Inspire Success

What exactly will OHS Harmonisation mean for you and your business and what will the penalties and fines under the new laws be?

The purpose of the WHS Act 2011 is to harmonise existing Occupational Health and Safety legislation across Australia through the creation of uniform health and safety obligations. Our later article discusses which states will commence this new legislation from January 1st 2012 and which will be delayed.

While dates have been set for commencement it has been announced that businesses will be able to postpone implementing new occupational health and safety regulations by up to twelve months, if the regulations require them having to make significant changes and require a long period of time.

Federal Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans has stated that Safe Work Australia has arrangements to assist businesses in the transition into the new system on January 1. Evans said the extension would be granted to businesses that have to fulfil the model regulations which subsequently would require the completion of several duties.

The new WHS Act 2011 seeks to:-

• Protect workers and other persons against harm to their health, safety and welfare through the elimination or minimisation of risks arising from work or from specified types of substances or plant
• Providing for fair and effective workplace representation, consultation, co-operation and issue resolution in relation to work health and safety
• Promote the provision of advice, information, education and training in relation to work health and safety
• Provide a framework for continuous improvement and application of higher standards of work health and safety

In this article we will focus on the increase in potential penalties and fines – under the new laws, companies face fines up to $3 million per offence, while individuals face fines of $600,000 or 5 years in jail.

What happens if a serious injury, illness or dangerous incident occurs?

Under the work health and safety laws, incidents such as fatalities, serious injuries and illnesses, and dangerous incidents must be notified to WorkCover immediately, and incident records must be kept for five years. 

If you are the person with management of control of the workplace, you must also preserve the incident scene until an inspector attends, or directs otherwise. Render assistance, if it is required, and allow police and ambulance officers to fulfil their functions.

If someone suffers an injury or illness where workers compensation is, or may be payable, contact your insurer within 48 hours. 

What is a serious injury or illness?

A serious injury or illness includes:-

• an injury or illness that requires immediate treatment as an ‘in-patient in hospital’
• amputation
• serious head, eye or burn injuries
• de-gloving or scalping
• spinal injury
• loss of bodily function
• serious laceration
• exposure to a substance, which requires medical treatment within 48 hours  

What is a dangerous incident?

A dangerous incident exposes someone to a serious risk, such as: 

• the uncontrolled escape, spillage or leakage of a substance 
• uncontrolled implosion, explosion or fire
• electric shock
• the uncontrolled escape of gas, steam or pressurised substance
• falls from height of any machinery, equipment, substance or the like
• damage to any plant that requires authorisation in accordance with the WHS Regulations (eg registrable plant) 
• collapse, malfunction or damage to any authorised plant
• the collapse of a structure or excavation (including shoring)
• an inrush of water, mud or gas
• the interruption of underground ventilation.  

How will you be penalised for breaching your duties?

What is reckless conduct?
A person engages in reckless conduct if they, without reasonable excuse, engage in conduct that exposes an individual under their duty of care to the risk of death or serious injury or illness.

What is breach of primary duty?
A breach of primary duty is when a person engages in actions or omissions that expose others to risk of serious injury/illness.

What is breach of regulatory duty?

A breach of regulatory duty is when a person fails to comply with a duty.  

Is this something that could be an issue at your place? Inspire Success is all about implementing practical solutions that help create high performing workplaces which are customer focussed and free of conflict - no matter what size your business is. Contact Rae Phillips at Inspire Success for further information raephillips@inspire-success.com

Last year, a Telstra employee made a successful workers' compensation claim against Telstra because she fell twice while working from home and claimed her injuries occurred in the course of her employment. Telstra were found liable to pay her workers compensation.

As a result of this and other similar cases, many employers have had concerns about allowing their employees work from home.  Working from home arrangements don’t have to be to be feared but the risks do need to be managed carefully.

Under NSW OH&S laws, the employer is expected to maintain a working environment, equipment and systems of work that are ‘safe and without risks to health’. That includes your employees working at home. The employees working from home should have the equipment they need just as if they were in the office – a chair, desk, computer, adequate lighting, clear access to exits, a first aid kit and knowledge of safe working procedures.

What do your responsibilities include?
• provide or maintain a working environment that is a safe and without risks to health
• provide or maintain equipment and systems of work that are safe and without risks to health
• provide the information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure the health and safety at work of workers
• make arrangements for ensuring the safe use, handling, storage and transport of equipment and substances.

It is important to put in writing agreed procedures regarding working arrangements particularly regarding hours of work and access (eg. to check that the workplace is safe and that safe systems of work are in place, or to review systems and procedures following an accident).

A workplace assessment / risk assessment of the home environment is another step in identifying health and safety hazards, and deal with them. The person doing the assessment should focus on the part of the home which is used as a workplace - or you can give employees a checklist for self-audit rather than send someone in to tick the boxes.

This checklist – which confirms there is an appropriate desk, chair and lamp, for example, and that electrical cords have been tagged and tested – must be completed and handed back. The idea is that employees who want to work from home would need to complete a self-assessment form and sign up a document that frees you, the employer, from liability in the event of an OH&S issue.

Under NSW OH&S laws the following are some steps to follow when an employee requests working from home:-

1. Establish whether the duties are suitable for work from home – if special equipment needs to be used or work procedures followed that are not appropriate for home then the job may not be suitable for being done at home;
2. Establish what equipment will be necessary for the employee to safely work from home – ensure employee’s desk, chair and computer are suitable. Check if any other equipment is needed by the employee. NSW Regulations require that all places of work have a first aid kit. A basic (type C) kit is sufficient for most home-based work situations;
3. Establish that the home working environment is healthy and safe – ensure there is sufficient lighting, exits are clear, there is a smoke detector, sufficient power points (ensure power points are not overloaded) and if an earth leakage protect device is required;
4. Establish that the employee who will be working from home has the information and training necessary to do the work safely – ensure they have been trained on safe working procedures to prevent the occurrence of injuries;
5. Establish agreed hours of work and communication procedures -Establish the days and hours on which work from home can be done and agree on procedures for recording work hours, including actual starting and finishing times (this is important for workers compensation purposes). It is also useful to establish the way in which performance will be monitored and assessed and to establish communication procedures to ensure that appropriate information is passed between the person working from home and his or her co-workers and management;
6. Revise your workplace rehabilitation program – you may want to include a commitment to provision of suitable duties at the main workplace when this is necessary as a rehabilitation strategy, and to clarify arrangements for monitoring work from home rehabilitation programs.

It is important to monitor your employees working from home arrangements – things change, standards may drop so ensure there is open communication with these employees and a clear procedure where the employee reports any health and safety concerns or any incidents to you.

The Fair Work and Anti-Discrimination legislation allows employees to request flexible working arrangements in certain situations, so as an employer you need to have reasonable business grounds to refuse a request. If you do refuse a request inform your employee of the reasons and document these, keeping all records around this.

At Inspire Success, all our people work from home and we  use a home based work agreement to outline who is responsible for what and get the expectations clear from the start.

Is this something that could be an issue at your place? Inspire Success is all about implementing practical solutions that help create high performing workplaces which are customer focussed and free of conflict - no matter what size your business is. Contact Rae Phillips at Inspire Success for further information raephillips@inspire-success.com

For the next few months we will discuss a different safety topic for IT within your company. This month we look at the office desktop and the security issues to be mindful of.

We all know that IT security is extremely important, it is essential to protect your business from a data breach. Here are our TOP 12 tips to help keep your confidential information secure on office desktops.

1. Every employee should have their own profile set up and all logins should be protected with strong passwords which need to be changed every 4-6 weeks;
2. Every time employees leave their desk, they should log off. Screen savers should also be set to log users off after a few minutes of inactivity;
3. Login details and passwords should not be written on pieces of paper and never written on a post it and stuck to computer screens;
4. Educate staff about your IT security, keep up to date with what scams are happening currently in the computer world and let staff know what to be careful of and monitor this;
5. All information on a business network should be saved to a central location to reduce risk;
6. Have a good privacy policy and make protecting sensitive data a part of the company culture;
7. Use a good firewall and a secure wireless connection;
8. Keep anti-virus and anti-spy ware software up to date. Most small businesses have anti-virus and anti-spy ware software in place, but forget or neglect to make sure they have the latest versions or the latest updates, which can open the business up to all sorts of data security breaches;
9. Keeping computers up-to-date individually is time consuming and can create inconsistencies in the business. Having a network server centralising the rollout of software patches and updates makes managing a network far easier;
10. Make sure you and your employees only download applications that come from reliable sources. Because applications (e.g., games, mobile apps) may contain viruses, spy ware etc, it's important to know and trust the source of an application before downloading it;
11. If you outsource any critical functions or store information offsite, ensure you vet third-party security practices such as cloud providers or ISPs. You are still responsible for that data and should ensure the third party is secure.;
12. Have very specific policy developed around this area of your business. Set standards with new employees, check often and ensure that you follow your policy to the T.

Is this something that could be an issue at your place? Inspire Success is all about implementing practical solutions that help create high performing workplaces which are customer focussed and free of conflict - no matter what size your business is. Contact Rae Phillips at Inspire Success for further information raephillips@inspire-success.com

The harmonisation of OHS laws across Australia is in process and is being introduced in order to standardise the state/territory based system we have in place at present. The Commonwealth and each state and territory government have agreed to harmonise their work health and safety laws, including Regulations and Codes of Practice, so that they are similar in each jurisdiction.

As you may have heard, the implementation of the new WHS Act is not going smoothly with some regions deciding to implement the new laws at different times rather than the date of 01/01/12 as had been planned for. This will make life difficult for some Australian businesses, in particular those who cross state borders who will be faced with complying with current OHS legislation and then the new legislation.

Update on status of WHS Act in States
ACT - Model law passed and expected to commence 1/1/12
NSW - Model law passed and expected to commence 1/1/12
VIC - No law before the parliament. VIC Government has confirmed that it will defer to 1/1/13
Tasmania – Have introduced model legislation to Parliament but date of commencement not confirmed
SA – WHS will be delayed
NT – Model law passed and expected to commence 1/1/2012
QLD – Model law passed and expected to commence 1/1/2012
WA -  WHS will be delayed

NSW has confirmed a 1 January 2012 commencement date for the WHS Act, and has approved $550,000 in training grants to get businesses up to speed with the new legislation. Queensland will continue with the 1 January 2012 commencement and has enacted 11 of the new Codes of Practice while amending 24 of its existing State codes. Commonwealth parliament passed the Work Health and Safety Bill 2011, which will cover employers under the Comcare scheme. The Commonwealth legislation will come into effect on 1 January 2012.

While harmonisation is delayed in some states it will happen and will affect your business. However, some businesses can delay the new laws by twelve months. Federal Workplace Relations, Minister Chris Evans, announced in November 2011 that Safe Work Australia has arrangements to help businesses move to the new system from January 1. "The transitional arrangements will apply to the model occupational health and safety regulations and provide delayed commencement of up to 12 months or more where the new laws result in a new or significantly different set of duties," Senator Evans said.

For more information on WHS legislation http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx  Contact Inspire Success if you would like to discuss how this affects your business.

If your employees are covered by a modern award, you are able to make an agreement with one or more of these employees to vary the application of modern award terms dealing with:

• working hours and days;
• overtime rates;
• penalty rates; and
• allowances and leave loading.

The flexibility agreement allows for variations to modern awards in order to meet the genuine needs of employers and individual employees while ensuring minimum entitlements and protections are not undermined.

Here are 5 things your award flexibility agreement must include to be considered legal:

1. It must outline exactly what has been agreed to, and how the terms of employment have been varied.
2. It must demonstrate how the agreement does not disadvantage the employee in their terms and conditions of employment.
3. It must state the date that the agreement will commence.
4. It must state that the agreement can be terminated by either party by giving 4 weeks written notice of termination.
5. It must be signed and dated by both you and the employee.

It is the employer’s responsibility to ensure that the employee is better off overall than if there was no award flexibility agreement. The employer’s ‘better off overall’ assessment will usually involve comparing the employee’s financial benefits under the flexibility agreement with the financial benefits under the applicable award or enterprise agreement. The employee’s personal circumstances and any non-financial benefits which are significant to the employee can also be considered.
After you have made an award flexibility agreement with an employee, you must keep a copy of it on file and also give a copy to the employee.

Remember, you cannot make the signing of an award flexibility agreement a condition of employment and you can only make an award flexibility agreement with an employee covered by a modern award. However you can't make an award flexibility agreement with an employee who is covered by an enterprise agreement.

With employees working long hours and a focus being put on maximising the efforts of the workforce pressure is inevitably felt, pressure which we all call stress. For those whose work week has been stretched to the limit work life imbalance is created and work eats into personal time. Sacrifices are made to keep the wheels churning at work. With results from surveys such as fivefootfour and redballoon showing us that a number of employees are not happy in the workplace it is important to ease the pressure cooker of stress at work. Here we look at stress management tips in the workplace for the individual and the business owner ...

Some stress can be a positive thing.... stress can be a motivator, some of us enjoy working under pressure or feel we work best when we have some pressure or stress. However, when stress is having a negative effect on your wellbeing it’s time to look at ways to get the balance back. Finding ways to manage workplace stress is not about making huge changes to every aspect of your work life or rethinking career ambitions. Stress management requires focus on the one thing that’s always within your control: you.

Tips on managing job stress:-

• Take care of yourself – when stress is adversely impacting your health or interfering with how you do at work or on your personal life it’s time to make changes. When you take care of yourself you are stronger and more resilient to stress. Even small changes can give you back control and make you feel happier and more energetic. Changes can include small but positive lifestyle choices and ensuring you stick to them – an exercise class, yoga, meditation, listening to music, a weekend away etc whatever helps you unwind, enjoy it. It’s a very important way to improve your physical and emotional well-being.
• Reduce job stress by prioritizing and organizing – create a balanced schedule, don’t over commit and plan regular breaks. If you have too much on your plate list what “must” be done and what “should” be done and push the to do items that are not essential to the bottom of the list. Take breaks during the day to clear your mind. Stepping away from work to briefly relax and recharge will help you be more, not less, productive.
• Reduce job stress by breaking bad habits – resist being perfect, reduce clutter, rule out negative thinking. No project, decision or person is perfect so don’t set unrealistic goals or expectations of yourself. Aim to do you very best and be happy that you have done that. Reduce the clutter, tidy your desk, file documents, get your emails organised and stick to your to-do list and cross off items as achieved. These will all help you to feel less overwhelmed every day. Focus only on the things you have control over and don’t stress or worry about the things out of your control.
• Connect with others at work – listen to your colleagues, communicate with them, enjoy some social time with colleagues after work hours. Being part of a supportive team can really help relieve stress and make you happier in the workplace.

Reducing stress of your employees:-

Happy people are more engaged with their work, build better relationships with colleagues and clients, have less sick days and tend to remain in a role longer. It's in your best interest to keep stress levels in the workplace to a minimum. Managers/ leaders can act as positive role models, especially in times of high stress. If you can remain calm in stressful work situations, it is much easier for your employees to also remain calm. Here are our top three tips to reduce stress in your workplace:-

Improve communication

• Share information with employees to reduce uncertainty about their jobs, questions, futures
• Clearly define employees’ roles and responsibilities
• Make communication friendly and efficient

Consult with your employees

• Give your employees opportunities to be involved in decisions that affect their jobs
• Ensure your team’s workload is suitable to their abilities and resources
• Avoid unrealistic deadlines
• Show that your employees are valued
• Offer rewards and incentives
• Praise good work performance, both verbally and officially, one example would be having an employee of the month award
• Provide opportunities for career development
• Promote a work culture that gives employees more control over their work.

Have a friendly social climate

• Provide opportunities for social interaction among your employees
• Establish a zero-tolerance policy for harassment
• Make management actions consistent with organizational values.

Also see our previous article on tips for managing stress in the workplace

Getting organized and being productive are often on our New Year’s resolution lists. Productive people ensure their time is spent working towards their goals. They prioritize what must be done to reach them, recognizing when an activity ultimately delays their success. Being productive means steering clear of distractions and not succumbing to procrastination. Here are some tips to help you get 2012 off to a productive start and make the most of your time every day at work.

1. Set goals – setting goals at the start of the year is important and tracking the progress you make towards your goal ensures you keep on track. Setting goals keeps you focused and motivated. By considering whether the things you do are carrying you closer to meeting your goals, you’ll be able to focus on genuine productivity.
2. Manage time and improve your time management skills. Time management requires discipline but gives you a greater degree of control over what you do during the day.  Good time management makes you more efficient and can make improvements to your life at work and at home.
3. Get organised – make a to do list, keep track of due dates and long term reminders, manage interruptions and work on one task at a time are some ways to help get your organised. Being overwhelmed by a lack of time, space or energy won’t allow you to set goals. Breaking the process down and being organised at every step will see you setting goals in next to no time.
4. Keep meetings to the set time – schedule meetings for a set time, ensure the meetings start on time and don’t go over the time allocated 
5. Manage your inbox – email is essential for businesses but managing your inbox can be hugely time consuming.  It is important to think about how you organize, reply to and even think about your emails. Some tips include setting a time frame on how long you spend on email every day, act upon an email with a response, save it or delete it, prioritise/use folders for emails, have a separate account for personal and work email and unsubscribe from excess email subscriptions. Email is a fantastic tool when managed well but does take some work to get them under control
6. Manage time on mobile phone –The use of smartphones is on the rise and this means we can now use our phones for a lot more than calls and text messages. We can now check emails, use the internet, open documents, work on different software etc. On the plus their usage can help increase your productivity, you are accessible 24/7, you never miss emails, messages or updates. The downside of this is the risk of burnout and constant distraction. It’s important to manage the time spent on them and not be completely dependent on it.
7. Stamp out stress – stress has many causes including long hours, heavy workload, job insecurity and work conflicts. If stress is excessive and going on for some time it can lead to physical and mental ill health. Learn about methods to prevent and reduce your  job stress
8. Go paperless - Get things done efficiently (and save the environment) by going paperless in 2012. Going paperless can save money, reduce clutter, save space, keep your data safe and allow documentation and information sharing. Just ensure you back up the information and documents!
9. Be productive while working on your PC – are your systems out of date, slow or problematic – improve your PC systems to increase your productivity. Upgrading your systems (when required) enhances security and helps increase productivity and decrease costs
10. Have fun - finally, all the above mentioned tips are meant to make you productive enough to take time out now and then, and enjoy time away from your desk.  Getting to know your team/colleagues and enjoying social events with them can help to make people more motivated. And what better way than the upcoming Christmas parties...Have fun!

Are your employees happy.....

As 2011 comes to an end it is good for everyone to look back on the year that was. As a business owner it is very important to learn from the good times during the year, the accomplishments, the growth but also to look at any difficulties and challenges faced in the last 12 months and learn from them. A critical thing to monitor and be involved in is your organisation culture and to have a think about the general “feel” within your organisation as the year ends. As we have discussed in recent newsletters a happy workforce is a productive workforce. The surveys recently completed by fivefootfour and redballoon provide interesting reading on the happiness or unhappiness of Australian employees currently.

According to the fivefootfour survey the Australian workforce is largely unhappy. The report on the Australian workforce released by fivefootfour revealed some interesting results and certainly some food for thought. They wanted to look at how happy Australian employees are in work and the key things that motivate them.

The top 5 findings were:

1. Only 54% of Australian workers are happy at work, 25% feel depressed most of the day once a week.
2. 60% of the Australian workforce is bored.
3. The three big issues behind workforce unhappiness are flexibility, creativity and the misrepresentation of Gen Y.
4. 35% of Gen Y's will be looking for a new job in the next 12 months.
5. The ideal workplace composition consists of a mix of employees motivated by the following 7 drivers:

*Flexibility and balance (27%).
*Knowledge for growth (23%).
*Ambition to progress (16%).
*Creativity and freedom (16%).
*Mentoring and learning (11%).
*Variety and momentum (4%).
*Collaboration and interaction (4%).

Workplaces stressors such as lack of work life balance and a lack of job satisfaction are taking a toll on the health and well being of Australian workers. The report also found that 25% of Australians feel ‘blue’ or depressed most of the day once a week and 49% once or twice a month; 60% of the Australian workforce is bored in their current job; and that creative thinkers are jumping ship.

Trudi Sampola, co-founder of fivefootfour, commented:- “Australian businesses need to get more flexible and start recognising the importance of understanding their employees’ values and motivations on an individual level,” says Trudi. While a flexible and engaging workplace is a priority for many employees, 78% of Australian workers want a job that allows them to think creatively.“Businesses that identify the creative thinkers within the team, and give them the opportunity to integrate this value into their role, will reap the rewards,” says Trudi. 35% of Gen Ys (who make up 23% of the Australian workforce) in the survey said that they are likely to look for a new job in the New Year.

Trudi points out the German workforce have more worklife balance and flexibility and as a result are more productive in her comments -“Germans are very clearly output focused versus placing a currency on the number of hours spent in the workplace. Australia needs to change the workplace game, less emphasis on clocking up the hours and more emphasis on getting the job done,” says Trudi.

The Insync Surveys (http://www.insyncsurveys.com.au ) and RedBalloon 2011 Dream Employers Survey (http://www.redballoon.com.au/corporate/articles/google-wins-again) attracted over 7100 responses from the general public. According to the results from this survey the top three drivers that make a Dream Employer in 2011 are:

• pay, benefits and conditions (38 per cent) - up 11 percentage points from sixth position in 2010
• work-life balance (37 per cent) - up nine percentage points from third position in 2010
• culture (36 per cent) - down three percentage points from second position in 2010

This is a shift from last year when the top motivation was brand or company reputation, dropping from 41 per cent in 2010 to 27 per cent this year.

The high income threshold increased from 1 July 2011, along with modern award and minimum wages. The high income threshold affects how a modern award applies to an employee, and affects their ability to access unfair dismissal.
From 1 July 2011:

• the high income threshold increased to $118,100
• the compensation limit under unfair dismissal increased to $59,050.

The high income threshold is indexed annually on 1 July.

Why is the high income threshold important?

The high income threshold affects three main entitlements:

• employees who earn over the high income threshold, and who are not usually covered by a modern award or enterprise agreement, cannot make a claim for unfair dismissal
• employees who have agreed to a written guarantee of annual earnings by their employer, that is more than the high income threshold, no longer receive their modern award entitlements. However, they are still entitled to unfair dismissal.
• the maximum compensation payable for unfair dismissal is capped at either half the high income threshold, or the equivalent of six months of the dismissed employee’s wage, whichever is lower.

So, it is important to calculate exactly how much employees are earning from 1 July 2011. The increase in the high income threshold could mean a major change to an employee’s workplace entitlements.

What’s counted under the high income threshold?

To find out whether an employee is earning above this threshold, the following are included in any calculation:

• wages
• amounts applied or dealt with in any way on the employee's behalf or as the employee directs (e.g. superannuation top-ups, salary sacrifice)
• the agreed monetary value of non-monetary benefits (e.g. personal use of a company car, mobile phone or laptop).

The following are not counted:

• commissions, bonuses, overtime, and any other payment where the amount can’t be determined in advance
• reimbursements
• employer contributions to superannuation.

Employers and employees should review their wages to determine if the change affects them.
For further information you can review the Fair Work Act website http://www.fairwork.gov.au/media-centre/latest-news/2011/06/pages/20110627-high-income-threshold-rises-to-118100.aspx  Contact Inspire Success if you would like to discuss how this affects your business.

What is 360 degree feedback

360 degree respondents can be the employee’s peers, supervisors, managers, team members, other staff members, customers, suppliers – anyone who can provide objective feedback on the employee. Sources should be chosen on factors such as their knowledge of the employee’s performance, the importance of their relationship with the employee and their ability to provide objective feedback and use examples to back up their opinions.  The process for identifying respondents should be clearly set out with employees having some opportunity to input. The feedback is typically provided on a form (paper or online) showing job skills/abilities/attitudinal/behavioural criteria and some sort of scoring or value judgement system. The employee should also assess themselves using the same feedback form. In order for the 360-degree feedback process to be effective, it is important that it be designed and used correctly. The confidentiality of everyone involved should be respected at all times and the feedback should be summarised and delivered to the employee by individuals trained in feedback techniques. Employees should always be offered support to act on feedback.

Why use 360 feedback:

360 feedback can help to identify strengths and development needs for the employee and also help managers by providing insights into their management and leadership role. 360 feedback can open up communications about performance because the process involves giving and receiving feedback from all directions in the organization. Understanding ourselves and how we interact with others helps us understand the impact we have on those around us. 

Companies typically use a 360 feedback system in one of two ways:

1. 360 feedback as a development tool to help employees recognize strengths and weaknesses and become more effective
When done properly, 360 feedback is highly effective as a development tool. Employees can gain insight into how others perceive them and have an opportunity to adjust behaviours and develop skills that will enable them to improve / excel at their jobs. It can tell you where the development is needed for your employees so you don’t end up wasting a huge amount of money on training that people don’t need.

2. 360 Feedback as a Performance Appraisal Tool
360 feedback focuses on behaviours and competencies more than on basic skills, job requirements, and performance objectives. These things are most appropriately addressed by an employee and his/her manager as part of the annual review and performance appraisal process. The 360 feedback can enhance your performance management system, by incorporating 360 feedback into a larger performance management process, but only with clear communication on how the 360 feedback will be used.

What does 360 Feedback measure

• 360 feedback measures competencies – for example leadership, decision making, problem solving, customer service, motivation etc
• 360 feedback can identify underlying attitudes and thinking patterns that drive behaviour  and even help resolve what is causing counter-productive actions
• 360 reviews provide feedback on how others perceive an employee
• 360 feedback addresses skills such as listening, planning, and goal-setting
• A 360 evaluation can identify and measure areas such as customer service, teamwork, training needs, work environment and leadership effectiveness. The feedback can then be used to create development plans to increase capabilities and performance.