4 posts tagged “assessment”

For many businesses one of the biggest risks to their future success is having the right talent in place as and when key people leave the organisation.  

While finding good people may be less difficult during a recession, the demand and competition for talent will increase over the next few years because of a number of factors:

• The global economy will recover.
• Companies are operating more and more on a global scale and can attract the best from around the world.
• Changing demographics means that it is estimated that one in four of the working population is over 45.
• A change in working culture and the choices people make mean that young people are more likely to move jobs.

All of this provides a number of challenges for businesses who wish to find and retain talent.  At first glance it may appear easier to hire talent from the outside, to bring in “fresh blood” or someone with a “different perspective”, but is this really the right thing to do?

Certainly with competition increasing, this will become a more time consuming and expensive process.  It has been estimated that it “costs” between 1-2 times the salary before a new middle management recruit becomes effective.  In other words, if you hire a manager on £60,000 p.a., it could cost the company between £60,000 -£120,000 before that person starts to be effective.  However, this money might be better invested (and less risky!) in identifying and developing “in house” talent.  

However, what techniques are available to assess the capability and talent internally?

The first assessment that should be made is how an individual has performed previously.  While previous performance is no guarantee of future success it is a good guide to how the individual is likely to perform in the future.  However, there are also other factors that should be assessed such as:

• Undertaking an assessment of an individual’s critical thinking, numerical and verbal reasoning will provide an indicator of their thinking capability and innate intelligence.
• Psychometric profiling instruments can assess an individual’s personality traits, likely communication and leadership styles. How do these fit with what the business needs?
• Giving an individual specific business or organisational problems to resolve will provide valuable assessments of their business acumen and problem solving skills.
• 360 degree feedback tools are valuable for assessing an individual’s performance and behaviour in the workplace.  This assessment will provide a broader view than one simply based on the line manager’s assessment.
• Asking the individual to lead a challenging business improvement project that will take them out of their usual work experiences, will provide a valuable assessment about how they handle new and unfamiliar challenges.

Some of the above techniques can be blended with others (such as formal presentations) at an assessment/development centre.  How each individual deals with such a pressurised and stressful situation will provide additional evidence of their future potential.

While the assessments described above will not guarantee the identification of those with the greatest potential, they will provide the business with vital information on which objective decisions can be based.  As the marketplace for talent becomes even more competitive, it is vital that businesses meet this challenge and establish their own assessment and talent management programmes – after all you don’t have to scour the world for talent if the potential you need is right under your nose!

The question of who should decide is an interesting one. Given that the non-directive coaching process is all about a 1 to 1 relationship between a coach and a coachee helping them to understand their reality, issues and opportunities, both inside and outside work, then this suggests that they should be the person who fundamentally decides whether or not the coach and the coaching process is working well for them.

However there are a number of other parties involved in this coaching work who could and should have a view on the value and effectiveness of any particular coaching assignment.
The organisational sponsor who initiates this coaching work has presumably done so with a need and objectives in mind for the coachee. Ideally this has been detailed in a written brief that is given to the prospective coach and coachee so that the process can start out in a clear and open way. This brief and any objectives, learning outcomes or performance improvements included can then be used as the basis for a future evaluation of the effectiveness and value of the coaching and its impact.

The line manager of the coachee should be involved and provide input to this brief and be committed to supporting, monitoring and helping the coachee to achieve the objectives laid out for them in this brief. They would then be in a good position to assess the effectiveness, impact and value of the coaching during and after the end of the assignment. Quite often the line manager and sponsor are one and the same person. Sometimes the sponsor is from HR and sometimes a more senior manager in the organisation. Occasionally the coachee and sponsor of this coaching work are the same person, in which case it important to have another person or objective performance measurement basis outside this direct coaching relationship to use as an input basis to assess the impact and value of this coaching work.

Feedback questionnaires are also a useful tool to check on the impact and value of the coaching. I send these out to all of my coaching subjects periodically every 6 months to ask for feedback about the effectiveness of my coaching and its impact on their thinking, action and performance. I also do this after the end of an assignment to gain final input into the impact and value of my coaching work.

In conclusion whilst it is fundamental to assess the value of coaching as perceived by the core subject, the coachee themselves, it is also important to get the views of other managers and sponsors involved in the work and to measure effectiveness against some pre-determined performance improvement objectives or criteria.

The purpose of a performance management process is to optimize the success and contribution of each employee, team and ultimately the business/organisation. However, too often organizations do not get the full benefits from their performance management processes because they make one or more basic mistakes.

Here are just a few of the most common pitfalls to avoid.

1) Nobody is accountable for implementing the process. When implementing a performance management process, appoint a project manager to implement it. Make this part of their performance requirements for the year.

2) The Board think that performance management is ‘for everyone else’. For performance management to be successful it must be lead from the top and clearly linked to the business/organization’s strategies and goals.

3) Implementing a highly complex/comprehensive system. Start with the basics first. Use a simple paperwork system to record targets/objectives and an annual (or biannual) review of achievement. As managers and staff recognize the value of the process, more ‘features’ can be added (e.g. 360° appraisal).

4) Have a system that ranks staff. Ranking your staff can kill a performance management system if the only way that an individual can improve their ranking is to undermine the performance of others.

5) Setting vague or inappropriate targets. It is vital to set clear and realistic performance targets.

6) Having conflicting targets and measures. It is important to have congruent targets and measures across the organisation. For example, a target to reduce purchasing spend may seem an appropriate target for the purchasing manager. However, buying ‘cheap’ parts may conflict with an operation manager’s target to improve the reliability and output from his production equipment.

7) Reviewing performance inadequately, for example by focusing on one specific incident rather than reviewing the entire period which the review covers. Also avoid the "halo" and "horns" effects. Just because an employee performs badly in one area does not make his/her overall performance bad. The same goes for good performance. The key to successful reviews is factual data about an individual’s performance.

8) Not providing adequate development support for staff. One key aspect of the performance management process is the development of staff to provide them with the capabilities to achieve their targets. Do not ignore this aspect of performance management.

As stated above, the purpose of a performance management process is to optimize the success of each employee and ultimately the organisation. By taking steps to avoid the aforementioned performance management pitfalls, managers have every opportunity to realize this goal.

How can an organisation identify its future leaders today?

Identifying future leadership potential is a complex issue; however there are a number of steps an organisation can take to improve its ability to identify its future leaders. The first step in the process is to define the characteristics needed by future successful leaders.

Some of this information may be collected by looking at the characteristics of successful leaders in the organisation. These characteristics may include:

- Thinking style, capability and intelligence

- Personality trails

- Behaviour and interactions with others

- Experience

- Self motivation

- Ability to learn.

Once the characteristics have been identified a number of different techniques and activities can subsequently be used to assess them, for example:

- Critical thinking, numerical and verbal reasoning tests can be used to ascertain an individuals thinking capability and potential. The results from these tests can be benchmarked against other successful leaders.

- Psychometric profiling instruments can identify an individual’s personality traits, likely communicating and leadership styles. How do these fit with what the organisation needs?

- 360° feedback tools are valuable for assessing an individual’s performance and behaviour in the workplace. While not a guarantee, historic performance behaviour will be a guide to how the individual is likely to perform in the future.

- Assessment Centres during which an individual undertakes a range of group and individual leadership tasks can provide a good deal of information about an individual’s personal motivation and how they lead themselves.

- Personal challenges, for example by leading a business improvement project or charity/fund raising activity that will take the individual outside of their comfort zone and give the organisation a view of how they handle new and unfamiliar challenges.

While the above techniques will not guarantee identification of the leaders with the greatest potential, they will provide the organisation with a good deal of objective information on which decisions about leadership potential and leadership training and development can be based.

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