When HEXACO Predicts Workplace Behavior Better Than Big Five

For most workplace questions — who will perform well, who will lead well, who will fit a role — the Big Five does the job. Conscientiousness predicts job performance across nearly every occupation. Extraversion predicts success in sales and leadership. Openness predicts adaptability in changing roles.

There is one domain, though, where the Big Five consistently underperforms. It is the domain where HEXACO was built to add value: ethical behavior at work.

What "counterproductive work behavior" is

Researchers use the term Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) to describe employee actions that harm the organization or its members. The umbrella covers:

• Theft and fraud
• Falsifying records
• Working while intoxicated
• Deliberate slowdowns or sabotage
• Bullying coworkers
• Discriminatory behavior toward colleagues
• Misuse of company resources

These behaviors are costly. They are also notoriously hard to predict from interviews and resumes. The question for personality science has been: which traits, measured before hire, predict who will engage in CWB after hire?

What the Big Five captures

The Big Five does predict some CWB variance. The two strongest predictors are:

• Low Conscientiousness — predicts most forms of CWB, especially the ones that look like negligence (missing work, slacking, ignoring rules)
• Low Agreeableness — predicts interpersonal CWB (bullying, conflict, hostility)

These effects are real and useful. A meta-analysis of personality and workplace deviance found Conscientiousness as the single strongest Big Five predictor, with correlations in the 0.20-0.30 range ¹.

The problem is the ceiling. After Conscientiousness and Agreeableness are accounted for, there is still substantial unexplained variance in CWB. Something else is operating that the Big Five does not measure well.

What HEXACO adds

The "something else" appears to be Honesty-Humility.

A 2005 study by Lee, Ashton, and de Vries gave participants both the Big Five and HEXACO assessments, then measured workplace delinquency and integrity-related outcomes. The headline finding: Honesty-Humility predicted workplace deviance better than any single Big Five trait, including Conscientiousness, in their sample ².

More striking, H-factor added predictive power even after Big Five Conscientiousness and Agreeableness were controlled for. The trait captures variance the Big Five does not.

A 2008 review by Marcus, Lee, and Ashton extended the finding across multiple samples and measurement approaches. The pattern held: when the outcome involves rule-breaking, fraud, or exploitation of the organization, HEXACO Honesty-Humility is the strongest single predictor ³.

Why this happens

The mechanism is straightforward in retrospect. Big Five Conscientiousness measures self-discipline, organization, and follow-through. A person can be highly disciplined and organized while also being willing to bend rules for personal gain. Conscientiousness does not separate these.

Honesty-Humility measures, directly, the willingness to exploit others or violate rules even when no one is watching. That is exactly the disposition that predicts white-collar deviance. The Big Five gets at it indirectly. HEXACO gets at it head-on.

A practical example: a salesperson with high Conscientiousness and low Honesty-Humility might be reliably productive — and also willing to misrepresent products, double-bill clients, or shade their numbers. The Big Five profile looks good. The HEXACO profile catches the risk.

What this means for hiring

For most roles, Big Five Conscientiousness remains the most valuable single hire-time predictor. It correlates with job performance across nearly every occupation studied.

For roles where the cost of ethical violations is high — fiduciary positions, roles with cash handling, positions of significant trust, leadership positions — HEXACO Honesty-Humility may add predictive value beyond the Big Five alone. The size of the added value depends on the role and the population, but it is consistently above zero.

The honest framing: HEXACO is not better than the Big Five for hiring in general. It is better for predicting a specific category of outcomes that matters in specific roles.

What this means for self-knowledge at work

For an employee thinking about their own workplace tendencies, the H-factor is the trait that names something most personality tests gloss over: how a person relates to rules, fairness, and the temptation to game systems.

A few patterns worth knowing:

Low H, high C is a common and slippery profile. The person looks reliable. The temptation to cut ethical corners exists, and the discipline to act on it is there. This is the profile most often associated with white-collar deviance in the research.

High H, low C can struggle in different ways — missing deadlines, losing track of details — but the person is unlikely to engage in deliberate workplace deviance. The risk is negligence, not exploitation.

Low H, low A is the profile most closely associated with interpersonal conflict at work, including bullying and harassment. Both traits contribute.

High H profiles tend to feel friction in workplaces that reward strategic deception, status games, or aggressive self-promotion. The trait is an asset in some cultures and a tax in others.

The limits

A few honest caveats.

Self-report has limits for low-H prediction. A person with low Honesty-Humility may, by definition, be willing to misrepresent themselves on a personality test. The trait still predicts behavior because most people answer roughly honestly even when the trait would lean them toward not — but the effect is smaller than for traits like Conscientiousness, where there is less incentive to fake.

Single-trait hiring is not advisable. No personality trait predicts behavior strongly enough to be the only screen. HEXACO Honesty-Humility adds incremental value to structured interviews, work samples, and background checks. It does not replace them.

Cultural context matters. What counts as "deviant" in one workplace may be normal in another. The trait predicts violation of norms; the norms vary.

For the specific question of "who is willing to exploit a workplace situation when the chance arises," though, HEXACO is the cleanest personality answer the field has produced.

Take the HEXACO version of the assessment (12 min, free) →

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