Facet5 was developed by Norman Buckley and Rebekah Williams.

Norman Buckley graduated in psychology in Sydney and gained his initial experience with a consulting organisation in Australia. From 1978 he ran his own company in the UK, during which time he pioneered the use of custom-built assessment and development processes and worked extensively on biographical and personality data analysis. He then built on ten year’s research in personality theory by developing Facet5, which was the first major advance in personality assessment in the EU for a decade. In 1999 he returned to Australia and is now applying his experience in the Australian market through his own firm, Redfield Consulting. He continues to lead the development of Facet5 and is focused particularly on extending the range of national versions of Facet5 to take account of different cultural norms.

Rebekah Williams has a background in clinical psychology. She transferred to the field of business psychology in 1987 and completed a second Masters, in Organisational Psychology, at UMIST. She then worked as a consultant on major organisational change and restructuring programmes, developing specific expertise in the design and delivery of corporate climate surveys and team leader assessment and development programmes. Rebekah joined Redfield Consulting in 1996 to work on the development of a unique range of personal development processes. Redfield moved its operations to Australia in 2000 and Rebekah relocated to Sydney as a Director, where she continues to be involved in product development, training and consulting to a growing number of Australian clients. She travels extensively to support Redfield’s work in Europe, South America and the USA.

The first step in creating Facet5 was to review the relevant literature in order to define the domains to be covered and to review the existing questionnaires to establish their relative strengths and weaknesses. This produced a large selection of items for inclusion, which were repeatedly culled and refined in association with a team of psychologists and non-psychologists. This resulted in 106 items, upon which there was general agreement, being assembled for trial. The prototype questionnaire was then trialled in 1987-89 with around 4,500 British managers from a range of industries to produce a final version for commercial use. This produced the core Facet5 product and work has continued ever since on developing its application in the light of experience with more than 1,000,000 managers in over 20 countries.

For more on the development of Facet5 please download this extract from the User’s Manual.

For a full technical explanation of the Facet5 tools, download the technical review.

Facet5 has evolved over the last couple of decades into a highly-sophisticated yet very easy-to-use instrument – hence its popularity among user organisations in some twenty countries around the globe. Here is just a small selection of comments about the tool:

The Post Office
‘The Post Office Ltd has used Facet5 tests to assist with the creation of a new top management team. The results have been particularly helpful in avoiding dysfunctional recruitment, and in building a broadly-based supportive, non-overlapping, functional environment. We continue to use Facet5 in our recruitment and selection process and to assist with our ongoing management evaluation and training process.’
– David Mills, Chief Executive, Post Office Ltd

RS Components
‘I have been a Facet5 user for many years. I use it in preference to other psychometrics because it is quick to administer, straightforward to explain and very effective. As it is written in language that people can understand and identify with they quickly engage in the feedback process. RS uses Facet5 as a platform for discussion as part of the recruitment process, in development and assessment discussions and as part of 360 degree feedback.’
– Diane Knight, RS Components

Credit Suisse Private Banking
‘I have used Facet5 for about 15 years in three different companies. Having spent several years before that trying other tools, eg, 16PF, OPQ, etc, I found this to be the most accurate descriptor of likely behaviour. The other thing that I like about it is the degree to which the output is accepted by candidates. I have used it for team building, organisational re-structuring and appraisal purposes too. One time whilst working for an investment bank we profiled a whole department. They agreed with all the positives but would not initially accept any of the negatives. However, we then showed them the results of the company-wide 360 we had done on their function, which was virtually a repetition of all the Facet5 feedback. They were thus forced to confront areas of their way of working that they needed to change. I have also used it to quite dramatically cut down employee turnover rates by getting a better fit for the job.’
– Kath Rooney, Head of HR, Credit Suisse Private Banking