TM - August 2008 - (Page 26)

the best in something doesn’t mean there isn’t an opportunity to improve and set higher standards.” Steck said one important area of assessment for Nissan employees that applies to both mindset and action is cross functionality, or the desire and ability to take on completely new assignments and roles. “We want employees to experience and participate in a wide variety of these cross-functional activities over the course of their careers,” he said. “The way we tend to assess and evaluate tends to gravitate toward cross functionality. To do that, move employees from function to function to get different experiences, and have them participate in special project teams or initiatives that might be shorter-duration and focused on an area outside their normal expertise.” These activities are pretty broad, and one might think they aren’t really exclusive to the automotive industry. But that’s exactly the point, Steck said. into the system to reduce variability by having multiple managers evaluate an employee whenever possible. “We try to calibrate those evaluation results with the next level up,” Steck said. “For example, if I were evaluating you, that evaluation would ultimately roll up. We would look at those assessments at a higher level and might even take a cross-functional view from a related function that might disagree with that assessment. We’re trying to put in techniques whereby there isn’t just one manager doing the evaluation. There’s another view, whether that’s from the next level up or input from a related function’s man- Evaluation of talent in any form is something of an inexact exercise. ager who interacts heavily with an employee who can bring a different perspective. “It’s not scientiﬁcally precise. If I rate you a 7.8, I don’t know that I can differentiate between that and 7.6. That’s where general views probably get the best results. You probably end up with the best possible solution. It’s the same when we do an evaluation: When we provide more than one view, it tends to be more accurate, consistent and repeatable.” Eye on the Future “Those mindsets and actions are easy for everyone to understand. It’s general enough that it applies in any language, region or business unit. At a general level, those mindsets and actions are the same areas we assess in our annual performance appraisals. Managers assess to what extent employees demonstrate these qualities in their day-to-day jobs and articulate what these mean by employees’ function and role. Employees are aware that they’re assessed on them. That makes it relatively simple to communicate.” Dealing With Variability In spite of an organization’s best efforts to make the assessment system and the capabilities it assesses as easy to understand as possible, there will be some inconsistency. One of the reasons for this is cultural differences. “Two people might have the same job function in two different parts of the business,” Steck said. “But because the way business is done in particular countries or regions is different, the relative importance of some of those mindsets and actions might be slightly different.” “There’s no surprise that different cultures will get assessment differently,” Clark said. “It’s not as much because of what a measure means — we can all ﬁgure out what it means to, say, collaborate — but how I rate you may be different. In Asian populations, they may not rate as stringently as European populations. There are different rater tendencies. We’re careful to make sure an assessment has cultural uniformity before we implement it, that people interpret it the same.” In addition to vetting interpretation of what’s being assessed and why, organizations can build calibration August 2008 Most organizations haven’t developed a truly dependable system to assess talent in their own countries, let alone at a global level. This will require a great deal more focus and discipline, as well as a new outlook on measuring people, Clark said. “Before the hard and meaningful assessments even come into play, what’s important is discipline that looks at investing in talent in different ways, like you would for new products or something like that. You plan for that, and we need to look at talent like that. If you get people to start looking at it broadly in terms of trends and implications, you can look at the data with a more objective eye. Companies need to be clear with people about what we’re using these assessments for, how we can use it to do true business planning.” It’s likely no matter how sophisticated these measures become, they’ll be practically worthless if they don’t provide some perspective on future trends and challenges. “If you treat them as a panacea, you’ll walk into an executive’s ofﬁce with 25 binders of data that mean nothing to him or her,” Clark said. “What you’re really trying to glean from these assessments at a company 26 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of TM - August 2008

TM - August 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Foundations Global Background Screening Does Global Assessment Work? Global Total Renumeration: Creat One Organization Border Insecurity: Immigration Reform and Talent Management The Global Workforce: Communication Across Cultures Around the World in How Many Days? Insight: Exelon: Performance Under Pressure Special Report: Perspectives on Managing People Application: Reinventing Sales Rewards at Motorola Dashboard: Mideast Meets West Dashboard: Mergers and Acquisitions 2008 - Don’t Leave Employees Behind Editorial Resources Advertisers' Index Full Potential

TM - August 2008

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