Press release distributed in partnership with ...  

Employees Overrate Their Abilities, Says Study

Over the past 5 years employees in North America have consistently overrated their abilities, indicates a study conducted by The Beacon Group.

Toronto, Canada (PRWEB) April 7, 2009 -- Over the past 5 years employees in North America have consistently overrated their abilities, indicates a study conducted by The Beacon Group.

The Beacon Group, a leading advising firm in the field of organizational development, asked managers in the US and Canada to rate their employees after they had completed a self-assessment of their abilities. Employees were evaluated on traits such as ethics & integrity, customer focus, accountability, teamwork, decision making, communication and many others. The study analyzed over 10,000 individual surveys submitted over the past 5 years.

It’s common for employees to overrate their abilities and this becomes a more pronounced trend during recessions when individuals attempt to promote their value to the organization

Most employees try to be fair and reflective during self-evaluations

Even though these surveys are completely confidential, direct reports are sometimes fearful of their managers and inflate their evaluations

Only 33% of manager evaluations were higher than the employee’s self assessment.

“It’s common for employees to overrate their abilities and this becomes a more pronounced trend during recessions when individuals attempt to promote their value to the organization”, said Michael Sitayeb, Director Product Development & Marketing for The Beacon Group.

The average difference between a manager’s evaluation and the self-assessment of an employee is only about 4 percentage points.

“Most employees try to be fair and reflective during self-evaluations” added Sitayeb.

Direct reports to the employee (if the employee had any subordinates) rated their managers in the best light. 67% of these evaluations were higher than the manager’s self assessment. Meanwhile less than 8% of direct reports were harsher than the manager’s self assessment.

“Even though these surveys are completely confidential, direct reports are sometimes fearful of their managers and inflate their evaluations,” said Sitayeb.

An employee’s peers may be the hardest crowd to please.

Peers rarely rated better than their co-worker’s self-assessments, yet 42% of peer assessments indicated significantly poorer performance than what their peers thought they were displaying in the workplace.

Managers, Peers and Direct Reports uniformly believed that ethics & integrity, customer focus and delivering results were the strongest qualities displayed by each other in their workplace. Leadership & motivation, innovation and ongoing performance feedback in the workplace were the areas where the most improvement was required according to the survey.

The Beacon Group is a leading advising firm in the field of organizational development. Companies across various industries have used The Beacon Group’s assessment products and advising services to leverage their investment in Human Capital. The Beacon Group specializes in Employee Surveys, 360 Feedback Assessments, Early Talent Identification (ETI), Management Training, and Performance Management Systems. Clients including Mercedes-Benz, Aeroplan, Xerox, Sony and SAP have used The Beacon Group’s services to grow their thriving businesses.

For media inquiries please speak to Michael Sitayeb at 1-866-240-3948 or email at michaels (at) thebeacongroup.ca.

This press release was distributed through eMediawire by Human Resources Marketer (HR Marketer: www.HRmarketer.com) on behalf of the company listed above.

###

Post Comment:
Trackback URL: http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/U3F1YS1FbXB0LVRoaXItQ291cC1QaWdnLUNvdXAtWmVybw==

Bookmark -  Del.icio.us | Furl It | Technorati | Ask | MyWeb | Propeller | Live Bookmarks | Newsvine | TailRank | Reddit | Slashdot | Digg | Stumbleupon | Google Bookmarks | Sphere | Blink It | Spurl