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Frequently Asked Questions
1. What are competencies?
2. What is a competency framework?
3. What are technical competencies?
4. We've developed our own 360 questionnaire, can you put it online for us?
5. Can you help me design the questions so that they are right for my business and culture?
6. How do I know 360 feedback is right for my organisation?
7. How can I find out more about the basics of 360 feedback?
8. How much does it cost to implement online 360 feedback?
9. So I have the feedback and results - what happens next?
10. How confidential is the process?
1. What are competencies?
In the modern organisation competencies are the means by which an individual's performance can be measured in an objective way. The competencies themselves change from organisation to organisation, however it is not unusual to find that 80% of the competencies are similar across quite dissimilar organisations (e.g. 'Ability to influence' might be a competency for managers in a major retail bank or a large energy company). That's one of the reasons we've developed a series of PerformancePlus competency frameworks which can be used across all industry sectors.
The remaining 20% may be specific to the organisation or specific to a role (these are referred to as 'technical competencies'). If you need to mix 'standardised' competencies with others then you should contact us.
2. What is a competency framework?
A competency framework is a set of competencies which together are used to appraise the performance of an employee at a certain level in the organisation.
A competency framework is not a job description and neither is it intended to replace this. If a person within an organisation has someone working for him/her then the leadership or managerial competencies can then be relatively easily applied.
3. What are technical competencies?
Technical competencies are extremely specific and vary from industry to industry and even job to job. For instance the oil, gas and aviation industries will have a range of specific technical competencies for their engineers. These will be quite different even though the term 'engineer' is applied across the three sectors. We are currently working on a range of competency frameworks which include role based technical competencies.
4. We've developed our own 360 questionnaire, can you put it online for us?
Of course - this is something we do for lots of clients. Our service also lets you manage the process much more effectively than if it were paper based. See our custom design service.
5. Can you help me design the questions so that they are right for my business and culture?
Of course, but it's worth looking a some of our PerformancePlus off-the-shelf competency frameworks first to see if there is anything that comes close to your requirements. Adapting an existing framework is easier and cheaper than developing one from scratch. If this approach won't work for you try our custom design service.
6. How do I know 360 feedback is right for my organisation?
You need to make an objective assessment as to the appropriateness of this tool within your own organisation. What you can be assured of is that there are many other organisations who have employed this approach, 360 feedback and the New Futures Group have incredible depth of expertise that can be used to help you. Whilst we have made the process as transparent and easy to use as possible we recognise that you still may need someone to talk you through the process. One option for example is to sign-up for telephone support from one of our 360 consultants. Our consultant will guide you through the whole process and help you get the most from our service. Contact us for more details.
7. How can I find out more about the basics of 360 feedback?
There are a number of books on the subject. We have recommended some below:
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8. How much does it cost to implement online 360 feedback?
For a detailed breakdown on our costs and the overall investment required from this site please see our Pricing Structure.
If your question is about how much it costs to implement within an organisation then this is dependent on how much work has already been undertaken. One the key benefits of this site and its approach is to make things simple to allow you to choose either a bespoke solution or take an off the shelf approach which will give you an 80-90% solution immediately.
9. So I have the feedback and results - what happens next?
Remember the most important thing in implementing 360 feedback is what will happen AFTER the results have been fed back! If you have managed expectations clearly enough then the individuals should be in a relatively reflective state of mind and open minded enough to sit and review the results. Typically what happens is that an individual will want to know why people have said certain things and will often make immediate judgements as to their perception of where that feedback has come from. We would encourage you to actively run some form of team or group workshop or at the very least a one-to-one session with the individual in order to talk things through. Contact us if you require support on running a workshop.
The real art of any training development intervention is to determine the development and training requirements from the feedback. This requires you to help the person analyse the results and then consider the most appropriate solutions to that need.
It is common to find feedback that is requesting a manager or leader to improve their communication to their team. You need to consider whether this is a knowledge gap; skills gap where training may help; or is it that they know what to do but are not communicating in the right manner in which it is a behavioural and attitudinal requirement that needs addressing. In our experience it is by far the latter that requires intervention in which case coaching or mentoring together with appropriate reading can be helpful. Contact us to discuss how we can help you with your development activities.
10. How confidential is the process?
In the offline world such a process would be managed by you the HR Manager giving out paper forms and then these would be sent by post to us. Thus ensuring confidentiality of the response as the manager will never receive an individual copy of a response. What they will see is the sum total of their responses of all of those who have assessed or rated them. Clearly there needs to be enough raters to give adequate feedback without them identifying who has said what.
A minimum recommended number is six, which is usually shown as follows: 1 up (their manager); 2 sideways (peers); 3 down (subordinates). An average number is eight and in extreme circumstances you may want to give up to 12 raters per person. Eight people is generally more than adequate.
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