Appraisal360 Blog

See us at HRD 2008

2008-04-01T20:44:00.003Z

For the first time this year Appraisal360 will be exhibiting at the prestigious HRD2008 Learning and Development event at Excel in London's Docklands. We will be welcoming visitors on Stand 841 throughout the event from 15-17 April 2008.

As well as showcasing our leading edge 360 degree feedback tools we will be promoting our new Practitioner Scheme which helps practitioners to promote their 360 degree feedback services by displaying our logo on their websites and benefiting from a free entry in our online directory of practitioners.

e-mail fallout

2007-10-15T09:52:00.000Z

Most people who have been using electronic communications for a while will know what this means. An innocently written email which comes over completely the wrong way to the recipient and causes a dreadful missunderstanding that was never intended.

The point was brought home to me recently in an email exchange with a good friend of mine - Matt Paines - when I made a comment that I figured he would find funny, and had I said it face to face I'm sure he would. Not so. Although thankfully a short telephone call (not that there is such a thing with Matt) soon repaired the damage.

The trouble is that electronic communication channels have grown explosively, but the associated ettiquette has a lot of catching up to do. People say things in emails that they would never say face to face, and things that might be OK said face to face take on a completely different significance when staring at you from the sterile intimacy of your inbox.

Translate this into a business environment and you start to see the potentially corrosive effect that this sort of thing can have on morale and the working environment in general. It doesn't have to be the big fallouts - the cummulative effect of cold impersonal emails over a period of time can be far greater.

That's why we've built in specific questions ito all our 360 feedback questionnaires about how people communicate via email - because we think it's important. And hopefully in time to come the email fallout will become a thing of the past.

See us at the CIPD Conference in Coventry

2007-10-04T13:01:00.000Z

See us at the Regional CIPD conference in Coventry on 8 October where we will be giving online demonstrations of our 360 degree feedback system and our new Custom360 White Label online tool.

The theme of the event will be Tools for Developing Individuals and Organisations and has a special focus on online learning and development. Speakers include:-

James Pennington from the B2B Centre
Nicola Hughes from The Jump Start Company
Kimberley Hare from Kaizen Training
Steve Barden and John Helmer from Epic

Linked in

2007-05-16T23:05:00.000Z

I've just been discovering LinkedIn which is a site where you can publish a professional profile.

You can find my profile under my current business interests.

I will doubtless be adding a little more to it in due course.

A view of HRD 2007

2007-05-02T22:42:00.000Z

In a change from last year HRD 2007 was held at Excel - a new venue in Docklands and a stone's throw from London City Airport. Billed as Europe's largest learning and development event - but did it live up to the hype?

Well - certainly it was big. the new venue is far larger than Earl's Court and Olympia where last year's event was held. But my impression was that delegates were a bit thin on the ground. Speaking to other exhibitors they too seemed to think it was a bit quiet - but whether that was because there really were fewer delegates or because the new venue spread them out is hard to say.

A number people thought - as I did that the new venue was confusing. It looks the same in every direction and on more than one occassion I spent a long time walking around trying to find again someone on a stand that I had been talking to before - and in one case failing completely - which was a blow as he had promised to be a good business contact.

In the evening of the first day were drinks and canapes to celebrate something or other. We were fortunate enough to get chatting to some HR Professionals from South Africa who had come to attend the event - maybe for other reasons too that they didn't mention.

So was it a success? Well I for one missed the relative cosiness of Olympia and found it rather difficult to find the people I wanted to. Maybe fewer people made the journey out to Docklands - but without seeing the figures we just won't know.

Verdict: slightly disappointing but worth the trip

See us at CRD 2007

2007-04-17T07:33:00.000Z

We hope to see as many of you as possible at the HRD Exhibition at Excel in Docklands over the next three days.

If you need to find us then call on 07808 064295 and we'll sort you out.

360 Degree Feedback or Psychometric Profiling?

2007-04-06T17:30:00.000Z

We often get asked the difference between 360 Degree Feedback and Psychometric Profiling

Psychometric Profiling tools such as Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) , DISC (Thomas International) or Forte Communications Style Profile work by asking you to choose a number of preferences and then tries to predict how you are likely to behave in different situations. For example: do you generally focus on the outer world or your own inner world (intraversion or extraversion), focus on basic information or on your interpretation of what you see or hear (Sensing or Intuition), use logic or look at the people and their feelings (Thinking or Feeling) or do you prefer to close off an issue or leave it open to new information and options (Judging or Perceiving)?

360 Degree Feedback on the other hand uses structured questions - generally based around an appropriate competency framework - to ask a number of people who know you well for observations about your real life behaviour. The aspects of behaviour covered by the competency framework are largely a matter of choice dependent on what is appropriate for the job or circumstances of the individual. In fact there is likely to be a parallel between the job description and the competency framework to be used.

Thus Psychometric Profiling measures your preferences and then predicts how you are likely to choose to behave, while 360 Degree Feedback focuses on your observed behaviour.

Each of these techniques has its place and used properly the two combined together can provide an incredibly powerful diagnostic resource for both individuals and the organisations they find themselves in.

Feedback overload

2007-04-05T16:12:00.001Z

Even people with skin like a rhino can nervous opening their 360 degree feedback report. Everyone you work with has rated you on your behaviour, skills and experience. Everyone. There's no place to run to and no place to hide.

Your boss tells you what they think of you. Your team tells you what they think of you. Your colleagues and customers tell you exactly what they think of you. And then you have to figure out what to think of yourself. Scary!

We all know feedback can be useful. At its simplest it tell you to do more of what people like, and do less of what they don't like.

Avoid these common mistakes in your feedback and be ready to spot them in the feedback you receive...

Being Nice If you don't want to offend, then don't give bad ratings! But you'll continue to get reports late, be missed off distribution lists or talked over in meetings. Honest feedback is the best gift you can give someone. I bet you would rather you were told than continue to do something badly?

Being Bland You may be asked to give feedback on someone you don't know well or deal with infrequently. Avoid giving bland, middle of the road ratings and consider skipping the questions you can't answer or comment on. Bland feedback is the equivalent of a matching socks and handkerchief gift set.

Halo Polishing It's natural for work mates to become personal friend and this can put a rosy glow over feedback. Focus on each question individually and think about specific work related examples to justify ratings.

Straight for the Jugular When you feel the need to draw blood with drains up feedback, think again. Why did you have to wait until the survey to get the knife out? How about tackling the problem behaviour when it happens?

Seriously though 360 degree feedback can be fun and it can be useful too. My first 360 feedback report was still something I referred to from time to time ten years later! Make opening your next feedback report less scary by taking heed of these common mistakes and avoiding them.

Professional Misfits?

2007-03-30T15:32:00.000Z

According to an article in The Independent Britain's offices are full of employees who are in the wrong jobs because their personalities do not suit what they are doing. A survey by BUPA hosted on their website attempts to identify participants' personality by aligning themselves to shapes and colours.

The survey of more than 2,300 adults examined whether they were an introvert, extrovert, optimist or perfectionist and found that more than 50 per cent had misjudged their own personalities, and up to 75 per cent may have taken the wrong career path.

Participants are asked to select one of four shapes that they think suits their personality. The circle, the survey says, implies a calm and balanced, contented personality with an optimistic outlook. The square implies confident, clear thinking, tending towards perfectionism. The triangle suggests an individualistic outlook, with hidden depths, sometimes complex and disruptive. The squiggle, it is claimed, suggests: "I don't always take things too seriously, I'm sometimes a little unpredictable."

Shapes and colours have long been used by psychologists to symbolise and communicate a broad range of qualities, characteristics and emotions. Shapes and colours have long been used by psychologists to symbolise and communicate a broad range of qualities, characteristics and emotions

It is perhaps reassuring to find that 60 percent of workers in healthcare and educations seem to be in their right role.

New Zealand IRD adopt 360 appraisal

2007-03-19T12:30:00.000Z

New Zealand's Inland Revenue Department's 360 degree feedback system is yet another example of an organisation to recognise the value of 360 appraisal. The department already a paper based 360 degree appraisal system in place prior to 2003 but for senior managers only.

However, when they decided to extend the scheme to include more junior levels of management it soon became apparent that the amount of effort required would be prohibitive. Therefore a team of three IT staff developed a system hosted on an intranet site which would manage the process online.

The system hosts all the appropriate competency frameworks and questionnaires and automatically sends out reminders to participants. It currently managed 360 degree feedback for around 200 staff.

Enterprising Homeworkers

2007-03-19T11:53:00.000Z

The homeworkers' website Enterprise Nation seeks to promote a sense of community among homeworkers and to combat the isolation that some people can feel when spending a lot of time workign from home. With the increasing number of people now working from home assessing the performance of staff from a variety of perspectives is becoming even more important.

I myself spent many years as a homeworker working for BT. Contact from my line manager was sporadic at best and I often wondered how he knew what I was up to and how well I was doing it.

Homeworking demands a high degree of trust in both directions between the employee and hte employer. The employer's need for trust of the employee is well documented - but very little is said about the need for the employee to be able to trust the employer to make sure that he is not overlooked, that his achievements are taken into account just as much as the office based worker and that his development needs are properly taken into account.

Of course, out of sight out of mind is often the order of the day - but for homeworkers in particular it is important that this does not happen, hence the current trend towards using 360 degree feedback and appraisal is a welcome step for many homeworkers.

A life changing event...

2007-03-18T16:59:00.000Z

In his article published in the P & I Journal David Lassifer at Marriott Hotels writes: "My first experience with 360° feedback was a life changing event.... For the first time I was able to see a side by side a graphic representation of how I, and others, viewed my effectiveness."

Like many of our customers Lassiter found that the results weren't entirely what he was expecting. But although like most of us his first instinct was to look at the shortcomings he soon found that he had strengths too that he hadn't realised.

The term 360 degree feedback comes from the analogy to a compass, that 360 degree feedback provides feedback from many different points of view. Compared to traditional one to one performance reviews it is significantly more powerful and accurate. Because many different points of view are taken into account people are more likley to accept what is said in good faith whereas one to one feedback from a manager is more likely to be viewed cynically and indicative of some hidden agenda on the manager's part. As one user of 360° said, "Everybody can't be out to get me."