Verizon Uses Customized 360 Feedback Survey

Verizon Core Competencies Linked to Leadership Through Survey

Here's how one PPI customer performs their customized 360 feedback survey using Interactive Voice Response.

Hunt Valley, MD Leadership performance is the focus of Verizon's ongoing customized 360 feedback program. Finance Operations Manager Sandy Lynch says Performance Programs' telephone-based response system creates better feedback to managers. Many people are reluctant to use pen and paper "for fear someone will recognize my writing" and the appraisal will be held against them.

"But conducting the 360-degree performance questionnaires through an outside vendor makes people feel safer in evaluating managers," says Ms. Lynch. They use the telephone keypad to make their response.

The questionnaire, designed by Performance Programs, includes 30 questions ranging from "To what extent does this manager encourage the team to develop new ideas?" to "Does this manager realize the impact their behavior has on others?" It reflects the organization's core competencies for managers.

PPI's interactive voice response system allows participants to add spoken comments, which are transcribed confidentially. Ms. Lynch says, "It's the quotations from those additional comments that then help the participant to substantiate the numerical results of his or her survey."

Managers are allowed to choose which employees will review them. Ms. Lynch says that, surprisingly, managers will sometimes choose a person they had conflicts with in the past, in the hopes that this person's answers will reflect a manager's improvement over time. She says it's important to conduct these surveys annually so that progress can be charted and rewarded. She says Verizon focuses on responses to the 'Interpersonal Skills' and 'Development of Others' categories. "Employees have really good ideas, and the old autocratic way of telling people to do things does not work anymore. Now, team development is much more important," she says.

Asked why she uses the services of Performance Programs over other organizations that offer similar services, Sandy Lynch says, "because they're efficient and very easy people to deal with."