All candidates will receive a detailed feedback report; an additional service is a feedback coaching call with one of occupational psychologist assessors.

VCA supplies a detailed feedback report for each candidate. This report is used as the basis for a feedback session facilitated either by the HR/ L&D team, Line Managers or VCA assessors.

The feedback report covers the assessment of how well candidates matched the Leadership Quality (LQ) criteria, specific to each exercise (roleplay and case study).

The feedback is generated from summaries on each Leadership Quality (LQ) submitted by the assessors as part of their evaluation of the candidate’s performance in each exercise. This includes quotes taken from candidate written and verbal responses and assessor evaluation.

The full-length original assessment is edited to create a final feedback report – this ‘tidied up version’ ensures clients and candidates are able to focus on performance and areas for improvement rather than getting caught up in specific details of each exercise.

The objective of the feedback report is to provide a review of exercise specific performance, as well as straightforward guidance notes on how this can be applied in a practical way in the workplace.

Development of management behaviours in the workplace can be challenging. Post-assessment, candidates can feel that they don’t have anything clear to show their line manager as a guide for further support and development. With our feedback report, candidates can take this document to their line manager and say ‘here’s what I could do better, can we talk about how I can do that?’

Feedback can be viewed as something which is used in a negative way, to criticise or highlight mistakes. The VCA Ltd feedback report enables FRS’s to promote internal coaching and mentoring, on-the-job learning and utilising experience already within the Watch.

The feedback report can also support candidates to be proactive about their own future development. Facilitators in feedback sessions can use a coaching style to build upon this.

The report will help the line manager to understand what further support they need to offer. For example, getting involved in a working group by shadowing a more experienced member; taking debriefs/ training sessions and getting feedback on their approach; having responsibility for a small team to introduce a change. Candidates may have their own ideas as well which a line manager can explore in their own follow up post-assessment.

The report will also allow the line manager to understand the candidate’s performance without needing to interpret the original information, since they won’t have seen the exercises. For instance, the feedback might highlight that the candidate tended not to use enough questioning in the roleplay, or use all the data available to them in the case study. Development guidance statements highlighting these factors mean that the line manager can build practice and review of this more regularly at work to improve their potential as a manager.

Telephone feedback sessions are facilitated by VCA Ltd assessors involved in the project. Sessions last up to 45 minutes and can be a useful alternative for HR managers who are short of time and feel candidates would benefit from external support from an impartial source.

In the telephone feedback sessions we discuss with candidates their performance on the exercises and how they can take these on board and action them i.e. in conjunction with their line manager. We help them identify ways they could address areas where they need more experience or could benefit from the experience of others.

Format of the feedback session (this may not be followed in a linear way, and there may not be time to cover everything depending on the individual)

Introduction

• Assessor introduction, expectations for the call, confidentiality
• Clarify candidate’s experience of the assessment
• Discuss LQ and what these might look like

Exercises

• Brief reminder of the exercise
• Explain the use of evidence and how it is used
• Discussion of key points of positive performance
• Sense check/ and discuss areas in need of development/ under-performance
• Summarise key achievements

Performance

• Draw broader conclusions of overall performance in a workplace context and look at development themes
• Reflect on candidate’s view of strengths and weaknesses and highlight areas for improved performance
• Explore key themes in more detail to formulate developmental action plans, acknowledging individual preferences and opportunities for support

In addition to the described structure, the assessors will likely address the following:

• Highlighting the benefit of working with line managers to address the development points in the report.
• Support candidates to be proactive about their own development by encouraging ideas of actions they could take to develop certain areas; identify what support they might need and what they could do to find this i.e. from line manager, training dept, seeking mentors etc.
• Building on their strengths- anything they can suggest as to how they could benefit others using their strengths e.g. coaching/ mentoring more junior members of the watch, suggesting involvement in projects/ forums, setting up groups/ initiatives.

In cases where further coaching would be of benefit to an individual candidate we offer a series of follow-up session (usually four) with the assessing psychologist.