Executive Summary

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A US-based insurance and financial services company approached Rhabit seeking a transformative solution to strengthen leader behaviors, reinforce competencies, and enhance self-awareness among its managers. Using Reflect, Rhabit’s leadership assessment platform, a pilot was launched within a matter of weeks to start measuring a cohort of this Fortune 500 company’s leaders' behaviors. 

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From its initial implementation to its integration into Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) and targeted initiatives, Reflect is proving to be a catalyst for positive organizational change. This case study demonstrates a real-world example of collaboration, growth, and empowerment as the organization harnesses the power of Reflect to deliver a new standard of excellence in leadership development for their Talent Management organization.  

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A True Talent Management Problem

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As a well-established leader in the insurance industry, the Talent Management team understands the criticality of giving leaders timely and effective feedback. However, previous attempts to launch a new 360 assessment had proven to be unsuccessful. 

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As a result, feedback programs had been put on hold to focus on other Learning and Development initiatives and organizational skepticism had taken root questioning the viability of feedback-oriented development programs. 

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The Talent Management team remained convinced that they were not getting the outcomes they wanted without a proper assessment to increase leader self-awareness and feedback but would need to overcome this skepticism all while working within the boundaries of a tightened operating budget.  

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Additionally, their lack of success with programs containing measurement components had also created the problem of a gap in their HR data, making it difficult to understand the impact of their programs, as well as have visibility into the behaviors of their leaders.

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Solution Design

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The US-based insurance carrier partnered with Rhabit to roll out a pilot of Reflect (Rhabit’s 360 assessment) to 200 leaders in 4 unique cohorts. The Leadership Development team’s goal was to develop their leader competencies clustered under Emotional Intelligence to strengthen the EQ of leaders within ESGs and a Women in Leadership initiative. 

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With the partnership of their Rhabit consultant, the talent management team outlined their goals for the program, including measuring the leaders’ performance to the behaviors tied to their Emotional Intelligence development programs and collecting longitudinal data to track individual leader performance and program performance over time. 

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Rhabit’s consulting team worked closely with the Leadership Development team to break down their competencies into smaller, observable behaviors. These behaviors were then measured weekly by feedback providers using simple swipe technology. Using this microsampling methodology, Reflect collected hundreds of data points to model into custom dashboards demonstrating impact for the organization’s talent management team.

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The firm also partnered with Rhabit to develop custom micro-courses to embed into the leader dashboard to facilitate self-lead leader learning. Rhabit mapped these micro-courses to specific behaviors within the participant’s dashboards, suggesting the courses to leaders who may need to improve their behavior scores.

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Rhabit’s modern software tools allowed the program to easily be scaled out to the organizations user bases and minimized user training and consulting overhead.  This allowed Rhabit to offer a price point  at a per-leader basis that was significantly lower than the classic costs of consultant and traditional 360s 

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Implementation

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As previous assessment programs had stagnated, participation and adoption were a concern. Rhabit’s consulting team worked glove-in-hand with the client to develop a rollout strategy that would ensure high adoption and ongoing participation of both the leader and feedback providers.

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This strategy included:

• Development of a dedicated microsite for participants to swipe through and familiarize themselves with Rhabit. Visits to this training site paced the number of participants in the program signaling interest and engagement with the program.
• Personalized training content to appeal to their participants, such as short videos, live training sessions, and micro-courses.
• Announcement emails and other training materials to help familiarize participants and feedback providers ahead of the launch of the program.

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Rollout was time-sensitive, and the program was able to launch in under one month. Rhabit's consulting team collaborated seamlessly with the client team, ensuring the program's immediate success. This hands-on approach facilitated a smooth launch and enthusiastic participation.

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Methodology

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Feedback is the most fundamental and effective way for a leader to learn and develop the interpersonal skills that make them effective in their roles and help them create an environment that gets the highest performance out of their teams. 

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The problem with feedback is that objective feedback is difficult to collect.  The two main problems with getting quality feedback are: 1) users who would observe the leader the most frequently don’t possess the necessary communication skills to articulate the objective, developmental elements of high quality performance feedback and 2) feedback providers are often unwilling to commit the necessary time and effort to provide high quality feedback.  

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Rhabit’s Reflect platform solves these two problems with exceptional elegance.

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Rhabit’s feedback platform focuses on observed behaviors.  Rhabit ships with a comprehensive library of behaviors that are clustered into competencies or Habits as they’re called in Rhabit.  These behaviors can also be customized based on existing competency models, strategic priorities, or the specific role of the feedback recipient.  In the case of leaders, this may be by level or seniority.  For example, first-time managers and executives typically have very different leadership challenges and will rely on a separate set of skills to be successful.  There may be some crossover, such as communication skills, but competencies related more to strategy and interorganizational connectivity may be more useful for executives while budding managers need to develop fundamentals related to delegating work and supporting their individual contributors.  Rhabit supports these variations and needs for customization, and the organizational psychologists in our organization have the capability of consulting organizations of any size and complexity in selecting or designing these clusters of behaviors for their leadership development programs utilizing Rhabit’s platform.

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Overview of the  leadership development experience in Rhabit Reflect:

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1. User is created in Rhabit and completes the onboarding process, including a self assessment of where they believe their strengths and weaknesses are related to the collection of behaviors they’ll be focusing on. 

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2. Once a week Rhabit prompts and collects feedback from the leader’s feedback providers.  Users can provide feedback via any device with an internet browser, including laptops, phones, tablets, and kiosks. 

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3. Initially, Rhabit collects a significant burst of feedback for the leader and shows them their current scores in these behaviors compared to their self-assessment, 

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4. Rhabit supports the inclusion of different types of optional leadership interventions based on the organization's needs.  Depending on your needs and the design of the experience, leaders may next experience an intervention such as coaching, a facilitated course, completion of a digital learning exercise, or some other intervention desired by the learning and development organization.  

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5. Rhabit continues to measure for the length of the development program, a configurable length, but typically somewhere between 12 to 24 weeks. 

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6. The Leader is sent weekly updates on their scores and suggestions for simple behaviors to focus on each week to try and improve.  The leader also has continuous access to supporting materials either included in Rhabit’s library of tips and e-learning resources or those provided by the client’s LMS system (which Rhabit integrates with). 

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7. At the end of the program the leader is provided with a full summary of their experience, a rich report highlighting their journey and the evolution of their scores and how they have changed over time, along with a log of the different experiences they utilized.

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8. Data from the different steps along this process feed a robust set of reporting, dashboarding, and visualization options available to the talent management organization for further analysis and to assist with program accountability and success. 

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Outcomes

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The Director of Digital Learning hails Reflect as the "most exciting 360 platform" they have worked with in their professional career, underscoring the platform's impact on leadership development.

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Within a remarkably brief period, the pilot has surpassed expectations, engaging over 200 leaders in the insightful Reflect assessment process. As a testament to its efficacy, the program is now poised to expand its influence throughout the organization, shaping a new paradigm for leadership development at the client organization. Sustained participation exceeds 95%, garnering the confidence of the Leadership Development team to share Reflect within other segments of the organization and plan beyond the pilot phase. 

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The value provided to the organization’s leaders with Rhabit Reflect includes:

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1. Onboarding and Self-Assessment: Leaders went through an onboarding process, including a self-assessment of strengths and weaknesses related to targeted behaviors.
2. Behavioral Insights and Interventions: Initial feedback highlights strengths and improvement opportunities. Rhabit created optional leadership interventions, such as coaching or digital learning exercises, based on need.
3. Leader Updates and Access to Resources: Leaders receive weekly updates on their scores, along with suggestions for improvement. Access to supporting materials and integration with the client's Learning Management System (LMS) ensures a comprehensive learning experience.
4. Program Summary: At the program's conclusion, leaders receive a detailed summary of their journey, including the evolution of their scores and utilized experiences.

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In conclusion, this case study exemplifies the shared success between the national insurance firm and Rhabit, showcasing how Reflect emerges as a catalyst for transformative leadership. As Reflect's influence continues to permeate the organization, they stand poised for a future defined by empowered leaders and sustained success.

Are you ready to explore how Rhabit can develop industry-leading talent for your organization? Schedule a free consultation today.

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