Learning and Growth Tutorial for Supervisors_Managers |
Supervisor/Manager Guide
Learning and Growth Reviews Learning and Growth reviews will always be more accurate, objective and meaningful when input and feedback are consistently anchored to job-specific expectations. That’s what Encompassing Visions (ENCV) does. Based on the roles you and your staff are specifically responsible for, ENCV will enable each person’s contributions to be measured at the individual, team and organizational level in up to three (3) different ways; •Competencies demonstrated. •Business Objectives accomplished. •Personal Development Objectives achieved.
Competency Reviews Let’s start by talking about Competency reviews.
Competency reviews focus on the job-specific and strategically relevant behaviours and the technical skills expected to be demonstrated by each person in the organization because of the job they are in.
The importance of a competency in each job is software-identified from Job Descriptions and Job Evaluation results stored in ENCV. As soon as an employee is attached to a particular job in the ENCV database, the software is able to ensure every learning and growth review will always be anchored to what each job incumbent is uniquely paid to do.
As a Supervisor or Manager, this should save you significant preparation time (and potentially some stress) because you won’t need to figure out what you should be including in competency reviews for each member of your staff. The software will prompt you with the most relevant job-specific questions. Each member on your team will also be prompted with the same questions when they do a self-assessment.
You are about to learn what ‘best of breed’ learning and growth reviews look like. In addition to time savings, you will discover that Competency Reviews completed in ENCV will increase the objectivity of each review you complete by giving you quantifiable and understandable results. You should experience significantly less misunderstanding with others about what is being assessed in the learning and growth review - and why - because you and your staff will understand what the measures are. We hope that you will find the process more collegial and less confrontational with your staff. And, with clear, quantifiable, system-generated ideas for ‘next steps’ in each person’s job and career development plan, you, as their Supervisor, will be positioned to help them become the very best they can be.
And please remember, if at any time you feel the importance of a specific behavioural competency is under or over-rated, or the technical skills listed in the learning and growth review are not the right or even the best one’s, be sure to contact your Human Resources Department. There may be a requirement to update the linked Job Description and Job Evaluation result, because with ENCV it’s all integrated.
Completing a ‘SUPERVISOR’ Competency Review 1.When logging into Encompassing Visions, you will be navigated directly to the Complete Review screen. On that screen you will see your name as well as the names of others who are direct reports. Each required review will have a review period and the date by which the Competency Review is to be completed. You are encouraged to start any of the reviews and include supporting comments at any time during the review period. If you do, just be sure to save your input at the end of each session by clicking on the (SAVE) icon. We just ask that the entire review completed by the ‘Due Date’ showing.
2. If you have been asked to provide review input for another person in the organization who is not a direct report, you will also see their name on your list of reviews needing to be completed.
3. Select the review you wish to complete by moving the mouse over top of their name, and single click. Your selection will be bolded in black.
4. Double click to open the selected review.
Note: As mentioned earlier, the Competency Review questions you will be answering are automatically generated by the software and will be based on what the job incumbent is specifically paid to do.
Note: It may be important for you to know what perspectives people have about their own learning and growth. If this is important to you, and the related Policy settings have been enabled by your organization, you will be able to create a copy of that person’s ‘INCUMBENT’ review if the review is for the same review period and has already been completed by the incumbent. With copying, all responses and comments entered by the incumbent will be transferred into what will then become your ‘SUPERVISOR’ review. The original ‘INCUMBENT’ review remains in the software database, unchanged. At this point, you can make whatever changes and comments you think are necessary in your review, knowing that it will now reflect your perspectives, and how well they correlate with the perspectives of the person being reviewed.
5. For ‘SUPERVISOR’ reviews, the actionable icons on the screen will be: ‘Copy’ the employee’s self-assessment.
If a self-assessment for the same review period has been completed by the ‘INCUMBENT’, all competency evaluation responses and comments are copied into your new ‘SUPERVISOR’ review. Double click on the first competency in the list, and you can now begin to:
1) Read each Competency response, Justification, and Competency Note entered by the Incumbent;
2) Change any responses you think are necessary, and enter any Justification / Competency Note you feel is important to make; then
3) Delete the Justifications and Competency Notes entered by the ‘INCUMBENT’ because this is now your ‘SUPERVISOR’ review. Please note that while they have been deleted in your review, the ‘INCUMBENTS’ comments can still be included in the final printed learning and growth report if you choose to.
Continue, and start a blank review.
(Please note that if you proceed with the review at this time, no review details or comments will be retained in the software if you decide to copy the ‘INCUMBENT’ review at a later date.) or
Cancel.
(Return to the ‘Complete Reviews’ screen)
6. For Competency Reviews, the screen will display the behaviours and skills that you need to review. You will notice there is a column headed ‘Sub-Review Status’. That particular column indicates the number of detailed questions related to the specific Competency and, at any point in time during the review period, how many you have already answered.
Only the most important Competencies in a person’s job will have detailed questions attached, and that threshold of what defines ‘Importance’ was set as an organizational standard by your executive management team. So, if you see a dash in the Competency row, it means there are no sub-review questions because it did not reach the threshold of importance in the Incumbents job.
Double click on any Competency listed in the table and let’s get started!
If you are unable to answer a question for any reason, please select C/C (Cannot Comment) as your response.
The text field headed ‘Competency Notes’ is not typically a required component of the review process but is provided to enable you to enter any important general comments you may want to make about that particular Competency. All comments you enter will be included in the Learning and Growth Review Report.
Click the Save and Go button to save your response(s) and comments and proceed to the next Competency.
You can also click Save and the Previous button if you want to save your response(s) and comments and go back to the previous Competency.
7. IMPORTANT! - Click the icon to ensure your work has been saved before leaving the Review Details screen. And please remember, all competencies do NOT have to be reviewed at one time. In fact, it will possibly be a better, more thoughtful review if you don’t try to do it all at once. Reviews in the Encompassing Visions software system can be saved and returned to at any point during the review period. The software will keep the review open, even if every Competency has already been reviewed, until the ‘Due Date’ has been reached.
The system will automatically prompt you to provide Justification comments if your responses have resulted in a ‘High’ or ‘Low’ rating for the related Competency. The review will not be considered ‘Complete’ by the software until justifications have been entered.
OR
To facilitate the process of completing Learning and Growth Reviews, ENCV is now available as a Mobile App on your Android/iOS cell phone or tablet. If you do not have easy access to a computer and would like to use the Mobile App, please contact your Administrator and they will set you up.
Checking Your Progress!! At the top of the Competency Review screen, you will notice an indicator that shows the review status and information about how many Competencies in the review have been completed.
Print Review-to-date / Print Blank Review for Selected Review On some occasions it may be more convenient to print the learning and growth review on paper in order to complete it (i.e., when internet connectivity is limited or not possible). If that is the case, and you want to complete the review offline –
a. In the ‘Complete/Print Reviews’ module, select the Employee name in the table with a single click of the mouse b. From the ‘View’ drop down list, select “Print Review-to-date” or “Print Blank Review” c. Click the “green arrow” d. The Competency Review will print to the screen. e. Print, Save or Export the report
Please remember that any responses and comments recorded on this paper copy will still need to be keyed into the software at a later date.
Note: The option ‘Print Review-to-Date’ displays a printable copy of the review that includes any responses and comments that were previously entered into the software by you for that specific review.
Reviews BY Subordinates for their Direct Reports This function enables you to have a look at reviews in the process of being completed by your direct reports for their staff (i.e., your indirect reports). It will tell you whether they have been started so you can follow up in a timely fashion to ensure they get done on time. It will also enable you to potentially address any areas of concern with the review well before the review is considered complete and approved by your direct report and the employee under their supervision. Access is restricted based on the organizational relationships of the person logged in.
If the Status of a review is showing ‘Not Started’, you will also notice that the icon (showing at the bottom right of the screen) will be grayed out. From this same screen, to have a look at reviews underway by another direct report, click on the to clear the name and related records. Type in your direct reports name in the Search box.
Printing A Learning and Growth Report Once you have completed the Competency Review as a ‘SUPERVISOR’, you can view/print a summary of the information; • Scroll over the Employees header in the navigation bar at the top of the screen. • Select “Complete/Print Reviews”.
a. Filter the employee list as required. If you need to see all the employees that you are authorized to view, simply clear filters (). b. Select the Employee name in the table with a single click of the mouse. a.Click the icon in the actions box to “Print the Learning and Growth Report for Selected Employee’.
Please note that only responses from the selected reviewer role will be included in the calculated learning and growth rating. Further, ENCV ensures that individuals printing a learning and growth report for themselves – regardless of the ‘Role’ they select – are limited to only seeing their personal (i.e., ‘INCUMBENT’) review. One more thing… If you are seeing the ‘INCUMBENT’ comments showing up twice in the report, its because you didn’t delete the ‘INCUMBENT’ comments in your ‘SUPERVISOR’ review. You might want to do that now.
Ideally, before the review ‘Due Date’ has been reached, you should plan to meet with each staff member separately to review and finalize the documentation. If you believe changes are appropriate to make following discussion(s) with the employee, they should be made in your ‘SUPERVISOR’ review.
Competency Rating Calculations Competency ratings in ENCV are significantly influenced by two things: 1) the relative importance (from 1 out of 10 to 10 out of 10) of each competency in the job the incumbent is paid to do, and 2) how well job incumbents are demonstrating those job competencies. In this way, incumbents performing very important job competencies at a high level will likely realize a very good overall competency rating in ENCV, even if some lesser important job competencies are not performed at the same level of proficiency.
In the Employee Learning and Growth Report, the job competency ‘Importance Rating’ assigned to each listed competency is system-generated based on the Job Description and Job Evaluation process that determined the job level / compensation range for the job. Having this direct link (unique to ENCV) helps to ensure a clear and consistent understanding of expectations and deliverables between the incumbent and their supervisor. It also guarantees that learning and growth ratings are truly based on what the job incumbent is paid to do, not what the employee or supervisor thought the job required.
Feedback objectivity is supported by ENCV as it enables one or multiple reviewers to provide learning and growth feedback for individuals on your team.
Objectivity is further supported with multiple detailed questions that are system prompted for every competency that has a high ‘Importance Rating’ (usually 7 or higher) in the job performed by the person being reviewed. Having detailed questions ensures measures are more consistent and reviews more thorough. Any competencies scored as ‘Cannot Comment’ are excluded from all calculations within ENCV. That ensures a person’s ‘Overall Competency Ratings’ is not inappropriately effected positively or negatively.
So, lets have a look at how the calculations work...
Archive and Approve a Learning and Growth Report
2.Click the ‘Print Learning and Growth Report for Selected Employee’ option in the Actions box of the ‘Complete/Print Reviews’ screen. 3.Click the Archive Report button on the Learning and Growth report.
A notice will be generated by the software advising if you would want to archive the report. If you click “OK”, a notice will be generated by the software advising you that the report has been archived.
a. If you click “OK”, the system will take you to the archived reports list and highlight the review you just archived.
b. If “Cancel” is selected, the system will close the screen. The Archived report will have been saved, but without any comments or a ‘Reviewed’ designation in the software. That information will still need to be entered at another time. When you are ready to, just follow the same simple steps outlined above (i.e., navigate to ‘Employees’, click on the ‘Archived Learning and Growth Reports’ option, select the specific Archived learning and growth report you are looking for, and double click the mouse.)
Adding Additional Reviewers As highlighted earlier, ENCV automatically sets up the secured ability for you, and each member of your team, to do self-assessments. Called ‘INCUMBENT’ reviews in the software, this functionality enables people to communicate how well they think they demonstrated the Competencies required in their roles.
As a Supervisor/Manager, you will also automatically be asked to review the job-specific behaviours and technical skills demonstrated by your direct reports - called ‘SUPERVISOR’ reviews.
Sometimes it is helpful to also invite others to provide their feedback about you or someone on your team from a ‘Client’, ‘Peer’, or ‘Subordinate’ perspective. With more diverse perspectives about the behaviours and technical skills demonstrated, there is a heightened probability that the summarized learning and growth feedback will be more thorough and objective, and perceived as so.
3. The ‘Insert Reviewer’ screen will open.
4. The ‘Reviewee’ will be the name of the employee you previously selected to add a reviewer to.
7. Review ‘Type’ will default to the selected (highlighted) review and cannot be changed. See the example provided above. Phil Edwardson and his ‘Competency’ review have been selected, which is why the ‘Competency’ review is the selected default in this filter.
Organizational Learning and Growth Developing employees makes good business sense because they know if their organization has a genuine interest in their future. Training builds loyalty and engagement while increasing productivity because talented people appreciate meaningful support when coaching and mentoring are made available to them. And, the most effective programs emphasize a correlation between personal development and learning and growth review feedback; that way, people can clearly see that their career growth and success requires evolving their expertise through training.
But like other capital investments, senior management needs to know what the measurable outcomes of employee development will be so they can accurately determine rates of return.
ENCV consolidates employee learning and growth feedback to any required level within your organization. In the process it quantifies training needs, identifies potential mentors, and enables the impact of training investments to be measured. Further, it magnifies the importance of continuing to invest in employee development when improvement is quantified and can be seen to closely correlate with the learning and growth targets of the organization (e.g., increased efficiency, revenue growth, expense management, productivity, etc.).
The software can quickly consolidate information to show you in a dash board graphic how well your team is performing vis-a-vis the organization as a whole. Information generated includes a detailed breakdown of your teams’ competency strengths and weaknesses, and a prioritized list of team training needs so you can immediately 1) know which training investments have the greatest potential to impact team learning and growth, and 2) track year over year changes in team learning and growth to verify that training investments had the expected impact on improving team learning and growth.
On the navigation bar at the top of the screen, hover your mouse over the header labelled ‘Analysis’ and select ‘Organizational Learning and Growth’. A filter will be displayed for determining what specific information you would like to include in your analyses once you select the report you would like to generate. The ‘Organization Unit’ field will be pre-populated with the area of the organization you are responsible for. While you cannot select an organizational unit outside your area of responsibility, you can select any area of the organization you are responsible for from the pull down options.
Complete the rest of the filter options displayed to ensure ENCV generated reports will include only the information you want to see.
Based on the filter settings, the second section on the ‘Organizational Learning and Growth’ screen enables you to select specific reports that relate to 1) summarized information about your area of organizational responsibility, or 2) employee-specific information about people who work within your area of organizational responsibility.
‘Organization’ Learning and Growth Dashboard'
‘Employee’ Learning and Growth Dashboard
Employees with a strength in certain Competencies or Skills may be able to offer support or training to others in the organization (mentor matching). Knowing employee strengths will also help determine whether the organization is building up the capability to support the achievement of short and longer term operational and strategic goals.
Tracking Competency Strengths (Organization / Employee)
‘Competency/Technical Strengths’ reports provide the names of employees who could be potential ‘mentors’ to others based on the level of learning and growth they have demonstrated in their current work.
‘Competency/Technical Development Opportunities’ reports provide details about members on your team who would benefit from specific training and development opportunities because their learning and growth does not indicate these important competencies/technical skills are a ‘Strength’.
Business and Personal Development Objectives As outlined in this guide, complete learning and growth reviews are not only about the Competencies ‘demonstrated’, but also about the Business Objectives (BO)‘accomplished’ and Personal Development Objectives (PDO) ‘achieved’. Taken together, these three measures incorporated into ENCV make a learning and growth review ‘whole’. Both BO and PDO processes are similar in terms of development, approval, review and report generation.
Business Objectives Every year there may be new or recurring tasks or projects that need to be accomplished. Each important task or project detail is considered a Business Objective in ENCV, and each will have a specific completion date assigned to it (see ‘Suggestions for Creating SMART Objectives’). Over the course of a Review Period (typically 1 year in duration, and usually associated with the organizations Fiscal cycle) there may be several Business Objectives you and your direct reports will be expected to accomplish. Whether there is one or several Business Objectives with the same or different Due Dates, all objectives should collectively be included in one ‘Business Objective Work Plan’ for the stated Review Period.
Personal Development Objectives Every year there may be one or more specific personal development objective(s) you and your direct reports are asked to address. These objectives may be tied to an earlier learning and growth review where development of a specific Competency was identified as something important and beneficial for you – or someone on your team - to develop. Over the course of the Review Period (typically 1 year in duration and usually associated with the organizations Fiscal cycle) there may be one or several Personal Development Objectives you or another member of your team are expected to achieve. Regardless of the number of personal development objectives a person may have, they should be collectively included in one ‘Personal Development Objective Work Plan’ for the stated Review Period.
Creating A Business Objective Work Plan / Personal Development Objective Work Plan.
1. Scroll over to ‘Employees’ in the navigation bar to display the related menu options. 2. Select the type of Work Plan you want to set up or view – ‘Business Objectives’ or ‘Personal Development Objectives’.
The system will open the input screen for the type of Work Plan you have selected. You will only ever see Work Plans related to yourself and your direct reports. If there is no detailed information showing under the report headings, that means there are no previous Work Plan(s) to display.
Creating Work Plan
You will notice that the ‘Work Plan Title’ field is pre-populated with a "Fiscal Year" label. For consistency and ease of future reference, it is recommended you keep the system suggested Work Plan Title as pre-populated. It can however be changed if you need to. Verify the pre-populated ‘Period Dates’, change as necessary, and then click on the green arrow forward button to proceed with entering the first Objective of the Work Plan.
You will be directed by the software to another input screen where details about the first objective can be entered. After Objective #1 has been entered, click on the green arrow forward button to enter Objective #2, and so on until every objective for the ‘Fiscal year’ has been entered.
Alternatively, for a new Work Plan that has been entered in the top half of the screen, highlight it with a single click of the mouse, then in the bottom half of the screen (i.e., ‘Work Plan Details’) click the ‘Add’ icon in the ‘Actions:’ bar.
• Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*). • You may save the Work Plan at any point, even if all Objectives have not yet been completed. Please note however that you will not be able to approve the Work Plan until all the required details for every Objective have been entered.
Suggestions for Creating SMART Objectives You and your and staff must agree on the timing and quality of results tied to each objective, including the general approach required to achieve them, and the resources and support that will be needed to accomplish them.
Copying a Work Plan Some people have Business Objective Work Plans that change very little from one year to the next. If that is the case, you may want to save yourself some time by using ENCV functionality to ‘copy’ their specific Work Plan from the previous year. To copy an existing Work Plan either for yourself or someone on your team, identify the persons Work Plan you want to copy, and then single click the mouse on it. Then click theicon in the ‘Actions:’ bar at the top left of the screen.
You will notice that the ‘Employee’ field is pre-populated with the selected Employee’s name and a ‘New Work Plan Title’ is requested. Verify the pre-populated ‘Period Dates’, change as necessary, and choose whether you want to also ‘Copy Resources Costs’ and/or ‘Memo Notes’ from the original Work Plan.
Next, click on the green arrow forward button at the bottom of the screen begin reviewing and editing (as necessary) each copied Objective in the ‘new’ Work Plan. Note: All ‘Approvals’ and any ‘Confidential Comments’ in the original Work Plan are NOT included in the copied version.
Copying A Work Plan to Multiple Employees If you have a number of people reporting to you who do the same job and will have identical Business Objective Work Plans, you can create one Work Plan for one person doing the job, and then copy it to every other person doing the same work. To do this, create a new Work Plan for one of the job incumbents, and then enter expected objectives to be accomplished during the review period. When it is proven ‘Valid’ by ENCV and ‘Approved’ by the employee and you (as their ‘Lead’) you will see that Work Plan listed in the top section of the screen. Single click on it with the mouse, then click the icon in the ‘Actions:’ bar at the top left of the screen.
You will notice that the ‘Employee’ field is pre-populated with the selected Employee’s name and a ‘New Work Plan Title’ is requested. Verify the pre-populated ‘Period Dates’, change as necessary, and choose whether you want to also ‘Copy Resources Costs’ and/or ‘Memo Notes’ from the original Work Plan.
Select ‘Group by Job’ or ‘Group by Organization’. Based on the jobs and incumbent names presented, select the ones you wish to copy the Work Plan to. Click the Save button at the bottom of the screen, and ENCV will distribute a copy of the Work Plan to each of them. Please note that each employee receiving the Work Plan will still need to individually approve it, as will you, before it will be reviewable.
The ENCV ‘rules’ for copying Work Plans are - •You can copy a Work Plans to other employees who directly report to you; •You can copy a Work Plan to other employees who indirectly report to you through a subordinate ‘lead’; but, •You cannot copy a Work Plan to a peer of yours; and, •You cannot copy a Work Plan to someone at a higher level in the organization than you.
Approving Work Plans Once the Objective details are proven Valid by ENCV, each Work Plan still requires approval by you (as the ‘Lead’) and the employee for whom the Work Plan was created. Please note that if a Work Plan is not ‘Approved’ by both the ‘Employee’ and their ‘Lead’ it will not be available for evaluation.
o Tick the Lead Approved box if you agree with the Work Plan objectives as detailed.
Once the Work Plan is approved, it cannot be edited. Should changes be required, it will first need to be UNAPPROVED by both you and your staff member. When the edits have been made to the plan, it must once again be re-approved as outlined above. Unapproving a Work Plan will only be possible if its review has not yet been started.
Evaluating Work Plans When you first log into ENCV, the software should take you directly to the ‘Complete Reviews’ module. Alternatively, you can move your mouse to the ‘Employees’ heading in the navigation bar at the top of the screen, and select the option labelled ‘Complete/Print Reviews’.
Note: As previously described with ‘Competency Reviews’, you will be prompted by the software with an option to copy the completed BO or PDO self assessment of your direct report (i.e., their ‘INCUMBENT’ review). If you select the option to do so, all responses and comments will be copied into what will then become your ‘SUPERVISOR’ review. If the direct report has not yet completed their Work Plan self assessment, it will not be available for copying.
• Scroll over the evaluation rating buttons (1-5 or 1-10) to display rating definitions. Select the one that is most appropriate.
Why Encompassing Visions?...
ENCV is based on the principles of Objectivity, Accountability and Respect.
•Learning and Growth reviews and ratings are more Objective because they are always based on what a person is specifically paid to do - nothing more, nothing less;
•The process ensures Accountability because expectations and learning and growth measures can be clearly communicated before the year even begins, they don’t change unless the job does, and every aspect of what a learning and growth review should include – what was accomplished, and how was it done – is measured;
•Employee recognition programs and training / development plans demonstrate Respect to each person on your team because they are always based on an accurate and objective understanding of how each person’s contributions made a specific difference to individual, team and organizational success; and,
•Succession and career planning decisions are always based on the most accurate and objective information available about people and their capabilities – not who a person knows, but what a person has proven they can do.
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