As engineers, we often keep our head down, working hard to finish projects. It’s easy to lose track of what is happening in the world, let alone other industries, especially in human resources. 

But recently, there have been really interesting developments occurring in our neighbor (often office neighbors) industry that are starting to affect engineering more and more — and that change falls under people analytics.

I came across people analytics by chance: I love listening to audiobooks and podcasts on my drive to work, and I happened to find one that spoke about “personality metrics,” which is one type of people analytics. The specific personality metric that I first heard about was DiSC. I ended up paying the approximate $50 and took the full DiSC assessment, and was floored, a little creeped out, and pleasantly surprised by what I read. 

According to this assessment, I was a “high DC,” which equated to a “creative pattern” that according to DiSC means the following: “Creative patterns express themselves from opposing behavioral forces. They desire immediate results, yet have an equally strong desire for perfection. They will observe aggression and it will be tempered by sensitivity. They think and act quickly, yet will explore all options before making a decision.”