Ensuring your investment in people truly adds value
Many organisations invest considerable resources into developing and implementing robust processes for identifying and developing
talent within their organisation, including 360° Appraisals and Development Centres. All too often, however, the crucial feedback and information the employees receive from participation in such programmes is not capitalised on fully. This is largely because they then feel powerless to act upon the received insights and so rarely progress beyond a superficial level of change.
Controls and Transmissions, an area within Rolls-Royce plc, use Keil Centre-designed Development Centres as a key element of their Succession Planning and Talent Management strategy, informing the business of the capabilities, potential and development needs of its key employees. Carol Arbon, the Employee Development Manager within Controls and Transmissions, wanted to ensure that learning does not begin and end with the Development Centre and that momentum is sustained. A plan of ‘follow-on’ activities is therefore made available to participants to provide the necessary tools and techniques to produce and implement meaningful Personal
Development Plans. Part of the follow-on activities included a Personal Development Planning Workshop, designed and facilitated by The Keil Centre’s Chartered Occupational Psychologists. An important element of the design was to encourage participants to view their development as a personal responsibility, as opposed to something that is ‘done’ to them.
Some of the elements included:
• A comprehensive Personal Development Report that builds on the outputs of the Development Centre fully integrating data from the Development Centre and 360° Questionnaires.
• Participation in an approach to learning and development that encourages active participant involvement, challenging debate and the frank exchange of ideas and information.
• Learning and practising how to use colleagues as a valuable learning resource and support in a threat-free environment
• Receiving expert guidance on Personal Development Planning and a host of suggested Development activities
• Recognising how one’s own style impacts within a group setting and learning how to effectively harness the team’s combined resources
Perhaps one of the least obvious features of this approach to development planning is its potential cost-effectiveness. Through its emphasis on in-house solutions to development needs, it can ease the burden on over-stretched training budgets by encouraging participants to generate solutions which utilise internal rather than external resources. Carol Arbon, Employee Development Manager, comments ”We have seen the benefi ts that individuals gain from this experience – mainly having a rigorous understanding of their strengths and development needs. Taking them into a supportive environment and allowing them to take time to reflect on their
learnings and experiences helps them focus on the next steps they need to take.”
For more information, please contact Ken Gray.
Accident Prevention at Work Scoops Top Psychology Prize
A project which has made a significant contribution to boosting safety levels in the workplace and preventing serious injuries and fatalities has scooped top prize in the first-ever award for The Occupational Psychology Practitioner of the Year. The project, carried out by Ronny Lardner and Richard Scaife, beat off the challenge of four other short-listed candidates in the inaugural competition, held by the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology.
The companies commissioning the work, BP and Balfour Beatty Rail, were keen to look at ways of further increasing safety levels in hazardous industries and identifying improvements which could eliminate all incidents. Lardner and Scaife developed a practical set of human factors analysis tools (HFAT) which were rolled out worldwide via a two-day training course to incident investigators within both organisations. A year on from the training, investigators reported that HFAT had significantly enhanced their understanding of human behaviour and that they had been able to make better recommendations to prevent future accidents.
Presenting the award, Deutsche Bank Head of HR, Noel Hadden, said: “Most organisations are people-centric and occupational psychologists have a degree in people, which means they can make a real and positive difference to the way our organisations operate. This award makes me optimistic about the direction in which the discipline is going and the quality of work and research that occupational psychologists are delivering.”
Speaking on behalf of the Division of Occupational Psychology, David Towner said he believed the award would help create a better public understanding and provide a great opportunity to showcase the work of occupational psychologists externally. For the winners, Ronny Lardner told the audience at the award ceremony: “We are really encouraged by this award, which we feel is a great idea to emphasise the practical benefi ts applied psychology can bring to organisations.”
For further information, contact Ronny Lardner
Building Individual and Organisational Success Through Positive Psychology
Did you know that:
• Happier people are more satisfied with their work and perform better?
• Strengths-based development builds employee engagement and productivity?
• Happiness is the result of being successful, but can also be a cause of success?
• Being optimistic helps you be more successful in a variety of fields, including work?
• Happier people tend to be healthier?
• Being happier and more optimistic can be learnt?
These are all examples of research findings from the growing field of Positive psychology. This relatively new arm of psychology focuses on identifying how individuals and organisations can achieve success, happiness and optimal performance. This is not the same as ‘positive thinking’ but is a movement based on sound research with widereaching practical applications. Many UK organisations are already fi nding ways in which to apply positive psychology. With its growing evidence base and practical
applications, this is a fi eld that can help you achieve success for yourself, your team or your organisation.
At The Keil Centre, we use the latest research to develop successful interventions in a work context.
For more information on the research above and on how to apply positive psychology in your work, please contact Chiara Amati
Strategic Psychometrics - NHS Trust Organisational Restructuring
Many organisations use psychometric tests to further inform their selection, promotion and development decision making processes. Often, given the practical constraints, psychometric assessment is used on a rather ad hoc basis. However, BHR Hospitals NHS Trust wanted to use psychometric assessment in a more strategic and systematic manner for one particular initiative. Following a restructuring of its Operations and Service Development Directorate, the intention was to apply the most objective and fair process for
identifying individual potential for a number of newly created Director and General Management roles.
Director of HR and Communications at Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospital NHS Trust, Frank Sharp spearheaded this internal selection initiative. Frank understood that specialist knowledge and experience alone was not a guaranteed predictor of strong
operational performance and that behaviours, values and aptitudes were equally important considerations. Hence, the emerging roles were evaluated not only in terms of key functional objectives, but also in terms of ‘how’ these objectives should be achieved. These became the core Leadership competencies.
The Keil Centre’s psychologists then tailored a Psychometric Assessment programme that examined four of the core competencies in depth. The assessment utilised a combination of four different instruments, with each individual then participating in a structured
feedback discussion with the psychologist. This permitted a more focussed exploration of each person’s capability against the
dimensions. Where specific development needs were identified, these were described in terms of behaviours being either over, or underplayed. The data was then integrated into the general pool of information about each candidate by a report containing a narrative section as well as graphical summaries.
This approach enabled the Trust to view the strengths and development needs of the population as a whole, thereby informing future Organisational Development considerations. In Frank Sharp’s words: “This approach has proved catalytic in creating across the trust an expectation that in future, senior management roles must be more rigorously and objectively assessed and not based on perceptions that individuals with long NHS experience or specialist clinical backgrounds make the most successful leaders.”
For more information, please contact Ken Gray.