (2005), covering decades of studies, found that person-organisation and person-job fit reliably predict job performance, job satisfaction and organisational commitment.
The same body of research links poor fit to higher turnover intention — meaning a values mismatch that isn't caught at hiring tends to show up later as disengagement or attrition, not just underperformance.
- Job performance — values-aligned employees are consistently rated as stronger performers
- Job satisfaction — fit between personal and organisational values predicts satisfaction more consistently than most other selection measures
- Tenure — poor values fit is associated with higher turnover intention and earlier attrition
- Commitment — aligned values are linked to stronger organisational commitment over time
How Our Work Values & Drivers Assessment Works
RightPeople's work values & drivers assessment is an ipsative, forced-choice tool built on cross-cultural values research. It taps underlying motivators — including power, achievement and conformity — that drive workplace behaviour, and the results support job selection, career advancement and training decisions.
Personality assessment can supplement a work values assessment, but it cannot replace it — the two measure very different things. Personality describes how someone interacts with their environment and other people: traits such as extraversion (being outgoing and sociable) or conscientiousness (being organised and reliable). Values are more specific and based on beliefs rather than behaviour — a value such as needing security says little about personality, and could apply across a range of personality types.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is a work values assessment?
A work values assessment measures the values and drivers that motivate someone at work, such as achievement, autonomy or security. Unlike a personality test, it captures beliefs and preferences rather than behavioural traits, showing what genuinely drives a candidate's job satisfaction and performance.
What are the three types of work values?
Work values fall into three categories: intrinsic (internal principles, such as wanting to help people), extrinsic (external outcomes, such as pay or conditions) and social/relational (feelings, such as good working relationships), based on the framework by Ros, Schwartz and Surkiss (1999).
How is a work values assessment different from a personality test?
Personality describes how someone behaves — traits such as being outgoing or organised. Work values describe what someone believes matters, such as needing security or recognition. The two measure different things and work best together, since values assessment supplements personality assessment rather than replacing it.
Why should employers assess work values during hiring?
Employers assess work values because alignment between a candidate's personal values and an organisation's values and role requirements is a key driver of job satisfaction and performance. Some values are abstract and hard to identify through interviews alone, which is why formal assessment is used.
What format does RightPeople's work values assessment use?
RightPeople's assessment uses an ipsative, forced-choice format built on cross-cultural values research. It measures underlying motivators such as power, achievement and conformity, and the results support selection decisions, career development planning and training design.
How quickly can I get work values assessment results?
RightPeople delivers a rapid turnaround on work values assessment results, typically the same day, with a registered organisational psychologist available in Sydney to support interpretation and next steps.
Ready to Assess Work Values in Your Next Hire?
Speak with a registered organisational psychologist about adding work values & drivers to your assessment process.
