Personality and Job Performance of Frontline Employees: A Meta-Analytic Review

Trends in personnel management of frontline employees’ (FLEs) imply that “soft skills” related to personality may be hardest to replace by technological advancements and, thus, become increasingly important. Building on the five-factor model (FFM) of personality, the present research therefore aimed at clarifying meta-analytically the role of personality for explaining FLEs’ job performance. Analyses covered 31 to 55 studies per FFM dimension (N = 6,514 to 10,139). It was found that all five dimensions showed moderate and generalizable relations either to subjectively, or to objectively, measured performance in sales jobs, whereas results were more mixed in non-sales jobs. We also found some evidence of positive time trends of validities. Theoretical and managerial implications include shifting the focus to (1) narrower and more job-related traits, (2) identifying more homogeneous clusters of non-sales jobs, (3) studying more complex personality performance relations, and (4) further monitoring time trends related to technological changes.