Enhance Long-Term Employability with 360-Degree Feedback

Increasing sustainable employability is an increasingly important goal for organizations and employees. Employers also have growing ambitions in this area, but putting these into practice on the job often falls short. Giving employees sufficient insight into their own performance, talents, and development opportunities is invaluable for taking concrete steps forward. In this regard, 360-degree feedback is extremely valuable because it fosters broader self-awareness and facilitates more productive conversations between employees and managers.

Go directly to:

• What is sustainable employability?
• Who takes the lead?
• Sustainable employability with 360-degree feedback
• Why use 360-degree feedback?
• A single competency framework for sustainable employability
• Sustainable employability is changing
• Ensure consistency

 

What Is Sustainable Employability?

[ps2id id='1' target=''/] In recent years, there has been a growing awareness that employees must continuously work on their development-not only in terms of professional expertise but also in terms of their behavior and competencies in the workplace. This often refers to sustainable employability. In fact, this is a somewhat broad and popular term for a concept that has many different definitions. Collectively, they primarily concern: adaptability, talent development, productivity, personal growth, mobility, vitality, motivation, and health. And they concern the ability of employees to be-and remain—“relevant.” Due to its great importance to employers and the growth of the workforce, many organizations now have ambitions in this area. However, when it comes to translating these into concrete personnel policies and taking decisive action in practice, progress often stalls. Almost all collective bargaining agreements now include provisions on sustainable employability. According to the National Survey on Sustainable Employability (2019), the issue is now on the “strategic agenda” at 68 percent of companies and organizations. In particular, the practical translation of sustainable employability into HR policy and workplace practices often falls short. Employees do regularly participate in training, but this is still primarily focused on their current roles. For sustainable employability, however, you need to look a bit further ahead.

Who takes the lead?

[ps2id id='2' target=''/] When it comes to putting this into practice, the key question is usually: who is responsible for employees’ sustainable employability? According to employers, employees themselves should take the lead in managing their own careers. But they’ll only do so once they’re sufficiently aware of the importance and necessity of this-and once they’re given the right tools to do so. Exactly which tools those should be varies depending on the type of organization, the people who work there, and their development goals. One of the key steps is increasing self-awareness and clarifying one’s own long-term development path. Practical tools can contribute significantly to this. In addition, meaningful conversations between employees and their managers are, of course, important-preferably as part of a modern performance management cycle.

Sustainable Employability with 360-Degree Feedback

[ps2id id='3' target=''/] To give employees greater insight into their own performance, talents, and development opportunities, a Sustainable Employability Scan can be helpful. But 360-degree feedback can also help employees and managers truly put development goals into practice. It is a simple and accessible way to assess employees’ (work) performance. And it’s a powerful tool for better leveraging employees’ potential and improving their performance-not only by supporting productive development discussions between employees and managers, but also by providing the insight needed to foster greater sustainable employability. Employees and managers can jointly identify talents and determine what areas still offer valuable opportunities for development. Looking toward the future, this can also be linked to anticipated organizational developments or, for example, strategic workforce planning (SPP).

Why use 360-degree feedback?

[ps2id id='4' target=''/] With the 360-degree feedback method, employee performance is assessed not only by a manager but by multiple people with whom the employee interacts. These may include, for example, colleagues, suppliers, a coach, or even customers. This can be tailored differently for each employee or development goal. As a result, an individual receives feedback from various perspectives, creating a more complete picture of how they perform in the workplace. As part of the modern performance cycle-which involves multiple short check-ins rather than the traditional performance review or appraisal—360-degree feedback can also help maintain a continuous focus on sustainable employability. Fortunately, organizations do not have to create 360-degree feedback questionnaires on their own. Standard questionnaires are available online, and users of hrmforce can utilize the 360-degree feedback questionnaire. You can read about how the method is used in practice in this article, which includes practical tips. To measure the sustainable employability of employees within organizations, the Sustainable Employability Index (DIX) has also been developed by the research organization TNO. This index provides insight into key areas such as health and energy, knowledge and skills, motivation and engagement, and employees’ work-life balance. However, this is a somewhat complex tool for organizations to implement.

A Single Competency Language for Sustainable Employability

[ps2id id='5' target=''/] Discussions about sustainable employability quickly turn to competencies. In this context, a clear and consistent competency vocabulary is valuable. After all, what exactly do you mean when you talk about competencies such as “customer focus,” “leadership,” or “self-management”? With a standardized competency framework, everyone speaks the same language, and you prevent misunderstandings from arising. A competency framework defines what each competency entails and describes the behaviors associated with it. Organizations can develop or adopt a competency framework on their own. Standard frameworks are readily available online, and those who use hrmforce tools can utilize a standard competency framework in addition to their own organizational framework. At hrmforce, we often create fully customized competency frameworks for organizations so that they align perfectly with the language and terminology used internally. Our standard competency framework (complete with a competency handbook) consists of approximately 50 competencies (based on the Big50) that make behavior measurable and discussable. This is certainly valuable when using 360-degree feedback and the development discussions that follow.

Sustainable employability is changing

[ps2id id='6' target=''/] The focus on sustainable employability originally began primarily as learning and development programs in “emergency situations,” such as layoffs or reorganizations. Due to the challenges of our current economy and labor market for organizations and workers, early and continuous development programs have become increasingly common in recent years. In this context, adding value for both the employer and the employee has become increasingly central. For example, there has also been a growing focus on “lifelong learning and development.” In our modern society-characterized by ever-increasing dynamism, a tighter labor market, globalization, new technologies (automation and robotization), greater flexibility, and faster job changes-both employers and employees must remain vital and adaptable. This increasingly determines their (job) opportunities and success. And because people are working into later and later ages, it is important that they also remain energetic and “up to date.” After all, the nature of existing jobs is changing at an ever-faster pace. As a result, existing knowledge becomes outdated more quickly.

Ensure coherence

[ps2id id='7' target=''/] In addition to supporting employees in their career development, organizations face another challenge when translating their ambitions for sustainable employability from policy into practice: ensuring coherence among the various existing initiatives. This coherence for sustainable employability is often lacking. A logical growth process might be to first build buy-in among managers and employees (using practical tools) to work together on sustainable employability. Then, step by step, programs can be integrated into the approach. As soon as the first results become visible, examples can be shared, and in this way, “the movement” grows. My advice: always start with a structured approach and by increasing self-management and self-awareness. Then determine which tools and resources are needed for employees and managers. 360-degree feedback may also make a valuable contribution here, especially by providing a much broader perspective on one’s own performance.