The Human Element of Development: Building a Culture of Open and Honest Feedback with SumTotal

Note: This blog post is based in-part on the Office Hours presentation I gave to SumTotal customers at the end of September. SumTotal customers can view the recording, download the presentation (filled with graphics and screenshots), and review the Q&A reference from my blog post in SumTotal Connect.

As organizations continue to struggle with retention and engagement, executives and leaders are taking new looks at where their performance programs and culture intersect, and how a culture of open and honest feedback fits snugly into those overlaps. To explore this, I'll compare the structure of the traditional performance process, key components of agile feedback cycles, and what a hybrid performance model that includes feedback as a critical aspect could look like. I'll outline the direct benefits to the individual and the organization when feedback is part of everyday culture, and introduce key guiding principles to putting together a feedback program that ties closely to the organization's culture.

Once I've outlined those benefits, I'll share a method to kick-start employee buy-in and participation. Finally, I'll outline three scenarios of organizations working to create a culture of feedback, and how their SumTotal implementations made that work simple and effective.

Performance Process - Agile Feedback - Hybrid Model - Oh My!

Traditional Performance Process: Typically, in traditional performance processes, the process is held up as the 'solution' to completing an unbiased and formalized review that focuses on (of course) performance and competency ratings. Often viewed as transaction - replete with review steps, approvals, and signatures, the structured process allows recency bias to thrive, and steps are viewed as simple tasks to be completed. These processes are connected to concrete appraisal and succession planning programs that lead to compensation adjustments and other benefits.

Typical Traditional Performance Process: 1. initial goal setting period > 2. initial manager goal review > 3. mid-cycle self-assessment > 4. mid-cycle manager assessment > 5. mid-cycle goal revision > 6. mid-cycle manager goal review > 7. end-of-cycle self-assessment > 8. end-of-cycle manager assessment > 9. appraisal review or compensation adjustment.

An Agile Feedback Cycle: On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have programs of agile feedback cycles. With agile feedback, we step away from single process or connections to broader processes. These may certainly be part of broader programs, and can still include deadlines or timeframes, but the key aspects of these cycles are being dynamic and collaborative, not overtly structured or process driven. A culture of open and honest feedback supports the use of agile feedback cycles - as feedback it provided and requested as needed and consistently support the growth and development of the recipient. Feedback cycles typically need less technical and administrative overhead to set up but are tougher to tie-in to appraisal or compensation programs - so some sort of reward and recognition program is critical.

Typical Agile Feedback Cycle: 1. collaboration on an initial inventory > 2a. identification of goals > 2b. gather positive & constructive feedback from stakeholders > 2c. collaboration and coaching, 2d. review and revision of goals > 3. tie in to broader reward and recognition program.

Hybrid Performance Model: Embedding agile feedback cycles within a performance process can afford the benefits of both above while shoring up against the challenges they each present. Collaboration is still key at every stage of the model, but this is contextualized as part of a broader process. Consistent feedback and focused coaching are repeated elements between more formal - but still collaborative - goal setting and revision steps. An overall assessment and appraisal step wraps up the model and leads to another 'initial' goal setting step to start the next iteration.

Typical Hybrid Performance Model: 1. initial goal setting (collaborative) > 2. consistent feedback & focused coaching > 3. mid-cycle goal revision (collaborative) > 4. consistent feedback & focused coaching > 5. performance assessment, goal review, and appraisal tie-in.

When Feedback is an Everyday Occurrence...

When an organization focuses on developing their culture of open and honest feedback, it...

1. Increases a sense of engagement for employees, managers, and leaders by focusing on interactivity with each other and easing how achievements can be captured and shared, all while building broader ownership of the program.
2. Builds confidence and self-awareness within teams through honest feedback and helpful, focused, constructive feedback - heightening the quality of conversations and bringing increased visbility and transparency of performance.
3. Contributes to an open and transparent culture of the organization - both with the feedback itself, but also leading to ways to highlight new development to opportunities, providing a greater sense of control over career growth, and an overall greater sense of engagement.
4. Retains employees by creating higher quality employee-manager relationships that ultimately impact employee satisfaction, employee productivity, and employee enthusiasm.

Guiding Principles for Organizations

Once the value of feedback is understood, and we start to implement a feedback program (or iterate on our existing programs), some key guiding principles can help us ensure that program remains focused on building that open and honest culture of feedback:

• Consistency and collaboration are keys throughout - consistency counters recency bias and spaces our feedback into meaningful chunks; collaboration increases interactivity and breaks down barriers between managers and direct reports.
• Feedback is sourced from multiple stakeholders - managers, peers, colleagues, indirect managers, direct reports: anyone with a working relationship should be open to providing feedback to broaden the perspective of that feedback.
• Employee buy-in should be solicited at every stage of the process - to ensure the process works for the individual and emphasizes the employee experience.
• Provide training on the program, its expectations, and on giving feedback itself - ensure everyone is prepared for the changes required, and knows how to give focused, helpful, and constructive feedback.
• Culture, context, and climate all shape the feedback and the program - cyclically, the feedback program shapes the culture, too. Starting small with a focused purpose begins to shift how feedback is viewed.
• Feedback programs should be connected to appraisals, recognition, etc. - show your organization's commitment to a culture of feedback by valuing that feedback with actions, not just words.

Get Started with Employee Buy-In

One of the most critical - and most difficult - aspects of a feedback program is employee participation. By taking steps to create buy-in early, participation and engagement can be kick started.

First, develop a vision and articulate the benefits of the program. Don't just put the value of the program in terms of solving problems of other processes (like performance reviews) - those issues may stem from deeper issues and probably won't be solved right away. Value to individual contributors, managers, leaders, and the organization should stand on its own.

After setting the value statement, have candid conversations with all stakeholders about the changes they will see in their day-to-day. Discuss the expectations of managers and employees, and also talk about the training they'll be provided.

Once these conversations are held, identify who were the most positive about the new program - recruit them to be change agents to help champion the vision and benefits of the program. Ideally, these are people outside of HR who are already respected for the contributions to the organizations.

Finally, identify the skeptics: the folks who may not believe that the stated value will be achieved. Bring them into the process too! Leverage their skepticism into helping identify problems or issues that would otherwise be overlooked, and to help iterate the value statement. If, through this engagement process, skeptics get onboard, then they make powerful advocates.

Success Scenarios with SumTotal

SumTotal offers powerful tools to deliver a robust feedback program that can meet the needs of any organization. These three scenarios outline how SumTotal Continuous Feedback, along with other SumTotal functionality, all work together to help organizations follow those guiding principles to build their culture of open and honest feedback.

1: New Manager Mentoring Program

Heather Rose is an HR Administrator who oversees her company's mentoring program for new managers. When an individual contributor is promoted to a manager for the first time, they're assigned a mentor for a few months to help them with their new responsibilities. To ensure mentors are successful, Heather utilizes SumTotal to train, support, and enable them.

Heather creates an Initiative assigned to mentors when they're assigned a mentee. The first section of the initiative is for pre-mentoring training - it includes a welcome letter and thank you note from their company's CEO, a document outlining the program details and expectations, and assigned training on giving quality, focused, impactful feedback. Mentors are expected to complete the first section before their start their relationship with their mentee.

The second section of the initiative is more open-ended, allowing the mentor to jump between the steps throughout the three-month program. The section includes an embedded Continuous Feedback step, where each mentor is expected to create a 1:1 Journal with their mentee. This 1:1 Journal should leverage a reminder schedule to encourage mentors and mentees to meet and complete Journal entries consistently, a meeting link to virtual meeting platform (like Teams, Zoom, or Webex). The other steps in the section include a link to the mentee's development plan, and a mentors-only social community where mentors can share best practices or challenges they experience during the program.

Finally, once the program wraps up, the initiative includes a final talent assessment to help track the impact of the mentoring program, and a program survey to iterate the program itself going forward.

Using Continuous Feedback within an initiative, along with assigned learning activities, social communities, and other embedded steps, Heather solicited employee buy-in, provided concrete training and resources, strove for consistency, and connected the mentorship program to promotions.

2: Enable a Culture of Feedback with Recognition

Stuart Bailey reports to the Chief Culture Officer and is charged with enabling a culture of feedback across the organization. Stuart looks to start a recognition program that has a low barrier to entry for employees, with small rewards to start.

Starting with SumTotal Continuous Feedback, Stuart aims to keep giving feedback simple. He sets up a feedback template of three questions: How did this colleague stand out to you?, What made your colleagues contributions notable?, and What do you recommend we as an organization to make this success attainable by more of your colleagues? Stuart disabled general comments, categorization fields, and linked items - getting extra work out of the way to get employees right to the feedback.

Stuart layers in recognition and reward using gamification. First, he sets up a series of badges awarded when a user provides three, ten, and 25 pieces of feedback. As part of the program, when someone shares their badge to social media, they're entered into a drawing for a prize like company swag, a new tablet, or a gift card to a local restaurant. Second, he also sets up gamification to award points when feedback is submitted. Using leaderboards, the employees who've provided the most feedback are easily visible as change agents, and Stuart can recognize them appropriately.

Using Continuous Feedback and gamification, Stuart aimed for consistency, utilizing multiple feedback sources, sought buy-in, and tied feedback to recognition and multiple reward opportunities.

3: Build Manager Engagement with Their Teams

Sally Benton is a department head and wants to ensure her managers are taking the time to talk to, and develop, each direct report. She wants to be sure annual performance reviews are reflective of a year of achievement, while also helping each employee to have a hand in their development and career journey.

Sally works with HR to setup Continuous Feedback to help her team be successful with bi-weekly conversations and journal entries. They disable some of the attribute options to simplify the 1:1 Journal and integrate Continuous Feedback with their Microsoft Teams instance. This lets 1:1 Journals create a Teams meeting automatically on creation. Along with helpful reminder notifications, 1:1 Journals help automate the scheduling work for Sally's managers. They're also asked to link each journal to the relevant goals the employee has in Performance and Goals, to track conversations related to each.

Once a 1:1 Journal is created, each journal entry uses a simple template - that sally put together with her managers - to help focus the conversations into five areas: reviewing the past two weeks of work compared to expectations, reviewing manager support in those past two weeks, setting expectations for both the direct report and the manager for the next two weeks, and a longer-term-focused question to track early ideas, future opportunities, or broader career objectives.

Finally, HR integrates Continuous Feedback into their annual Performance Assessment. This brings the content of the Journal entries from throughout the year directly into the performance form - providing context and information as self and manager assessments are completed.

Using Continuous Feedback and its integrations with Microsoft Teams and SumTotal Talent Management's Performance and Goals, Sally leveraged reminders and question templates for consistency and based on employee input, along with connecting feedback to long-term goals and performance assessments.

Summary

Ultimately, every organization has a place for feedback as part of their performance, recognition, development, or engagement strategies. These guiding principles, tips, and models can support these strategies, but the most important step is to get started. An organization that values feedback creates a more open and honest culture - empowering more engaged, retained people.

Learn More About SumTotal

To learn more, get a demo, or get started with SumTotal Continuous Feedback, check out https://www.sumtotalsystems.com. Feel free to reach out to me for any questions. For existing customers, these resources and so much more are available in SumTotal Connect, and contact your SumTotal Professional to learn more.

Related Content

1. Blog Post: Keys to a Meaningful 1:1
2. Blog Post: Talent Engagement: More Critical Than Ever

References

• 10 Tips for Giving Useful Performance Review Feedback (With Examples) | Indeed.com
• Effective Performance Feedback: How to give performance feedback to employees | CQ Net - Management skills for everyone (ckju.net)
• Getting Leaders, Managers and Employees to “Buy In” to Continuous Performance Management | HR Technologist
• The performance feedback process: A preliminary model | ScienceDirect
• What Is Feedback and Why Is It Important? | LEO Learning
• Why is feedback important? | University of Reading