Upgrading employee development plans for CBL Group

CBL Group lays significant emphasis on employee well-being and growth. Thus, it sought ways to upgrade its usual employee development mechanisms. The ultimate objective was to enhance the credibility of feedback for finalizing robust IDPs (Individual Development Plans) for the teams in the middle and senior management categories. Besides, a key requirement for the CBL Group was to identify areas of improvement to initiate holistic growth plans for its middle and senior management tiers.

CBL’s primary requirements included the following:

An online feedback method

CBL Group wanted to move away from human-led and offline feedback methods to adopt a holistic, online alternative. The goal was to move to an efficient platform that would save time and focus more on the employee development process. Moving to a virtual platform would also enable the Group to effectively access and analyze the data to direct training and development.

Moving away from 90-degree feedback-based development plans

90-degree feedback refers to a one-on-one individual evaluation session between employees and their managers. At CBL Group, these sessions helped managers and employees identify areas of improvement, set development goals and measure progress, etc. However, CBL Group wanted to expand the scope of feedback by moving beyond the 90-degree mechanism. Capturing feedback from more than one reviewer enabled the company to undertake a well-rounded employee evaluation that considered feedback from superiors, peers, subordinates and other key stakeholders.

Evaluating all professionals against a standard framework

CBL Group wanted to adopt a standard framework that would:

• Help all managers and leaders grow, subsequently facilitating the company’s growth.
• Evaluate individuals against the company’s values, behaviors, leadership and managerial competencies for employees to prepare development plans.

Teaming up with Mercer | Mettl

CBL Group sought a digital 360 survey platform that would help add to its existing employee development methods. Once it discovered Mercer | Mettl’s 360 View, the management initiated the discussion.

The client’s collaboration with Mercer | Mettl was set in motion after a few trials and customizations to 360 View. First, Mercer | Mettl created a complete package of survey statements using CBL Group’s competency framework to set the right objectives for the assessment and development process. Mercer | Mettl’s psychometric experts dedicatedly worked with the client to create questions and survey statements aimed at gathering specific insights. Finally, the survey was topped up with individual development plans based on cumulative assessment reports.

Mercer | Mettl’s 360 feedback platform has an established credential as an excellent tool for succession planning, identifying and training skilled talent, nurturing high-potentials to assume influential roles, among others.

Mercer | Mettl intended to equip the client with unbiased and comprehensive employee development plans based on a thorough feedback process.

The idea was to gain a holistic perspective of the company’s employees instead of formulating development plans based only on manager-employee interactions. Here is how Mercer | Mettl enabled it:

• Open-ended feedback with detailed competency ratings

Competency ratings are an essential component of Mercer | Mettl’s 360-degree feedback because employees are measured on a set of competencies integral to their job roles. The platform allowed CBL Group’s employees to get dedicated feedback on all their competencies as reviewed by themselves, their subordinates, managers and colleagues. Besides, there were open-ended suggestions for improvement. The broad idea was to ensure that all assessed employees understood how they were perceived professionally, through constructive and actionable feedback.

• Behavioral profiling

The feedback platform included insights on every individual’s behaviors relevant to their professional roles. Such profiling helped uncover their hidden strengths, also highlighting improvement areas.

• Training needs identification

The feedback process, upon completion, offered insights into areas that could be worked upon through group training and personal efforts.

• Personal development plans

Once the responses were analyzed and compiled, Mercer | Mettl’s system rolled out extensive reports tailored to every individual. The highlight of these reports was a comprehensive personal development plan to make employees self-aware and work on themselves in a more focused manner. Also, individuals could easily analyze and extract reports’ information, enabling them to chart their developmental journeys and improve their skills and cohesion.

The insightful features of Mercer | Mettl’s 360 View provided CBL Group’s management with extensive data to work upon and offer structured development plans. This data-rich insight paved the way for highly advanced and holistic developmental strategies centered on a culture of regular feedback and healthy communication.

• The average number of employee assessments increased by more than four times due to automation, ease of use, speed, and other factors offered by Mercer | Mettl’s 360 View.
• Mercer | Mettl helped the client create custom survey statements that were aligned with their core values and competency frameworks.
• The client could adopt a more scientifically validated system than human feedback-based development planning.
• The client could identify competency gaps for every individual, helping it determine each employee’s development path.
• The individual development plans generated via Mercer | Mettl’s 360 View enabled CBL Group to work toward building a future-ready workforce.