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FeedsHome: October - November 2009 › Reducing risk & improving employee performance
Reducing risk & improving employee performance
01/11/2009 | Channel: Skills & Training
MARY CLARKE discusses the importance to an employer of gauging staff development
Rail companies need to provide safe, reliable, consistent and affordable transport with minimal disruption. To achieve this, it is essential they have competent staff in place, with the right knowledge and skills to perform their jobs effectively and who can make the right decisions under pressure. Equally, operations managers in rail companies need insight into the skills and competencies of their employees to make the best staffing decisions. This means understanding where there are gaps in essentials skills, knowledge and confidence. These factors can pose major risks to company performance, or worse still, compromise passenger safety.
Just a handful of employees lacking the necessary skills, or misunderstanding a minor aspect of their job, could have a dramatic impact on a rail company, exposing it to major risk. A number of global rail companies have introduced solutions to reduce risk and improve employee performance by implementing customised employee assessment programmes. Such programmes are usually tailored for different roles and test individuals’ understanding of their jobs, together with their competencies and confidence in performing their duties. The assessments are designed to give managers insight into the skills of the workforce, and this information can be essential in reducing safety risks.
Managers, often for the first time, gain a clear and accurate picture of the skills and knowledge of their staff from the assessment results. The reports highlight a company’s top performing and most confident employees too. It also shows individuals who are ready for promotion and those who are not performing so well who can be coached, mentored or trained based on their specific feedback reports. Such assessments are an integral component of an employee development programme and are developed using competency frameworks customised for every role within a company – from train drivers, to signallers and back office staff.
For companies with competency frameworks in place, a common challenge is determining how to accurately measure employee development against these frameworks. Customised assessments actually help achieve these measurements because they provide accurate, factual and objective results. Employees are placed in ‘on the job’ scenarios based on their own roles and assessed in specific ‘at risk’ circumstances, so managers can see how every individual would perform in specific circumstances and under pressure. The results give a true picture of an individual’s understanding and their likely behaviour in given scenarios, as well as their confidence levels, and critically, identify their training needs. The assessments highlight weaknesses and skills gaps which can then be addressed with highly-targeted and cost-effective training specifically designed to reduce knowledge gaps and reduce the risk of employee misunderstanding.
Last year, a worrying survey from an IDC report entitled, Counting the Cost of Employee Misunderstanding revealed that one in four employees do not understand certain aspects of their job and that major knowledge gaps remain undetected in many companies. This has several consequences. Whilst the first consequence is financial – UK and U.S. businesses lose around £18.7 billion a year as a result of employee misunderstanding – these knowledge gaps can also damage corporate reputation and customer relationships. The report highlighted that the majority of the 400 companies questioned confessed that employee misunderstandings had put their sales and customer satisfaction at risk. Knowing where vulnerable areas lie within a company means that these areas can be addressed with training or other interventions before misunderstanding occurs.
A significant risk of employee misunderstanding in the rail industry is compromising passenger safety. This is particularly important given the revised Corporate Manslaughter Act, which came into force in April 2008. Under the new Act, an organisation will be prosecuted for a gross failure in the management of health and safety that causes death. Previously, organisations could only be convicted of manslaughter if a single individual at the very top of the company performancewas personally guilty. The penalties now include unlimited fines coupled with a publicity order requiring an organisation to publicise the facts of its conviction in detail. If ever there was an incentive to improve employee competency and understanding, this is it.
Employers are not the only ones to benefit from assessments; they also hold significant benefits for the employees. Employees start to appreciate that that assessments actually enhance their careers and enable them to develop more quickly. They also improve their confidence in their ability to perform. This is because they receive relevant training designed to improve their skills and knowledge at a time when it is needed most. The results of the assessments also provide them with accurate and up-to-date information about their performance which can be used to help them win a promotion on which they may have set their sights. Furthermore, having a strong career development programme with the right training in place helps employees feel good about their work and assures them that their careers are being taken seriously and invested in. For many people this proves a strong incentive to remain within a company.
There are multiple benefits to be gained by rail companies implementing employee assessment solutions, but most importantly assessments increase employee knowledge and reduce the risks of employee misunderstanding. In an industry serving millions of members of the public every day, rail companies simply cannot afford to be put at greater risk from a financial, reputational or legal standpoint, especially when there is the opportunity to mitigate against these risks. By regularly assessing their workforce, rail companies can take a major step toward improving the performance of individuals and the company whilst critically increasing operational safety and ensuring passengers come first.
Mary Clarke
is CEO of Cognisco
Web: www.cognisco.com
Just a handful of employees lacking the necessary skills, or misunderstanding a minor aspect of their job, could have a dramatic impact on a rail company, exposing it to major risk. A number of global rail companies have introduced solutions to reduce risk and improve employee performance by implementing customised employee assessment programmes. Such programmes are usually tailored for different roles and test individuals’ understanding of their jobs, together with their competencies and confidence in performing their duties. The assessments are designed to give managers insight into the skills of the workforce, and this information can be essential in reducing safety risks.
Managers, often for the first time, gain a clear and accurate picture of the skills and knowledge of their staff from the assessment results. The reports highlight a company’s top performing and most confident employees too. It also shows individuals who are ready for promotion and those who are not performing so well who can be coached, mentored or trained based on their specific feedback reports. Such assessments are an integral component of an employee development programme and are developed using competency frameworks customised for every role within a company – from train drivers, to signallers and back office staff.
For companies with competency frameworks in place, a common challenge is determining how to accurately measure employee development against these frameworks. Customised assessments actually help achieve these measurements because they provide accurate, factual and objective results. Employees are placed in ‘on the job’ scenarios based on their own roles and assessed in specific ‘at risk’ circumstances, so managers can see how every individual would perform in specific circumstances and under pressure. The results give a true picture of an individual’s understanding and their likely behaviour in given scenarios, as well as their confidence levels, and critically, identify their training needs. The assessments highlight weaknesses and skills gaps which can then be addressed with highly-targeted and cost-effective training specifically designed to reduce knowledge gaps and reduce the risk of employee misunderstanding.
Last year, a worrying survey from an IDC report entitled, Counting the Cost of Employee Misunderstanding revealed that one in four employees do not understand certain aspects of their job and that major knowledge gaps remain undetected in many companies. This has several consequences. Whilst the first consequence is financial – UK and U.S. businesses lose around £18.7 billion a year as a result of employee misunderstanding – these knowledge gaps can also damage corporate reputation and customer relationships. The report highlighted that the majority of the 400 companies questioned confessed that employee misunderstandings had put their sales and customer satisfaction at risk. Knowing where vulnerable areas lie within a company means that these areas can be addressed with training or other interventions before misunderstanding occurs.
A significant risk of employee misunderstanding in the rail industry is compromising passenger safety. This is particularly important given the revised Corporate Manslaughter Act, which came into force in April 2008. Under the new Act, an organisation will be prosecuted for a gross failure in the management of health and safety that causes death. Previously, organisations could only be convicted of manslaughter if a single individual at the very top of the company performancewas personally guilty. The penalties now include unlimited fines coupled with a publicity order requiring an organisation to publicise the facts of its conviction in detail. If ever there was an incentive to improve employee competency and understanding, this is it.
Employers are not the only ones to benefit from assessments; they also hold significant benefits for the employees. Employees start to appreciate that that assessments actually enhance their careers and enable them to develop more quickly. They also improve their confidence in their ability to perform. This is because they receive relevant training designed to improve their skills and knowledge at a time when it is needed most. The results of the assessments also provide them with accurate and up-to-date information about their performance which can be used to help them win a promotion on which they may have set their sights. Furthermore, having a strong career development programme with the right training in place helps employees feel good about their work and assures them that their careers are being taken seriously and invested in. For many people this proves a strong incentive to remain within a company.
There are multiple benefits to be gained by rail companies implementing employee assessment solutions, but most importantly assessments increase employee knowledge and reduce the risks of employee misunderstanding. In an industry serving millions of members of the public every day, rail companies simply cannot afford to be put at greater risk from a financial, reputational or legal standpoint, especially when there is the opportunity to mitigate against these risks. By regularly assessing their workforce, rail companies can take a major step toward improving the performance of individuals and the company whilst critically increasing operational safety and ensuring passengers come first.
Mary Clarke
is CEO of Cognisco
Web: www.cognisco.com
