How Brighton & Hove City Council uses 360 feedback

Solution:

Support managers’ development in line with strategy

Result:

360 feedback to measure key behaviours and values, results helping to shape future leadership plans

Challenge

Measuring manager behaviours

Brighton & Hove City Council selected ETS in October 2017, choosing us to assist with the design and running of a 360 degree feedback programme for their top 100 managers. Brighton & Hove City Council is in a period of sustained organisational change. As part of this, the council’s chief executive is driving a revitalised performance culture, keen for them to focus not just on what they do but, importantly, on how they do it. They recognised that 360 feedback as a tool is ideally suited to provide these kind of insights. So, having introduced a new behavioural framework, they sought out help to devise a 360 feedback programme that would measure how well managers are role-modelling the values and behaviours. Tracey Gibson, Lead Consultant – Learning & Organisation Development at Brighton & Hove City Council explains their choice of partner: After researching a number of potential 360 providers we chose ETS. Having previously worked with a different supplier and had a pretty poor experience, we knew it was really important to find the right 360 tool and partner. We felt that both the feedback platform and support we would receive from ETS was flexible and could meet our needs, both current and future.

Solution

A user-friendly platform with broader programme support

Creating a user-friendly platform

‍We configured a 360 feedback platform for Brighton & Hove City Council that would be really quick for them to set up and easy to use. So far the top four tiers of their senior managers – over 100 people – have used the platform. We have also explored ways to future-proof the platform so that it can be rolled out to other groups going forward.

Broader programme support

‍Our business psychologists have worked closely with the council’s in house team, designing the 360 feedback questionnaire and providing guidance and training where needed. A key focus of this was on using the system and interpreting the reports.

One particular area the council was keen for help with related to gaining the trust of managers as giving and receiving structured feedback wasn’t part of the existing culture. We provided them with best practice guidance around effective communications and customised the text to use in emails and on the site to really make it fit with this cultural context. This reinforced key messages and ensured a simple user experience that also gave managers reassurance over confidentiality and how the feedback data was to be used purely to develop and support them.

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Result

A solid evidence base for our leadership development programme

Tracey Gibson explains how they’ve been able to use the 360 data at an aggregate level: We’ve used data to assess and promote areas of strength and support identified development areas. We also triangulated the results with people data from other sources, most notably our staff and wellbeing surveys, as well as aligning it with research around the knowledge, skills and behaviours required of Public Servants going forward. This has provided us with a really solid evidence base for our leadership development programme. In addition to this in-house analysis, ETS has provided our thoughts and guidance on how they might approach this follow-up intervention phase. Furthermore the council has been able to gain, for the first time, a systematic view of behaviours across their senior leader population. The overall feedback from those taking part was that it was a quick and easy process and they’ve really valued the personalised report they get at the end of it. Some managers have also benefitted from having one-to-one coaching provided by ETS business psychologists. Tracey Gibson comments on how they’ve found the experience of partnering with ETS: The team at ETS are experts in their field and are very client-focused and adaptable. Their approach has been to develop an ongoing partnership to support the council’s journey, rather than just see us as a customer with a specific need. Overall ETS have been great to work with. Not only are they very good at what they do, they are also lovely people! They’ve supported us at every step of the way…

Summary

Business Impact

Data used to assess and promote areas of strength and support identified development areas

Results were triangulated with people data from other sources, most notably staff and wellbeing surveys, as well as aligning it with research around the knowledge, skills and behaviours required of Public Servants going forward

This provided a really solid evidence base for the leadership development programme

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Case study