Thought Leadership Articles
Kenexa HR Thought Leadership™ articles are experience-driven pieces that discuss best practices in the Human Capital Management (HCM) space. These articles are written by skilled HR practitioners or technologists who initiate or provide new thinking on a specific component of HR. Kenexa HR Thought Leadership articles discuss strategies on new or existing HR topics and educate readers about future possibilities and considerations on those topics. The overall purpose of these thought leadership articles is to engage readers through original, innovative ideas that are supported by the knowledge and experience of the author.
Are You Leading or Lagging? Building Strategic Next Steps Into Your Survey
By Jeffrey A. Jolton, Ph.D., Kenexa
At the start of the school year, my third-grade daughter came home with a practice math test. The test is given at the end of each month and contains a range of math problems. It starts with very simple addition and ends with more elaborate addition and multiplication equations.
Initially, the test was quite daunting to my daughter. “I’ll never be able to finish this! I don’t even know multiplication yet!” she cried. Yet as each month passed, she would bring home the monthly test and take pride in her clear improvements and gained knowledge.
The value of this test, and this anecdote, is to illustrate the power of providing both leading indicators as well as lagging indicators on an assessment. Lagging indicators reflect those processes and actions that one should have already achieved (in this case, simple math). Leading indicators reflect those processes and actions one knows you have not yet achieved, but would like to or need to achieve in order to be successful (multiplication).