Re-use 360 degree feedback to inform group training needs

    Posted on July 19, 2016 at 09:15 AM

    360 degree feedback for development and progressionWant to re-purpose or re-use 360 degree feedback to go beyond individual development and inform other L&D activities such as defining group training needs?

    In this series of blogs we'll look at how to re-shape the information your get from your 360 review programme and get greater value from your investment.

    We still find that 360 is one of the most powerful, insightful and useful development tools that we have at our disposal as HR and L&D specialists and organisations invest a significant amount in getting the right tool, the right questions, supporting individuals in their personal development.  But how can it be used beyond personal development?

    We know that 360 degree feedback is widely used across organisations with an estimate of around 90% of businesses making use of multi-rater feedback. Such programmes are an investment of time and money to create the assessment itself, consider and feedback on individuals from managers, direct reports and co-workers and to then collate and feedback the results to them inform individual learning and development activities to improve employee skills and competencies.

    We think that with the right positioning and good contracting - plus careful management, communication and engagement, you can use a 360 tool for a much wider range of purposes.

    In this series of blogs we challenge you to start to think about alternative applications of 360, helping your organisation to maximise your return on investment in this powerful tool, and supporting you in your wider talent management efforts.

    Today, we look at how 360 can be used to better understand group or team training needs

    360 is traditionally, and widely, used as a way of identifying individual strengths and development needs.  Often as part of a leadership or personal development programme, or alongside coaching, to help the recipient better understand how they are viewed by others, the impact they have on colleagues and on the business, what people see as their strengths and areas of comparative weakness.

    But the right tool - such as our Talent 360 - can also help you do this on a macro scale – at a team, functional, divisional or organisational level. But your tool needs to be able to help you!

     

    Extract the raw, anonymised data.

    Firstly, you need to be able to extract your raw and anonymised data from the system. Tools which allow for a wide range of analysis to be performed on the data, which allow you to combine participants into meaningful cohorts and groups, and which have data export functions will support you best in doing this. Being able to download raw data (e.g., average scores per competency, average scores per question, top and bottom scoring questions) means that you can look across groups and determine where the greatest development needs or gaps are – useful data for Training Needs Analysis.

    Highlight the key behavioural areas to see which are the priorities for L&D provision.

    It’s very useful if you can highlight key behavioural areas within your questionnaires and reports.  The concept of ‘keys’ (in our system) helps you to ‘tag’ certain items or statements within the questionnaire or the competency framework that are particularly important. Perhaps they are important to a number of strategic priorities? Perhaps they represent skills or capabilities that are not easy to find in the market at the moment, or in high demand?.  'Keyed' behaviours or questions which are showing relatively low scores can then be pushed higher up the list of priorities with regards to L&D provision.

    Compare across people and teams to see where useful pairings may be made

    When looking at team interventions, and what is needed within a team to really help it function effectively, Comparison Reports and team analytics are useful.  Both help you to quickly see priority areas for development, and help you to see where useful pairings might be made – where one team member has skills or capabilities that they could coach or develop in a colleague.

    Highlight behaviours directly relevant to the business - and unearth the hidden talents

    Our Team PAPU-NANU is really useful in team development settings; many people are familiar with using psychometrics such as MBTI and its team version for teambuilding work, but these can be expensive and require trained expert users.

    Case study:
    One of our customers uses the data gathered from management and leadership level 360 degree reviews to determine areas for new development offerings; they look at the 'lowest rated' areas – especially as seen by direct reports, those on the receiving end of ‘managerial behaviour’ and then generates a thematic analysis of qualitative comments. It then combined this with its new strategic imperatives to determine how the programme development aspect of their L&D budget is spent.

    Next week we look at how 360 can help to demonstrate ROI of your L&D practices.If you would like to learn more, please get it touch.

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