This Leader’s Guide is designed specifically to help leaders and employees have strong and productive development discussions, across time and on single occasions. Having these kinds of discussions help to ensure that the leader knows what is important to the employee’s engagement and feeling valued by the organization. They also help to ensure leaders and employees have the information they need to explore various career directions and opportunities for employees.

When multi-rater or 360-degree assessments are implemented in an organization, often the company will evaluate and compare a number of 360 assessments and assessment partners. The following is a list of criteria to consider when comparing and contrasting options for 360 assessments and assessment partners:

Part I of High-Impact 360 Feedback and Coaching focused on the development discussion. We also published a job aid that can be used as a guide for these discussions. Part II of our series on High-Impact 360 Feedback and Coaching focuses on how to create a robust action plan. The ideas that follow are useful whether or not a person has participated in a 360-feedback process. A 360-feedback process does, however, provide invaluable information for creating the strongest action plans. The following practices provide guidelines to follow for strong action plans:

When multi-rater or 360-degree assessments are implemented in an organization, often the company will evaluate and compare a number of 360 assessments and assessment partners. The following is a list of criteria to consider when comparing and contrasting options for 360 assessments and assessment partners:

Multi-rater or 360-degree assessment is a type of assessment that provides a 360-degree perspective for the person being assessed. The perspectives typically included are: self, managers, peers, direct reports, and others (often customers, for example). Feedback is collected from all of these perspectives regarding a person’s effectiveness related to various competencies and behaviors.  All of this information is collated into a report that gives a person a 360-degree view of how others perceive their effectiveness in the competencies and behaviors assessed.

Last week, we published a brief article called, “Competencies, Capabilities, and Skills: Every Leader’s Guide to Their Evolving Use.” In it, we said:

It is important for every leader to understand that these three concepts are related and intertwined and you can integrate the best of them to build the kind of talent needed in your organization. If the competency framework you have in place is not working, then improve it. Change the language. Simplify the messages. Reference capabilities and skills more prominently. Make the framework and its components do their job for your organization, which means starting with the business outcomes you need from any framework or taxonomy.

The use of assessments in companies today is a very common practice. Having assessment strategies and standards that guide companies in their assessment practices is not.

Examples of the frequent use of assessments in organizations today include:

Organizations compete fiercely in the war for talent. Many invest an enormous amount of money, time and other resources in advertising and recruiting strategies to attract the best candidates. This is because today’s executives understand that one of the most important resources in organizations—if not the most important—is human resources.

The Commission has issued a policy document that examines the Faragher and Ellerth decisions and provides detailed guidance on the issue of vicarious liability for harassment by supervisors.

Most companies today have or had a leadership competency framework in place. Popularized in the 1990s, competency frameworks defined the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAs) that were important to success in various roles and organizations. While there are debates about how “competency” is defined, depending upon which consulting firm might be defining it, there really should not be a debate. The most recognized and technically-sound definition of competencies is, as noted above, the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics important to success in various roles or organizations.