Learning and Growth Tutorial for Supervisor

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.

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.

1.When logging into Encompassing Visions, you will be navigated directly to the Complete/Print 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.

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.

If a self-assessment for the same review period has been completed by the ‘INCUMBENT’,

‘SUPERVISOR’ review. Double click on the first competency in the list, and you can now begin to:

I.Read each Competency response, Justification, and Competency Note entered by the Incumbent;

II.Change any responses you think are necessary, and enter any Justification / Competency Note you feel is important to make; then

III.Delete the Justifications and Competency Notes entered by the ‘INCUMBENT’ because this is now your ‘SUPERVISOR’ review.

IV.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.

If there is no completed ‘INCUMBENT’ review for the same fiscal period, a ‘SUPERVISOR’ review cannot be created by this method, and you will be advised accordingly. You may then select either of the other two remaining icons that will enable you to:

(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.)

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.

You will notice that each Competency has a rating scale. Your organization will have already determined whether it will be 1-5 or 1-10. Regardless of which scale is enabled, the software will display a ‘tooltip’ definition for each number when you hover your mouse over top of any response option.

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

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.

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.

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.

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”

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.

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.

a.From the ‘Complete/Print Reviews’ screen, single click on the name of a direct report showing on the list. In ‘View’ at the top of the screen, click on the

icon and select the option ‘Reviews BY Subordinates for their Direct Reports’ and then the

icon.

c.Double click the mouse to select one of the listed reviews if its Status shows ‘In Progress’.

d.Note: For CONFIDENTIALITY reasons, this function is disabled for any direct report self-assessments (i.e., ‘INCUMBENT’ reviews).

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.

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.

a.Filter the employee list as required. If you need to see all the employees that you are authorized to view, simply clear filters (

c.Click the

icon in the actions box to “Print the Learning and Growth Report for Selected Employee’.

d.Default Filter parameters will be displayed. Make sure the ‘Role’ and date range for when the review was ‘Completed’ are accurate. It might be of value to include comments from others if there was more than just your review completed during the selected review period. Select ‘All Reviewer Comments’ if you would like to include them in the system generated Learning and Growth report, then click the green ‘OK’ button.

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 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.

1.In the Employee Learning and Growth Report, each listed Competency has an ‘Importance Rating’ that is unique to the job the employee is assigned. As mentioned, this ‘Importance Rating’ comes directly from the Job Description and Job Evaluation process (i.e., it is tied directly to what the job incumbent is paid to do.)

2.The report will list the number of people (# of Reviewers) who completed a Learning and Growth review for the employee during the selected review period.

3.Any reviewers who couldn’t evaluate a competency will be counted under the ‘Cannot Comment’ column.

4.The ‘Response Average (max 5 or 10)’ reflects the rating scale that reviewers used (1-5, or 1-10) to respond to Competency review questions in the Learning and Growth review. The number in this column attached to each Competency is the specific response (if one question) or the average of all detailed responses calculated by ENCV to three (3) decimal places.

5.The numbers showing in the ‘Evaluated Points’ column are the result of multiplying ‘Importance Rating’ x ‘# of Reviews’ x ‘Response Average’ -

a.The total actual ‘Evaluated Points’ are calculated by the software by adding up the individual ‘Evaluated Points’ for each competency listed/reviewed;

b.The total potential ‘Evaluated Points’ are calculated by the software by adding up what the total number would have been if the incumbent had received a perfect rating (5/5 or 10/10) for every competency listed/reviewed;

c.Dividing the ‘total actual’ points by the ‘total potential’ points and multiplying the result by 5 (or 10, depending on the rating scale used) determines the Learning and Growth Rating to three (3) decimal places. This number is displayed under the column headed ‘Evaluated Rating’.

6.The resulting number is then mapped into the Competency Summary table displayed in the report to provide terminology and definition to the Learning and Growth rating calculated by the software.

If your organization has determined that Learning and Growth Reports are to be electronically archived and approved, then -

1.Generate the Learning and Growth report by selecting the employee from the list of the ‘Complete/Print Reviews’ screen. Be sure to include the appropriate Reviewer(s) and Review Period.

2.Click the ‘Print Learning and Growth Report for Selected Employee’ option in the Actions box of the ‘Complete/Print Reviews’ screen.

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.

•For the selected review in the ‘Archived Learning and Growth Reports’ module, click the icon as highlighted in the image above (or double click the mouse) to see the Learning and Growth Report detail for the Employee in its archived setting. (Note: At this time, we strongly recommend that you do not designate the report as ‘Reviewed’ by you. If you do, for system security and data integrity reasons, the Employee will be unable to enter ‘Employee Comments’ at the end of the Archived report.)

•Request the Employee to log into the software. Ask them to click on the ‘Archived Learning and Growth Reports’ option under ‘Employees’ in the header bar, complete the ‘Employee Comments’ section at the end of the Archived report, tick the box at the bottom of the report labelled ‘Reviewed’, and then be sure to ‘Save’ the information by clicking on the ‘Save’ icon.

•Once the Employee has entered their comments and designated the Learning and Growth report as ‘Reviewed’, you can now see the ‘Employee Comments’ entered, designate the report as ‘Reviewed’ by you as the ‘Lead’, and then click on the ‘Save’ icon. (Note: If you have any issues or concerns with what the employee entered in the ‘Employee Comments’ section, these should be discussed and resolved at this time. To make any change to Employee Comments, the employee must first remove their ‘Reviewed’ designation for the archived report. They need to be logged into ENCV to do this. Alternatively, if you have generated the report and are reviewing it with the employee on your computer monitor, the employee can remove their ‘Reviewed’ status - and prove they are in fact the employee - by entering their ENCV password when prompted.)

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.)

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.

1.Identify and agree with the employee about who may be best suited to be added as a Reviewer, and request that persons permission/approval to be added as a ‘Reviewer’.

2.Go to the ‘Employees’ option in the navigation bar at the top of the screen and select the option ‘Complete/Print Reviews’. On the Complete/Print Reviews’ screen, single click on the name of the employee you want to add a reviewer for, and then click on the add

icon.

4.The ‘Reviewee’ will be the name of the employee you previously selected to add a reviewer to.

5.Search for the name of the person you would like to add as the ‘Reviewer’. In the ‘Reviewer’ text field, begin typing either their first or last name. The system will suggest people who match your search criteria from within.

6.Select the ‘Role’ of the Reviewer based on the relationship they have with the Reviewee. Click on the arrow down to see the available options.

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.

8.Carefully review to make sure the review default dates (‘Start Date’, ‘End Date’, and ‘Due Date’) are correct.

9.Click the ‘Save’ icon to add the Reviewer, or ‘Cancel’ if you decide not to add them as a Reviewer.

When the added new ‘Reviewer’ next enters the ‘Complete/Print Reviews’ module of ENCV, they will now see the name of the employee they previously agreed to provide Learning and Growth feedback for.

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 your 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 ‘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.

• ‘Strengths’ have been defined by your organization in ENCV. People with competency Learning and Growth evaluations at or above that definition will be identified as having a Strength in these reports.

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.

•‘Development Opportunities’ are competencies that have been identified by ENCV based on the size of the ‘gap’ between each person’s Learning and Growth of the competency AND the importance of the competency in each person’s job. Consequently, the order displayed in graphs represents priority ranked competencies for improving individual and team Learning and Growth. Knowing employee development opportunities helps to focus individual, team and organization-wide training plans. It also enables your organization to measure the impact of training through year over year analysis of competency Learning and Growth changes – always measured to three decimal places.

‘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’.

•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.

Learning and Growth Guide for Supervisor_Managers (Competencies Only)