Focus Styles: how people work, in 13 minutes
Wave Focus Styles is a behavioral questionnaire that shows what drives each person, where they excel and where they need support. Use it to hire, onboard and develop professionals against one standard.
See how one questionnaire shapes the interview, the first weeks and every development conversation after
Detail, in minutes
Thirteen minutes for them. For you, a read on where they will excel and where they will need support, specific enough to take into the interview and their first onboarding conversations.
One standard throughout
Selection, onboarding and development on the same science.
Sharper interviews
Interview questions built from each candidate’s results.
Easy for anyone
Insight anyone in the business can pick up and use.
Candidate experience
Every candidate can receive their own feedback report.
Compared fairly
Norm groups from graduates to senior executives.
From one completion to action
We set it up around how you already work: run Focus Styles on Wave Connect, order reports on their own, or have results flow into your HR system.
People complete it online
Each person completes it online, rating and then ranking how they work. Combining both gives the score our research links most closely to performance, and shows where someone may have oversold themselves.
Each reader gets what they need
A hiring manager gets strengths and challenge areas they can use straight away, plus interview questions built from the results. A specialist goes deeper. The person themselves can receive a report on their own results.
Build stronger teams
See a whole team’s strengths, gaps and preferred roles in one view, in Wave Connect or as a group overview, so you can fix what is missing before it slows the team down.
Where teams use Focus Styles
It fits professional roles, wherever you need more than a screening read and less than a full day of assessment.
Professional hiring
Each shortlisted candidate gets a Targeted Interview Guide built from their results, so interviewers test the strengths the role needs and probe likely challenge areas. Once hired, the Onboarding Report guides the first conversations.
Professional development
Give each person their top eight strengths and bottom eight challenge areas, with practical advice on each. Managers and coaches get a plan for the conversation, so development starts from evidence.
Team development
Show which roles each person tends to take and how they combine, so you can see which roles nobody covers and plan the team around it.
Change and transformation
Show how each person handles change across four drivers: dealing with change, staying connected, enabling new ways of working and maintaining drive. Each gets practical advice for the change ahead.
What you can do with Focus Styles
One completion supports each of these moments, from the interview to a leadership review.
Run a sharper interview
Each candidate gets a Targeted Interview Guide built from their results, so every interviewer tests the priorities for the role and probes the real risks.
Choose between close finalists
When two finalists look the same on paper, the Expert Report shows where drive and self-belief part ways, giving you a clear reason to choose.
Protect your employer brand
Every candidate can get clear feedback on their strengths, so the people you turn down still leave with something useful and a better view of you.
Develop from day one
New starters and their managers get practical tips from week one. Development and Coaching reports then turn strengths and gaps into a plan to work from.
Close team gaps early
See which roles a team naturally fills, which nobody covers and who will find a change hardest, so you can plan support before work slips.
Catch leadership risk early
See which of nine risks a leader is most likely to show, how each could affect the team and the business, and practical steps to manage it.
Short, standard or comprehensive
About 6.5 minutes
The fast read for shortlisting at volume, when you need a consistent view of many people quickly.
About 13 minutes
For mid-level to senior professionals, in selection, onboarding and development, when you need detail without a long questionnaire.
About 35 minutes
The most detailed read, for professionals, leaders and executives, where the stakes of the decision are highest.
How Sodexo used Focus Styles through change
When the pandemic changed how Sodexo worked, 175 employees completed Wave Focus Styles and each received a report on how they handle change. The team then explored its group results together in an interactive session.
employees each received their own report
to explore the group’s results together
group results broken down for action planning
Calculate your ROI
Put in your own numbers and see what a better read on your people is worth before the cost of a wrong decision lands.
Fits into the systems you already use
Results flow into the HR system you already use.
Focus Styles questions
Short answers to what buyers ask before they choose it.
Wave Focus Styles is a short behavioral questionnaire that shows how a person is likely to work. It covers their motives, preferences and talents across four areas, Thought, Influence, Adaptability and Delivery, and is used for selection, onboarding and development.
About 13 minutes, online. That is short enough to use at any stage of hiring or across a whole team, and every report runs from the same completion.
Focus Styles is the shorter of our two detailed questionnaires. Professional Styles takes about 35 minutes and gives the most detail, for leaders and executives. Focus Styles has a validity of 0.44, keeping most of the predictive power in about a third of the time.
The Line Manager, Candidate, Coaching and Development reports are written to be used without specialist training. The Expert reports give the deepest detail, for people who interpret profiles in depth.
They can. The Candidate Report gives each person clear feedback on their strengths and preferences, and the Career Guidance Report shows how well they suit 12 broad career areas.
Per candidate, like our other assessments, with the reports at your level included. See how pricing works, or talk to us for a figure at your volumes.
See Focus Styles with your roles
Tell us which decisions you want to get right and we will show you the reports that fit.
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