A CASE STUDY IN THE EFFECTIVE USE AND QUANTITATIVE VALIDATION OF PERFORMANCE ADVISERS

In 2011, a large organization, with a global mission and traditional structure set out to realign its mission in the context of the rapidly evolving global economy. This created space for a division within the institution to embark on an innovative change agenda with a renewed focus on talent management as an integral part of the change. The essential element of the talent management innovation related to performance evaluation and feedback with the goal of improving performance and results by providing richer feedback to staff. This novel approach involved leveraging the knowledge of neutral, third party Performance Advisers (PA) who gathered, reviewed and synthesized information about performance for the purpose of coaching evaluees. Based on follow-up surveys and focus groups, the pilot was broadly considered a success by most participants. A second evaluation approach was applied to assess the richness of the feedback, and to determine whether the coaching experiment produced objective, quantifiable, and verifiable changes in feedback from one performance cycle to the next. The second evaluation leveraged semantic analysis profiles and technologies. The results demonstrate observable and verifiable improvements in the feedback. This research provides important lessons for large, diverse organizations seeking to make changes in traditional performance management systems.