360° assessment is a somewhat silly name for a very sensible process. A person’s work, competencies, knowledge, attitudes, behaviour etc. is appraised and reviewed not just by their boss but by a number of their colleagues (line manager, direct reports, peers and other stakeholders). These various individual appraisals are then combined to give a summary, which although not completely objective, SHOULD be more balanced and fair than a single person’s view.
The trouble with this is that by averaging the responses of a group, the summary report tends to be rather bland and ‘flat’, evening out the more extreme strengths and development needs identified by individual respondents. And this means that the subjects of the 360° assessment get feedback that is itself often bland and non-specific: that they have no particular strengths or areas they can improve.
So what’s the answer? Firstly, ensure that the respondents to 360° questionnaires are briefed and trained so that they clearly identify how the subjects differ from the norm, both positively and negatively. Secondly, make sure that the process is as anonymous as possible, so that respondents feel able to respond honestly without the chance of being identified by the subject. (Clearly this is difficult if there is only small number of respondents.) Thirdly, check that the 360° output reports give all the individual responses as as well as the summary responses. (This is made more difficult, given the need for anonymity above.) Lastly, make sure that the person giving feedback to the subject, and possibly the subject themselves, have some training in how to interpret the reports and tease out the strengths and development needs from the bland numbers.
If none of that helps, some new research reported in Assessment & Development Matters (The Official Publication of The Psychological Testing Centre, part of the British Psychological Society Vol. 3 No. 2 Summer 2011) may help. Rob Feltham, Nik Kinley and Kate Young tell of an attempt to create a different kind of 360° assessment – ‘ipsative’ rather than ‘normative’ – that does not generate flat summary reports. It’s not a perfect alternative but could be a useful addition to an organisation’s HR and performance management armoury. See http://www.bpsshop.org.uk/Assessment-Development-Matters-Vol-3-No-2-Summer-2011-P1472.aspx
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Are you a good judge of other people?
Many of us think we are good judges of others and that we can ‘know’ people within the first few minutes (or even seconds) of first meeting them. Most of us are wrong.
A recent book by Ian Leslie called Born Liars: why we can’t live without deceit (Quercus Publishing plc) summarises lots of the psychological research conducted in this area. It makes sobering reading. For example, one experiment showed that people were able to accurately spot liars only 47% of the time: in other words they would have done better by basing their decisions on the flip of a coin.
Part of the reason for this seems to be that, all over the world, there is a common idea of how liars behave: liars seem uncertain, they make less eye contact, they blink more, they move their hands and feet and make extravagant gestures, they say they can’t remember, they can seem surly or uncooperative, they digress, they recount events out of order.
Unfortunately, the research seems to indicate that good liars – and most of us can be good liars when the need arises – do not exhibit any of these behaviours more than people telling the truth. Indeed, good liars often seem less nervous and more coherent, empathetic, helpful and charming.
So in vital HR situations, such as recruitment, back-to-work or exit interviews, or in performance management meetings, for example, how can we judge the people we are talking to?
Some research seems to show that people’s facial ‘micro expressions’ are directly linked to what they are thinking and feeling; that these expressions are hard to fake and impossible to completely hide even if they do not last long. But most of us need training and practise to be able to read the faces of others completely.
Other research seems to show that when a person creates and maintains a lie they have to hold onto a lot of information, and that if we increase the load (by asking detailed and specific questions) and then closely attend to the person’s words, we can spot where the information starts to break down.
So there’s the solid psychological and scientific reason why competence-based questions are so important in recruitment interviews, and why similar specific situation-based questions are so useful elsewhere too.
One final piece of good news though about making snap decisions about people we meet: we may be able to judge how conscientious they are from the way they shake hands. Look at http://www.bps.org.uk/news/handshakes
A recent book by Ian Leslie called Born Liars: why we can’t live without deceit (Quercus Publishing plc) summarises lots of the psychological research conducted in this area. It makes sobering reading. For example, one experiment showed that people were able to accurately spot liars only 47% of the time: in other words they would have done better by basing their decisions on the flip of a coin.
Part of the reason for this seems to be that, all over the world, there is a common idea of how liars behave: liars seem uncertain, they make less eye contact, they blink more, they move their hands and feet and make extravagant gestures, they say they can’t remember, they can seem surly or uncooperative, they digress, they recount events out of order.
Unfortunately, the research seems to indicate that good liars – and most of us can be good liars when the need arises – do not exhibit any of these behaviours more than people telling the truth. Indeed, good liars often seem less nervous and more coherent, empathetic, helpful and charming.
So in vital HR situations, such as recruitment, back-to-work or exit interviews, or in performance management meetings, for example, how can we judge the people we are talking to?
Some research seems to show that people’s facial ‘micro expressions’ are directly linked to what they are thinking and feeling; that these expressions are hard to fake and impossible to completely hide even if they do not last long. But most of us need training and practise to be able to read the faces of others completely.
Other research seems to show that when a person creates and maintains a lie they have to hold onto a lot of information, and that if we increase the load (by asking detailed and specific questions) and then closely attend to the person’s words, we can spot where the information starts to break down.
So there’s the solid psychological and scientific reason why competence-based questions are so important in recruitment interviews, and why similar specific situation-based questions are so useful elsewhere too.
One final piece of good news though about making snap decisions about people we meet: we may be able to judge how conscientious they are from the way they shake hands. Look at http://www.bps.org.uk/news/handshakes
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Intern induction: a best practice route to high-potential graduate employees
Oakwood International trainers have won the opportunity to design and deliver part of the induction process for a large cohort of interns for a UK-based multinational organisation. It’s interesting work.
Some background. Internships are fixed-term unpaid or low paid ‘office’ jobs done by students in their holidays or following graduation. The students involved are often high performers and their living and travelling costs often provided by their families. They often get the internships through family or business connections and their recruitment and induction is often unsystematic and unregulated, no more than an informal agreement between their ‘managers’ and their parents.
In the USA, internships are a way of life in politics, the media, the creative industries and many large companies: a means for young people to get work experience and make connections in high status organisations; and a means for organisations to get high-volume, high-quality work at very low cost.
But internships have come in for some mixed press in the UK recently. Nick Clegg, deputy Prime Minister, announced some weeks ago that he wanted to regulate the practice, so that internships are available to any able students who want them, and not just to those with wealthy families and connections to top people. Clegg’s boss, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, disagreed, saying he saw no problem with the current state-of-affairs. He argued that adding layers of complexity to something not important enough, or not broke enough, to need fixing seemed a waste of energy in these cost-aware times.
But the work Oakwood is involved with is nothing like this. The hundreds of students involved have all gone through a rigorous recruitment process designed and managed by the organisation’s HR team. They are high performers but their family connections and private wealth have not been a factor in their recruitment. They will be paid a living wage during their ten-week internship. They will each receive one week concentrated off-site induction, involving intensive training in the organisation and divisional mission, vision, strategy, structure, culture and practice, as well a wider introduction to effective business behaviour (provided by the Oakwood trainers). Once in role they will have regular one-to-ones with their managers and they will also be required to arrange and run separate meetings with other senior managers in the business.
Past experience within the business has shown that:
• the majority of these interns go on to become the organisation’s high-potential graduate recruits
• the majority of the organisation’s high-potential graduate intake come from this intern programme
In other words, the money and time invested on this intern programme is more than paid back by the work of the graduates eventually recruited as permanent staff.
Watch this space for further reports about this programme and Oakwood’s involvement.
Some background. Internships are fixed-term unpaid or low paid ‘office’ jobs done by students in their holidays or following graduation. The students involved are often high performers and their living and travelling costs often provided by their families. They often get the internships through family or business connections and their recruitment and induction is often unsystematic and unregulated, no more than an informal agreement between their ‘managers’ and their parents.
In the USA, internships are a way of life in politics, the media, the creative industries and many large companies: a means for young people to get work experience and make connections in high status organisations; and a means for organisations to get high-volume, high-quality work at very low cost.
But internships have come in for some mixed press in the UK recently. Nick Clegg, deputy Prime Minister, announced some weeks ago that he wanted to regulate the practice, so that internships are available to any able students who want them, and not just to those with wealthy families and connections to top people. Clegg’s boss, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, disagreed, saying he saw no problem with the current state-of-affairs. He argued that adding layers of complexity to something not important enough, or not broke enough, to need fixing seemed a waste of energy in these cost-aware times.
But the work Oakwood is involved with is nothing like this. The hundreds of students involved have all gone through a rigorous recruitment process designed and managed by the organisation’s HR team. They are high performers but their family connections and private wealth have not been a factor in their recruitment. They will be paid a living wage during their ten-week internship. They will each receive one week concentrated off-site induction, involving intensive training in the organisation and divisional mission, vision, strategy, structure, culture and practice, as well a wider introduction to effective business behaviour (provided by the Oakwood trainers). Once in role they will have regular one-to-ones with their managers and they will also be required to arrange and run separate meetings with other senior managers in the business.
Past experience within the business has shown that:
• the majority of these interns go on to become the organisation’s high-potential graduate recruits
• the majority of the organisation’s high-potential graduate intake come from this intern programme
In other words, the money and time invested on this intern programme is more than paid back by the work of the graduates eventually recruited as permanent staff.
Watch this space for further reports about this programme and Oakwood’s involvement.
Monday, 6 June 2011
HR on TV
Do you want to add references to your assignments that are easy and fun to digest? Do you want some straightforward routes to best practice? Do you like television?
If your answer to all these questions is ‘Yes’ then here’s what you can do: watch your favourite workplace-set TV shows, not for the plot, characterisation, stunts or set dressing, but rather for the human resources issues on display. Reality shows such as The Apprentice are the obvious place to start. But there are also documentaries and many fictional dramas and comedies set in organisations.
In The West Wing and Yes Minister we see the inner workings of government. In 30 Rock, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Frazier we see inside broadcast media companies. Boston Legal and Ally McBeal showed us legal practices. And there are more police procedural and hospital dramas than anyone can ever watch. All regularly feature HR issues underlying the foreground stories.
Best of all is probably The Office: an American Workplace, where the regular character Toby is a busy HR Business Partner in a small business unit of a larger organisation. And of course, this programme is the US spin-off of the UK comedy The Office.
None of these programmes show us best practice. Often the organisations will not be depicted realistically and the issues will be handled quickly and at low levels of detail. But that’s a good thing: they can certainly show us what NOT to do, which can lead us toward best practice.
And working out HR issues in these fictional worlds can be involving and challenging, with none of the risks of doing it for real in our own organisations.
I know what I’m doing tonight. Why don’t you join in: put your feet up, get your notebook out, put your ‘HR goggles’ on and watch your favourite workplace-set TV show.
If your answer to all these questions is ‘Yes’ then here’s what you can do: watch your favourite workplace-set TV shows, not for the plot, characterisation, stunts or set dressing, but rather for the human resources issues on display. Reality shows such as The Apprentice are the obvious place to start. But there are also documentaries and many fictional dramas and comedies set in organisations.
In The West Wing and Yes Minister we see the inner workings of government. In 30 Rock, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Frazier we see inside broadcast media companies. Boston Legal and Ally McBeal showed us legal practices. And there are more police procedural and hospital dramas than anyone can ever watch. All regularly feature HR issues underlying the foreground stories.
Best of all is probably The Office: an American Workplace, where the regular character Toby is a busy HR Business Partner in a small business unit of a larger organisation. And of course, this programme is the US spin-off of the UK comedy The Office.
None of these programmes show us best practice. Often the organisations will not be depicted realistically and the issues will be handled quickly and at low levels of detail. But that’s a good thing: they can certainly show us what NOT to do, which can lead us toward best practice.
And working out HR issues in these fictional worlds can be involving and challenging, with none of the risks of doing it for real in our own organisations.
I know what I’m doing tonight. Why don’t you join in: put your feet up, get your notebook out, put your ‘HR goggles’ on and watch your favourite workplace-set TV show.
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