Competency model for 360 degree feedback

Posted by Tanuj , Labels: , Thursday, October 28, 2010 8:11 PM

COMPETENCY MODELS FOR 360 FEEDBACK SURVEYS

The first thing to decide is whether you want to work from an existing competency model or develop your own. Resist the temptation to re-invent the wheel. Many companies spend a great deal of time and effort creating a "unique" competency model for their 360 degree feedback program which ends up looking quite similar to our existing competency model.

If you will use 360 feedback surveys on a limited basis in your organization, consider using an existing competency model, perhaps with some minor adjustments to the evaluation form as needed.

For a company-wide 360 degree feedback program, you may want to spend some time developing a more unique competency model that incorporates your organization's leadership model and core values as well as the behaviors and performance standards that are expected of all employees.



Establishing the Core of your 360 Competency Model

Some aspects of your competency model will be the same for all employees, regardless of function or level within the organization. Call this your "core". The core of your 360 survey will include the following:

Items related to company values, mission, and vision

Competencies and expectations that apply to all employees, from the CEO down to the individual contributor.

Many competencies or behavioral categories will apply to employees at all levels, but the specific behaviors in each area will often differ. For example, "Interpersonal Skills" are important for everybody, but the expectations and requirements related to "Interpersonal Skills" will be quite different at different levels in the organization.

Other competencies will only be relevant at certain levels. For example, "Building Talent" is an important area for mid-level management and above, but not at all relevant to non-managers.

Beyond the Core

It is less important to distinguish between functional area, especially for mid-level management and above. Focus on identifying 3 or 4 distinct vertical levels within your organization. For example:

1. Senior Leaders
2. Mid-upper Managers
3. Lower-level / First-line Managers
4. Individual Contributors (Non-managers)

For each of the 3-4 levels, the competency model will start with the "core", but also include the specific behaviors needed to succeed at each level.

Remember - don't reinvent the wheel. As you develop your competency models, reference our standard competency model as it will help you fill in the gaps as you create your own. The top-level categories will be based on statistical analyses and field experience. They are:

- Knowledge/Strategic
- Character
- Interpersonal
- Innovation/Change
- Building Talent
- Leadership/Motivation
- Execution

Different Competencies for People at Different Levels

If you are developing a 360 survey that will be used by people at different levels within your organization, the mix of categories and items will vary quite a lot across the various levels. It might help to think about the different levels in terms of the requirements for success in the following three areas:

Vision, Strategy, Inspiration

- Upper levels should include a lot of detail in this area.

- Middle levels should include some items in this area, but not too many. This is an opportunity to help people see what they will need to succeed at the next level, and also an opportunity for you to identify high potentials for promotions. Some degree of inspiring and motivating is relevant for anybody in a management role.

- Lower levels, especially individual contributors, should not include items in this area.



Teambuilding and Relationship Building

Upper levels should include a lot in this area, but some of the things that are included for mid-level might be excluded here. You do not have to be as thorough with regard to basic skills. Instead, focus more on support and relationship building at a higher conceptual level, and creating strategic alliances with other parts of the organization.

Middle levels should include a lot of detail in this area with regard to people-skills, team management, and fostering team effectiveness.

Lower levels should include a reasonable amount here, but look for areas that don't include things that are only relevant for higher levels. Include things related to working with others, cooperating, listening, and supporting team efforts.


Task Management and Execution

Upper levels should include items that are more focused on achieving results - they would not have reached the upper level if they had not been successful at the basic skills when they were at a lower level.

Middle levels should include quite a lot here, but some of the most basic items could be excluded.

Lower levels should include a lot in this area, focusing on the basic, fundamental skills of task management and job performance.

When you are finished, you will have 3-4 competency models along with a list of survey categories and items for each one. By following these steps, you will have a vertically integrated approach that uses a common core across all levels, but that also maps out a progression from the bottom of the organization to the top.


Here is an example of how a specific category might apply across all levels of the organization, but vary in its nature, depending on level:

Teamwork

Upper Levels

Encourages cooperation and collaboration between business units
Establishes partnerships at all levels to achieve results

Middle Levels

Resolves conflicts among team members
Sets clear, achievable goals for all team members to follow

Lower Levels

Works effectively to achieve team goals
Cooperates effectively with team members

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What Engagement Means for learning leaders

Posted by Tanuj , Labels: , , Thursday, October 21, 2010 4:46 PM

What Engagement Means for Learning Leaders
by Daniel Margolis | Chief Learning Officer
 
Employee engagement is often thought of as more of a talent management issue than a learning and development one, a variable ultimately facilitating productivity and retention. But according to Gershon Mader, who, with co-authors Josh Leibner and Alan Weiss, wrote the book The Power of Strategic Commitment: Achieving Extraordinary Results Through Total Alignment and Engagement, engagement has a crucial takeaway for organizational learning and development, as it allows learning programs to thrive via a environment where innovation is encouraged and workforce buy-in is more total.
 
To develop this sort of environment, Mader stressed the importance of not just bringing about an open organizational culture but also tearing down hierarchical divisions that may exist in companies.
 
"Making sure that you're creating an environment that does cultivate innovative thinking, where people do feel that no matter where they are in the organization chart - the hierarchy of things - that if they've got some brilliant thoughts and ideas they are able to voice them, be considered, and even influence things through them, that becomes even more critical in a learning organization where the ability to think freely and innovatively is quite often key to success and the quality of programs," Mader said.
 
"There is a lot of frustration as you go further down in an organization," he said. "There is a frustration among the lower ranks that their value is based on their rank and that [for] someone who is on a lower level but has some really brilliant ideas, it's more difficult to be heard, to make a difference, to contribute. And when people are in that kind of environment, after a while, they quite quickly become resigned about all that stuff and they go into [a mode of] going through the motions - doing the minimum that's required - and it definitely has an effect of lower-quality learning programs."
 
Mader also stressed the importance of leading by doing with respect to engagement. "Any learning organization needs to be a demonstration of whatever it's teaching," he said. "And often there's a dissonance there. Organizations are widely criticized [for] not doing some of the stuff that they are preaching down to organizations, and therefore they lose their credibility and ability to make a difference."
 
Mader, Leibner and Weiss have developed the following employee engagement dos and don'ts:
 
Do:
 
a) Actively ask for input from all departments and levels.
b) Promote and incorporate others' ideas.
c) Ask your staff what they would start, stop or continue doing in your position.
d) Routinely balance out your meetings by discussing both strategic and tactical issues.
 
Mader spoke to the learning benefits of this kind of inclusiveness. "The products and the services that learning organizations produce need to make a difference with different customer bases," Mader said. "The more the organization really engages its stakeholders and customers upfront to make sure that what they're designing and doing is really in sync with the needs, priorities and commitments of other departments, the more powerful what they're creating will be."
 
Don't:
 
a) Make strategic development an exclusive club limited to the higher-ups.
b) Stifle strategic thinking by not being open to and acting on others' feedback.
c) Try to maintain control by micromanaging.
d) Solely focus on an encourage tactical thinking in meetings.
 
According to Mader, such missteps mean a great deal of missed opportunities. "A lot of experience, expertise [and] ideas don't get invited to these conversations, even though [the employees] and their superiors know that that's probably a wise thing to do," he said. "It produces resentment [and] frustration [and] goes into people going through the motions, getting more in a mode of compliance."
 
This, Mader cautioned, is the ultimate result of neglecting employee engagement: people mentally "checking out."
 
"Then you've got highly skilled, knowledgeable and passionate people who don't bring their heart to the game; they don't bring the passion," he said. "They'll sit in meetings and pick their battles, not bring up innovative thoughts, definitely not stuff that they would think may not be accepted, would be outside the box or outside of the common way of thinking - outside the way they access or evaluate what their boss or boss' boss likes or doesn't like. So there will be no productive, constructive conflict in the organization, creative conflict. It'll be more like a yes-man kind of mentality, where people follow [and] say the right things, what they know will be accepted. In essence, it weakens the organization."
 
 
[About the Author: Daniel Margolis is a managing editor for Chief Learning Officer magazine.]

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Lessons From 'Outsources'

Posted by Tanuj , Labels: , Sunday, October 17, 2010 5:20 PM

by Deanna Hartley | Talent Management
The global nature of business today oftentimes entails overseeing teams comprised of foreign nationalities – a reality that has spawned “Outsourced,” an NBC sitcom that documents the journey of a manager whose department gets outsourced to India.
“I worry about people seeing the show. Because it’s in India, they somehow would think there are different rules in India about managing human behavior – and there aren’t,” said Aubrey Daniels, author of Oops! 13 Management Practices That Waste Time and Money.
The core management principles that enable employees to perform effectively are the same, regardless of geography, he explained. Bosses on shows such as “The Office” and “Outsourced” amuse audiences because they are often clueless as to why they can’t influence their direct reports to behave in certain ways. According to Daniels, this is because they take a one-size-fits-all approach to workforces.
“Any time you try to reinforce everybody with the same thing – whether it’s something you say or something you give them – you’re going to be in trouble, because what’s positive to one may be negative to another,” he said. “In ‘Outsourced,’ there are going to be lots of occasions like that, where the American is going to try to reinforce everybody with ‘steaks [are] on me’ – and that may not go over very well.”
Here are a few tips for managers of global – or even local – teams to improve performance.
1. Learn employees’ positive reinforcers.
“You could pat somebody on the back and not increase whatever they’re doing, so that would tell you that’s not a reinforcer,” Daniels said. “We need to look at behavior to see the impact of what we do. If I’m going to have a good relationship with you, then I’m going to have to pay attention to you; I’ve got to watch your behavior and how you respond to things I do.”
In an organization, this may entail setting up candid one-on-one meetings with direct reports.
“We sit down with [the employee] and say, ‘Tell me what’s important to you, what you’re trying to accomplish here. Why did you come to work here? What do you want to accomplish for yourself short term and long term?’” he said.
Doing so not only empowers the individual to contribute his or her best to the organization, but also helps managers develop a good working relationship with direct reports.
2. Pinpoint behaviors that add value.
Throwing out ambiguous statements, such as ‘We want you to take more initiative,’ doesn’t serve to improve employee performance, Daniels explained.
“We want to determine what drives the result we’re trying to accomplish, and we find over and over again that managers don’t know what it is, as basic as that seems,” he said.
For this reason, it would behoove managers to pinpoint behaviors that add value and be specific when communicating them to their direct reports. In a sales situation, it may be setting up meetings with prospective customers, writing proposals, etc.
3. Graph employee progress.
Graphic feedback – or feedback plotted on a graph or chart of some sort – allows managers to track the progress of individuals or groups, Daniels explained.
“The value of a graph is you can see small changes in behavior, which allows you many more opportunities to reinforce them than if you’re not tracking it,” he said. “Other people seeing that can comment on how well you’re doing, so you can get social reinforcement as well as reinforcement from the boss.
For example, graphically tracking the frequency of customer contact in a given week may help a bank strengthen its relationship-banking efforts.
4. Reinforce behaviors that contribute to progress.
Tangible business results aren’t immediately obvious. For example, it may take the aforementioned bank a month to begin to detect an increase in sales.
“The problem is, if you didn’t get some form of recognition for the effort you were making in contacting the customers, then in four weeks your effort would diminish because the results are lagging the behavior,” Daniels said. “If you know that contact with customers is going to increase sales, then your job as a manager or supervisor is to make behaviors get enough reinforcement to keep them going until such time as they begin to see [an] increase in sales.”
5. Celebrate results.
Managers typically commend their teams for a job well done by calling them together, telling them how well they performed and providing something tangible, such as cash incentives or time off.
“We talk about a celebration as an opportunity to relive an accomplishment,” he said. “The celebration should be employees talking about what they did to create that result. That’s their reinforcement because it allows management to see how smart they are, how hard they worked, how difficult it was, etc.”

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Ready Set Innovate

Posted by Tanuj , Labels: , Monday, October 11, 2010 1:02 PM

Innovation sits at the top of most corporate priority lists today. Faced with a challenging business environment, bosses want more creative products, ideas and solutions to remain competitive. But when it comes to making innovation happen, most simply don't have a clue.
 
Many employees simply shut down and eventually stop trying to come up with new ideas and products, said Josh Bernoff, co-author of Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers and Transform Your Business. The cause for their lethargy? A lack of tools to make innovation happen and managers who, often despite good intentions, obstruct their ability to develop new ideas.
 
"Then the CEO says, 'How come nobody in our company comes up with any ideas?' You've trained them that's a bad idea," Bernoff said. "That's a bad thing if they come up with an idea. If they ever did, they certainly wouldn't tell you."
 
The key to making innovation happen isn't setting the direction or making sure that innovation is a priority, it's ensuring that all employees, especially those on the front line, are empowered to solve customer problems. So why aren't companies doing it? It strikes right at the heart of how companies are run, he said.
 
"You can build a strategy around empowering employees to solve customers' problems - but it will challenge your organization from the inside," Bernoff said. "Freeing employees to experiment with new technologies, to make high-profile decisions on the fly, to build systems that customers see, and to effectively speak to the organization in public is not something most corporations or government agencies are accustomed to doing."
 
Open Up Management and Technology
 
Idea generation and innovation are simply not aligned with most employees' goals and daily responsibilities. Traditionally, most strategy comes down from above and managers spend their time telling workers what their jobs are and, in many cases, how to do them. IT departments don't help, either. According to Bernoff, more than one-third of workers are using technology that is not sanctioned by their company for their job, such as downloaded software or online social networking sites.
 
"Consumers these days are so empowered with technology, they move so rapidly, change the technologies they're using - whether it's mobile, video, social - that you really can't serve their needs with a top-down organization anymore," Bernoff said. "The same technologies that are empowering consumers are also empowering employees. It's really easy and cheap now to sign up for Twitter, to start a customer community, even build a mobile site."
 
"You can't succeed unless you encourage them, support them and manage that as opposed to squash it, shut it down and tell them it's not permitted."
 
Find and Celebrate HEROs
 
It's a common misconception that organizational change needs to start at the top in the lofty reaches of the corporate C-suite.
 
"Change actually starts from the bottom," Bernoff said. "You just need to find one of these projects and do what's necessary to clear the obstacles out of the way."
 
Talent managers play an important role by locating what Bernoff calls HEROs - highly empowered and resourceful operatives. When they find them, managers should elevate their visibility by giving them awards and recognition and communicating the results of their innovations so the rest of the workforce understands the company supports their initiative.
 
"That goes a long way," Bernoff said. "People look at that and say, 'You know what, if he can do that, maybe I can do that, too.'"
 
Companies can begin to break down the barriers to innovation by starting small. It's a bad idea to start with the company's biggest product or biggest customer group. Bernoff recommended starting with something that is not so risky.
 
"So just like anything, these things can pick up speed," he said. "The people who build these projects - these HEROs - they become important in identifying how to change the company. You want to put in processes that support innovation in a more deliberate way. If I have an idea, what should I do? You can put a process in place where that can go through and get evaluated."
 
Bernoff points to power tool maker Black & Decker as an example of how empowered employees with the right tools can make a difference. Rob Sharp, head of sales training for Black & Decker, gave Flip video cameras to salespeople and asked them to record ideas from the field. This simple idea quickly generated sales tips and helped the sales team work more efficiently.
 
"They have cut the amount of training down from two weeks to just a few days in the office because they say to trainees, 'Before you come in here, go over here and look at these videos, and then when you come in, we'll be ready to go,'" Bernoff said.
 
While empowering employees is key, it's important to get managers to understand how to do it.
 
"You have to tolerate some failures," Bernoff said. "You need to look at your job as being to clear away obstacles. These things typically reach across boundaries and raise all sorts of questions that a person doesn't typically come up with. That sort of discipline and management is a little different.
 
"If your problem is that you don't trust the customer service people to do their jobs and that if you give them access to these tools, they'll be fooling around all day long, that's management problem. That's not a technology problem."
 
 
[About the Author: Mike Prokopeak is editorial director for Talent Management magazine.]

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360 Degree feedback

Posted by Tanuj , Labels: , Wednesday, October 6, 2010 8:09 PM

360 DEGREE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

360 degree feedback, also known as 'multi-rater feedback', is the most comprehensive appraisal where the feedback about the employees’ performance comes from all the sources that come in contact with the employee on his job.

360 degree respondents for an employee can be his/her peers, managers (i.e. superior), subordinates, team members, customers, suppliers/ vendors - anyone who comes into contact with the employee and can provide valuable insights and information or feedback regarding the "on-the-job" performance of the employee.



360 Degree Feedback is a system or process in which employees receive confidential, anonymous feedback from the people who work around them. This typically includes the employee's manager, peers, and direct reports. A mixture of about eight to twelve people fill out an anonymous online feedback form that asks questions covering a broad range of workplace competencies. The feedback forms include questions that are measured on a rating scale and also ask raters to provide written comments. The person receiving feedback also fills out a self-rating survey that includes the same survey questions that others receive in their forms.

Managers and leaders within organizations use 360 feedback surveys to get a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. The 360 feedback system automatically tabulates the results and presents them in a format that helps the feedback recipient create a development plan. Individual responses are always combined with responses from other people in the same rater category (e.g. peer, direct report) in order to preserve anonymity and to give the employee a clear picture of his/her greatest overall strengths and weaknesses.

360 Feedback can also be a useful development tool for people who are not in a management role. Strictly speaking, a "non-manager" 360 assessment is not measuring feedback from 360 degrees since there are no direct reports, but the same principles still apply. 360 Feedback for non-managers is useful to help people be more effective in their current roles, and also to help them understand what areas they should focus on if they want to move into a management role.


360 degree appraisal has four integral components:

1. Self appraisal
2. Superior’s appraisal
3. Subordinate’s appraisal
4. Peer appraisal.

Self appraisal gives a chance to the employee to look at his/her strengths and weaknesses, his achievements, and judge his own performance. Superior’s appraisal forms the traditional part of the 360 degree performance appraisal where the employees’ responsibilities and actual performance is rated by the superior.

Subordinates appraisal gives a chance to judge the employee on the parameters like communication and motivating abilities, superior’s ability to delegate the work, leadership qualities etc. Also known as internal customers, the correct feedback given by peers can help to find employees’ abilities to work in a team, co-operation and sensitivity towards others.



Self assessment is an indispensable part of 360 degree appraisals and therefore 360 degree Performance appraisal have high employee involvement and also have the strongest impact on behavior and performance. It provides a "360-degree review" of the employees’ performance and is considered to be one of the most credible performance appraisal methods.

360 degree performance appraisal is also a powerful developmental tool because when conducted at regular intervals (say yearly) it helps to keep a track of the changes others’ perceptions about the employees. A 360 degree appraisal is generally found more suitable for the managers as it helps to assess their leadership and managing styles. This technique is being effectively used across the globe for performance appraisals. Some of the organizations following it are Wipro, Infosys, and Reliance Industries etc.

Companies typically use a 360 feedback system in one of two ways:

1. 360 Feedback as a Development Tool to help employees recognize strengths and weaknesses and become more effective

When done properly, 360 is highly effective as a development tool. The feedback process gives people an opportunity to provide anonymous feedback to a coworker that they might otherwise be uncomfortable giving. Feedback recipients gain insight into how others perceive them and have an opportunity to adjust behaviors and develop skills that will enable them to excel at their jobs.


2. 360 Feedback as a Performance Appraisal Tool to measure employee performance

Using a 360 degree feedback system for Performance Appraisal is a common practice, but not always a good idea. It is difficult to properly structure a 360 feedback process that creates an atmosphere of trust when you use 360 evaluations to measure performance. Moreover, 360 feedback focuses on behaviors and competencies more than on basic skills, job requirements, and performance objectives. These things are most appropriately addressed by an employee and his/her manager as part of an annual review and performance appraisal process. It is certainly possible and can be beneficial to incorporate 360 feedback into a larger performance management process, but only with clear communication on how the 360 feedback will be used.


360 Feedback Survey Measures..

- The behaviors and competencies
- 360 assessments provide feedback on how others perceive an employee
- 360 feedback addresses skills such as listening, planning, and goal-setting
- A 360 evaluation focuses on subjective areas such as teamwork, character, and leadership effectiveness

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The ins and outs of leave travel allowance

Posted by Tanuj , Labels: , Friday, October 1, 2010 9:44 PM

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.
— G K Chesterton
To be in sync with the quote, which expresses the importance and pleasure of exploring your own country, the government too wants to promote inland tourism. Accordingly, it has provided for tax benefits in respect of leave travel allowance (LTA) received from your employers.
Here, I will explain the present provision of LTA.
This tax benefit is available only to employed persons, not to self-employed ones. You can claim tax benefits on the LTA received from your present or past employer on fulfillment of certain conditions.

The exemption can be claimed under two conditions — first, you can claim it when you are continuing in your present employment and proceed on leave to any place in India.

The other condition is when you travel to any place after
your retirement from the services or on termination of services.
This benefit on retirement can be claimed every time you leave one employment and move to other location to take up another employment. So the retirement for this purpose not only includes the mandatory retirement on reaching the age of superannuating, but also includes leaving one employment to take up another employment at different location.
For whom you can claim LTA? You can either travel alone or with your family. However, no LTA benefit can be claimed for your family if it travels without you.
Moreover, you need to be on leave on the days of travel. You cannot claim the benefits of LTA in respect of your spouse or children if you take them along with you on your official trip, this is when you are not on leave.
Family for the purpose of claiming LTA exemption includes spouse, children whether dependent on you or not and parents, brothers and sisters who are wholly or mainly dependent on you.
The income-tax law provides that you can claim this LTA exemption benefit in respect of two children only.
How frequently can you claim it? You can claim LTA exemption twice in the block of four calendar years. This block is not calculated with reference to commencement of your employment but is predefined by the law.
The current block has begun from January 1, 2010 and will end on December 31, 2013. The next block will be from 2014 to 2017, and so on. It is not necessary that you claim the LTA exemption in alternate years, what is required is that you can not claim it more than two times in the defined block of four years. In case you and your spouse both are working, your family can travel every year and claim the tax benefit of LTA every year for two different calendar years in case of both of you. The only restriction is that you can not claim LTA exemption for the same journey.
Can LTA benefits be carried forward? What if you could not fully claim LTA / LTC exemption for some reason during the block 2006-2009? It can be carried forward to the first year of the next block of four years. Thus, in the current block of 2010 to 2013, you can claim the benefits of your arrears of LTA during the calendar year 2010 without affecting your right to claim two LTA exemptions in balance three years of the same block.
What amount can be claimed? The tax benefit is available only in respect of cost of transportation incurred by you on travelling in India. It is not available for expenses of stay in hotel or local conveyance for sight seeing etc.
In case you are going on a foreign trip, you can claim the expense of travel from your place to the point of departure from India for undertaking the foreign travel and back.
The exemption is restricted to actual expenses incurred by you in undertaking the journey from the starting point to farthest destination. However, there is a cap on maximum amount you can claim in respect of LTA exemption. The restrictions are dependent on the mode of transport (see table).
If there is no such recognised public transport system operating on that route, you can claim a fare equivalent to air-conditioned first class fare for the distance between your place to the destination by shortest rail route.
The exemption is available for the farthest place by shortest route when a circular journey is undertaken.
Do you need to preserve proof of your travel? You need to preserve the tickets to claim this income-tax benefit. If you hire a car, the receipt/ invoice from the travel agency or car rental agency is considered valid proof. Even if your employer does not verify and collect the proof of the expenses in respect of LTA, you are under obligation to produce it before the assessing office at the time of your income-tax assessment.

The writer is CFO, ApnaPaisa.com, a price comparison engine for loans, insurance and investments. He can be reached at balwant.jain@apnapaisa.com

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