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Background
In 1999 the Overseas Presence Advisory Panel (OPAP) and the McKinsey "War for Talent" report challenged the U.S. State Department by calling for improved employee leadership and management skills. To meet that challenge, the Secretary of State and the Director General of the Foreign Service and Bureau of Human Resources urged the Department to develop a program that would enhance diplomatic readiness throughout the Foreign Service.

Problem
The State Department needed to build a program designed to effectively develop leadership and management skills among its Foreign Service employees all over the world. In order to support the President's foreign policy, the program must necessarily foster a talent management mindset so that the right people are in the right place at the right time and, most importantly, with the right skills.

To create an environment that encouraged self-assessment and spurred professional self-development, all employees needed honest feedback on their performance. Therefore, the State Department's Office of Performance Evaluation (PE) launched a 360-degree program to provide employees with multi-rater, confidential feedback and to encourage goal setting and personal skill development that meets key Bureau and foreign policy objectives. The Office of Performance Evaluation needed web development services to implement this program worldwide.

B&E's Right Solution
To facilitate the 360-degree feedback program, Buchanan & Edwards designed and developed an interactive web-enabled survey to help Foreign Service employees better understand their specific management and leadership strengths and weaknesses. This 360-degree approach has been used successfully by 90 percent of Fortune 1000 organizations and some government organizations.

B&E built an easy-to-use, web-based application for capturing an employee's survey results. Employees participating in the survey select 10 other employees (bosses, peers, subordinates) to offer them anonymous, candid feedback on 25 leadership and management skills. The survey results, which only participants see, do not affect ratings or assignments but give participants a more complete picture of their managerial strengths and weaknesses, which helps them identify specific areas for personal skill development in the areas of communications, interpersonal leadership, results orientation, teamwork and supervision. The online survey is user friendly and less time consuming than paper-based surveys, encouraging employees to develop their leadership and management skills. After receiving statistical feedback reports identifying strengths and areas for improvement, participants can take action accordingly. For example, they can avail themselves of additional training and/or counseling. Over the course of several 360-survey processes, participants can track their progress toward their improvement goals using the web-enabled application.

Result
Currently the survey is in the pilot phase, with much support from executive management in the State Department. B&E's unique mix of technical expertise and communications skills was an excellent match for such a new initiative within the Department. We were able to develop an application that fostered employee development without foregoing the privacy or time constraints of its users. Already supervisors are taking advantage of the tool, and, ultimately, it will help ensure the State Department produces the right managers with the right skills to lead and support the organization as it enters in the 21st century.