Case Study: 360 Feedback

Legal Service Commission

'The Legal Services Commission (LSC) runs the legal aid scheme in England and Wales. Its work is fundamental to social and legal justice and enables people to protect their rights and deal with their problems. Over two million people are helped by legal aid funding every year and the LSC accounts for £2bn of the legal services market.

The LSC is currently undergoing a major transformation and as part of this identified a need to transform the quality and style of their leadership. They started with work on creating a new competency model to get really clear what the new form of leadership looked like in behavioural terms. The key change was a shift of focus from the legal profession to the customer, with leadership aiming to manage this change through development and coaching rather than simple direction.

To achieve the changes desired, the senior management team decided to implement a wide-ranging Leadership Development Programme which began with 360 degree feedback.

TI has been pioneering and imaginative when developing ideas, products and services. It has also been based on a collaborative and equal partnership, which easily adapts to situations that are more client-led when a quick and reliable response is required.

Alan Littlefield, HR Consultant, Legal Services Commission

TalentFocus enabled a tailored and flexible solution to be managed on-line. The new leadership framework was used as a basis and the special feature of personalised surveys was chosen to maximise impact. They opted for full bureau and feedback support and were committed to achieving measurable improvements in organisational and individual performance.

Working in partnership with the LSC team, and with the consultancy ASE, the questionnaire and report were designed. An in-depth trial was undertaken to ensure that the tool delivered the desired results. A full communication and evaluation plan was agreed and the new software went live. Emails were sent containing the urls and the unique passwords and reviewers got to work.

Specialist feedback was provided by Consultants at first and within the first year, after training in "How to get the best out of your 360", a team of internal coaches took over coaching sessions.

The Outcomes

  • The managers now have powerful and insightful data on which to base a meaningful development discussion.
  • They are being coached on behaviours that can help them get the most of out of themselves and their staff and can track their progress
  • Participants are enabled to proceed to the next stage of the Leadership Development Programme, a development centre.
  • In addition, organisational measures are also being tracked - relating to the performance of the organisation, and patterns in job holders' quality of working life.

Review

In designing the next phase of the programme, a 360 degree evaluation of the 360 degree project [Project Review] was undertaken which gathered the detailed views of 23 reviewers from different parts in (and outside of) the business. They discovered what was working and what was not working quite so well.

Two Years Later...

Participants of the programme are now invited to repeat their 360 evaluation a year after their first review. Talent Innovations created special functionality so the repeated 360 reports include two pages confirming exactly how the data compares to last time! This data feeds directly into their corporate measures and the return on investment is clearly visible.

Talent Innovations