Case Study: Multinational Petrochemical Company Hogan 360

Background

A multinational company based in Europe, one of the largest companies in the world, was looking for a new approach to developing and identifying high potential leaders. As part of this new approach, they reviewed their current leadership assessments and recognised a need to enhance their assessment suite which included their multi-rater survey. They then engaged PBC to customise the Hogan 360 (a globally benchmarked multi-rater leadership survey) to align with their Leadership attributes. The intention was to use this multi-rater survey to identify the strengths and development priorities of their leaders across the globe in relation to these attributes using a valid assessment tool. The organisation had also done previous research that showed increasing engagement in their people improved safety outcomes to a notable degree. Safety was a critical performance indicator, and the results of the multi-rater would assist in identifying those who were more likely to engage their staff, and ultimately, encourage safer work behaviour.

Approach

PBC collaborated closely with the organisation for approximately 12 months. During this time, PBC:

• Customised the Hogan 360 to the organisation’s leadership attributes, of which several versions of the survey were created to cater for different leadership streams.
• Created a self-administration platform for those employees selected to participate in the multi-rater survey. Self-administration included downloading and interpretation of their final report.
• Developed top quartile benchmarks against which leaders could compare themselves to top performing external global leaders.
• Assisted in the analysis and interpretation of data gleaned from the administration of the survey to over 4,500 participants annually.

Use

• The primary use is to support the leadership and commercial solutions across the company and develop strong business, functional and people leaders, with the capabilities to deliver results for today and in the future.
• The Hogan 360 assessments are used for both development and identification of potential.
• Historically the company used its own in house 360 assessment. In 2017, an internal analysis of this assessment showed poor validity.
• The Hogan 360 was mapped to the company model and is readily interpretable in a competency language with which the company employees are familiar.
• The 360 data is used to identify future commercial leaders and technical leaders and enrol them in high-potential development programmes. At a strategic level, the 360 data is used as a part of senior succession planning, to compare their aggregate profile to external top quartile performance, and to identify the strengths and gaps in relation to their strategic aims (e.g., those at the core of the business versus those who are leading transition).

Outcomes

• The assessment enables the company to compare themselves to external benchmarks and leverage the 360-assessment data to; provide insights to the business at team, organisational and strategic levels and supports analytic projects shifting the organisation towards evidence-based HR.
• At the company engagement is central to their performance management philosophy. Analytical work demonstrated higher engagement scores predict higher performance ratings and higher engagement scores predict fewer safety incidents. They further learned that leadership at the team or organisational level accounts for a large proportion of engagement.
• An internal study demonstrated a strong relationship between leadership and team performance. Using 360 assessments, the organisation was able to understand the causal effect between engagement and sales in various parts of the commercial organisation.
• In the process, they re-validated the factor structure of the Hogan 360 and in so doing, highlighted its superior technical qualities.
• The organisation found a strong association between team engagement and 360-based leadership competencies.
• The findings generated interest from the organisations internal stakeholders and led to the implementation of several interventions in the organisation including: a) a leadership development program b) annual feedback to line managers on how well they engage their workforce; c) targeted communications about business strategy and how a specific unit can contribute; and d) interventions to improve personal safety where needed.

Summary

PBC was able to assist one of the world’s largest organisations in terms of customising a multi-rater survey to meet their unique requirements, while providing them with the internal capability to manage the administration process. Collaboration between PBC and the organisation from a data analytics perspective also allowed the organisation to improve and streamline its leadership assessment methodology using a robust scientific approach.
The 360 data will be used to help validate other assessments including leadership potential. The 360 tool assists in the education of stakeholders on the importance of valid and reliable assessments and ultimately to make evidence-based HR decisions.

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