Home Office
The roll-out of online 360 degree feedback
Summary
We supported the Home Office in developing their leadership population through firstly gaining an understanding of their development needs through the design and roll-out of online 360 degree feedback and by then providing one-to-one coaching feedback and actions for development at both an individual and group level.
Client need
Based on a recent internal review of its management population, the client had identified a need to improve the leadership behaviours of its people managers, in particular, from middle management grades and below. At that point, performance feedback among this population was limited and expected leadership behaviours were not fully understood. It was decided to launch an internal leadership programme for people managers consisting of leadership training, changes in people management procedures and the introduction of 360 degree feedback.
Our Approach
We worked with the client to design the process in terms of timelines and content. Using the Home Office’s own internal competency framework, we designed a 360 degree feedback questionnaire around their leadership behaviours and modified the language across documentation to reflect their culture. The questionnaire included 29 multiple-choice and 4 free-text questions. A series of communication events then were held to explain to participants and feedback providers the process, its purpose, to demonstrate how to use the technology and to highlight confidentiality and anonymity in the process.
Following the communication briefings, 57 participants were emailed a website link, requesting them to complete a self-report questionnaire and to select their feedback providers including their manager, peers and direct reports. When this was completed, the feedback providers were emailed requesting them to provide feedback on the participants. Feedback could be provided online via computer or Blackberry. Where feedback providers could not access work email accounts, links were sent to personal email addresses.
In order to ensure that the deadline was met, reminders were sent to feedback providers who were tardy in their completion of questionnaires. When the deadline was reached, the results were collated and the personal reports produced.
Results
One-to-one meetings were held between participants and Kiddy psychologists where the findings from their personal 360 report were discussed in confidence. Developmental actions were agreed with each individual and were subsequently followed up in later discussions between the participant and their manager and became integrated into existing action plans for personal leadership development.
When all the feedbacks had been completed, a group-level report was produced for the client outlining the findings from the study. This contained statistical findings on the overall strengths and development areas along with themes that had arisen from the qualitative feedback and the developmental discussions held. Finally, a series of recommendations were provided to tackle the developmental needs of the leadership population at a group level. Together this helped facilitate a greater understanding of the issues facing the division in the Home Office and how to tackle them.
Kiddy were invited back the following year to repeat the process and to provide support in understanding how the needs of the population had changed in the time elapsed.