International law firm Baker & McKenzie has embedded 360 degree feedback processes into its people strategy in a bid to enable staff “to be the best they can be”.
The company provides legal services to multinational companies and financial institutions. It employs more than 3,750 lawyers in 70 countries around the world, including more than 400 in London out of a total workforce of about 750.
In an attempt to build more effective teams and boost staff engagement, Baker & McKenzie’s UK HR and development team decided to introduce a pilot project to test the merits of introducing a structured 360 degree feedback model based on the principles of ‘little and often’.
It hired specialist provider, Track Surveys, to help it design a measurable programme that covered individuals’ technical, leadership and individual capabilities for roll-out among the 37 partners of its London corporate team, which comprised four units.
As the department had undergone major leadership changes in the previous six months, it was felt that the new management team would particularly benefit from being able to assess how effective and motivational it was being to date.
The exercise was also seen as a means of demonstrating the partners’ commitment to listening and acting on the feedback provided by associates and other staff members.
Each partner was given a detailed briefing on what to expect before the exercise began as well as the opportunity to ask questions.
Other employees were also briefed on the aims and how the so-called ‘Partner 360’ scheme would be used during a series of team meetings. They were also given clarification on how to give constructive feedback in order to ensure that the development experience was a positive one.
Guiding future activity
The feedback system itself, meanwhile, was based on Track Surveys’ Empower Legal 360 online applications and the pilot project ran for four weeks, with regular progress reports being compiled during that time.
Other partners, associate solicitors, trainees and PAs provided every partner with an average of 12 responses, while each of the partners also filled in a self-review.
After the process was complete, the partners were then helped to review and work through their individual feedback reports in order to ensure that they had understood the key messages and were able to interpret any unexpected or critical comments.
Individual reports were subsequently collated into group reports for each of the four units, which were formally presented to them. Facilitators also worked with each group to discuss the feedback and its implications, while department managers hosted their own workshops.
In these workshops, they provided context, laid out goals and made it clear that the feedback supplied was meant to guide future activity. Each group then devised its own action plan, which all members of the team committed to.
Martin Blackburn, Baker & McKenzie’s HR director said that the programme had given the firm “a consistent basis for future discussions around partners’ competencies and skills” and for ensuring that effective learning and development activities were put in place.
In addition, the fact that associates and other colleagues had given partners upward feedback had helped to provide insights into the behaviours and skills expected of them as well as generate confidence in the overall feedback process.
“This has both contributed to increasing the culture of feedback and in engaging more of our people to join in the feedback discussions. Feedback is now fundamental to our core people strategy of enabling our people to be the best they can be,” Blackburn concluded.
