Is there a place for Multi-Rater Feedback in the Selection Process?

Organizations select people for all sorts of things. They select new hires, they select for internal promotion, leadership/management roles, and key project management. They also select those who will get the biggest raises, those who will get development opportunities, those who are 'fast tracked' on a succession plan and those who will receive part ownership or stock options and stock.

WOW. There are a lot of processes that should include some sort of serious thought in an employee's career that are well beyond the hiring stage. And, many of those have more than a ripple effect within the organization.

So, why are these things left as decisions to be made 'on the fly' or by the select few for a 'select few'? If you consider the positive and negative impact, as well as the financial impact, of all of these decisions, should there not be a program that allows for consistency? Better still, wouldn't you, as an employee, like to think you had overcome a meaningful hurdle in a race where all employees had access to the game and knew the rules?

Right about now you are thinking - whoa....that's either a big job or a lot of money! Not really. First I would suggest that the money you save from time wasting politics, poor criteria or poor decision making without something in place, would more than adequately cover a consultant's time. Then I would tell you that the sooner an organization does this in its growth stages, the easier, and by far, less costly, it is.

Companies that understand their core values and the behaviours consistent with those values are able to build these into every people process in place. Select for those behaviours and reward those behaviours - and voila! You have a culture. I worked with a management team that had to turn an organization around from red to black, change the mindset, add a benefits plan, re-do policies, change some people and increase staff by 50 within 2 years. The long story short, we did it and the key was hiring, and rewarding, for the right technical skills and behavioural skills. Then weaving those skills into every "selection point criteria" we noted above. Promotion, internal project teams, the biggest raises, development opportunities, 'fast trackers' for the succession plan and those who received part ownership in stock options and stock. The latter was by far the most creative!

Everyone knew the rules of the game and understood the process. For every selection point, we referenced their job performance and the results of their 360 feedback - from reception to C Suite. It was a thing of beauty and that organization just hummed! Oh - and why do I say "the sooner the better"? Because a change like this in mid to large size established companies would take far more than 2 years and cost much, much more; turning a juggernaut around, as it were. And success, real success, without top down commitment, can be illusive.