Continuous peer-to-peer feedback allows you to collect and aggregate feedback on an employee's skills, assess his social capital, and receive recommendations and wishes in the form of answers to open questions.

Continuous peer-to-peer feedback in the Yva.ai system is similar to a 360-degree assessment, but instead of assessing competencies, employees are offered an assessment of social capital and informal leadership skills among colleagues, those with whom the employee communicates at work. This is part of Yva.ai's active analytics, i.e. its survey part.

Social capital (synonym - informal leadership) is a human trait that allows one to influence the behavior of other people without using official powers.

Continuous feedback helps to identify the people who are most contributing to the achievement of the company's goals. An employee's social capital reflects what his strengths are and how he can help the company and colleagues.

In the Yva.ai system, in weekly pulse surveys employees can choose what styles of informal leadership are characteristic of their colleagues, what qualities they show in their work. The examples of questions are: “Who takes the lead in an uncertain situation?”, “Who usually suggests new ideas?”, “Who do you turn to for professional advice?”.

Based on the responses of all employees, the system forms a rating of leaders by types of social capital: “Dominants”, “Innovators”, “Integrators”, “Protectors”, “Experts”. Each employee rated by these questions can be a member of the rating's top 10%, top 30%, top 50%, or just a member of the list.

Flexible feedback also allows to assess individual employee's informal leadership skills, which are also distributed across the five leadership styles named above.

5 leadership styles

There are different classifications of leadership styles. The Yva.ai system uses five leadership styles for flexible feedback and measurement of the organization's social capital, four of which are determined by human biochemistry - hormones and neurotransmitters. Each person usually combines all four qualities in different proportions - something more, something less.

Since leadership styles are largely determined by nature, they can be observed not only in humans, but also in other social beings - for example, even in bees (scout bees have high dopamine, like innovators). At the same time, leadership styles can be developed with targeted work on skills, even if initially they were not characteristic of a person.

Dominants

The “Dominant” leadership quality is associated with the testosterone hormone. “Dominants” are energetic, proactive, assertive and decisive. Such people help the team to move from plans to actions and achieve exceptional results.

Innovators

The “Innovator” leadership quality is linked to the expression of genes in the dopamine system. Innovators are curious, creative, flexible, they like risk and everything new. Such people help the team to experiment and find non-standard solutions and approaches to work.

Integrators

The “Intergator” leadership quality is linked to the oxytocin, estrogen system. If you are an integrator, then you worry about everyone, unite everyone, take care of them. Integrators are aware of all problems, people ask them for support and advice. Integrators are human-oriented. Such employees provide support to those who face emotional problems, inspire colleagues, and their opinion is usually trusted.

Protectors

The “Protector” leadership quality is related to the high levels of serotonin. If you are a protector, you can't stand a disorder. You create rules and processes, streamline workflows, unite departments and set clear goals for your employees. Protectors are consistent, attentive to detail and responsible.

Experts

This leadership quality is not associated with biological dominance. Experts are recognized professionals in their field, employees who are asked for professional support. They help the team achieve success with professional advice, expertise and mentoring.

Examples: Steve Jobs - an innovator and dominant, Tim Cook - an integrator and protector.

Long-term success is demonstrated by companies in which employees in the right proportion combine all leadership qualities or styles - “Dominant”, “Innovator”, “Integrator”, “Protector”, and “Expert”. A single strong leader cannot ensure the long­term success of an entire company.

Based on the success of Apple and other companies, we can say that the most effective teams were those in which two of the informal leadership qualities - “Innovator” and “Integrator” - were shown by the majority of employees. Innovators bring information to the group, Integrators distribute information within the group - this is called collective intelligence. That is, for example, the employees of the working group had, firstly, to be involved in the discussion of decision-making, and secondly, to communicate with the employees of not their own group.

How to increase the social capital of an organization for its success:

  • Find out who is the “Dominant”, “Innovator”, “Integrator”, “Protector”, and “Expert” in the company,

  • Find out who is missing. Balance the departments by cross-changes,

  • Create the collective intelligence culture by increasing inner and outer openness.

Groups, people or organizations that focus on one leadership style do not achieve long­term success - it is harmony of all elements that is important. On the other hand, at different stages of development of the company and people in the company, the emphasis may be put on different elements. At the moment when the company must get ahead, become a leader, it's better to place more emphasis on the concepts of the “Innovator” and “Dominant”, as innovation and achievement of goals become important. As the company matures, the roles of “Protectors” and “Integrators” become more important.

Advantages of different leadership styles

Dominants

Dominants effectively deal with uncertainty, being a role model for others, are able to achieve results, initiate and stimulate changes. The most energetic and flexible part of the organization with the best chance of success in a constantly changing world.

Innovators

Such employees are distinguished by curiosity and an abundance of social contacts. These qualities are indispensable for fostering cross-functional collaboration and forming an innovation culture, and they can act as initiators of best practices.

Integrators

Such people are distinguished by kindness and a high level of empathy. They can work with HR and senior management to stabilize the organization during difficult times, as well as drive change in the company. Integrators are caring, supportive, empathetic. They bring people together in teams, help resolve conflicts, and bring harmony.

Protectors

Such people help build business processes, ensure work stability and make sure everything works as it should. Protectors organize and optimize corporate processes.

Experts

This group of people are the most valuable mentors in the company. Experts are recognized professionals in some field of activity, team players. In partnership with innovators, they can be the backbone of a self-learning organization.

Social capital assessment through surveys

Flexible feedback questions are divided into three types:

  • About social capital assessment (leadership styles) (choose who is an example of such and such behavior),

  • About the colleagues' skills (skills of informal leadership - are they visible or not),

  • An open recommendation question to colleagues (“What advice would you give {NAME} to be more successful in the current position?”).

How colleagues for feedback collection are assigned:

  • Colleagues with whom, according to the communication history analysis, the employee communicates most closely, that is, the top frequent contacts of the employee,

  • Colleagues with whom the employee is linked by the organizational structure (in case the organizational structure of the organization is synchronized with Yva.ai).

The survey results are displayed in the section “My Report”, “Social Capital”. As the survey is carried out in iterations, then it takes several weeks for the system to display the skills, once several colleagues evaluated the employee:

If an employee is noted in at least one answer to the question about social capital, he will have a corresponding card in the “Social capital” section. The more colleagues note that an employee has a leadership style, the higher the person rises in the list. Employees with a large number of marks can be included in the top of any list.

The results of social capital assessment can be as follows:

  • “You are on the list” means that at least one colleague of the employee has confirmed that one demonstrates a certain leadership skill,

  • “You are in the rating's TOP 50%” means that at least half of the employees received fewer votes than the employee whose results you are looking at.

  • “You are in the rating's TOP 30%” means that the employee received more votes than 70% of his colleagues,

  • “You are in the rating's TOP 10%” means that the employee received more votes than 90% of his colleagues.

The employee report also displays the percentage of positive employee skill ratings from colleagues (respondents):

  • 100% on the scale will be in the event that all answers for this skill from all respondents were positive,

  • Less than 100% will be if some of the answers were negative,

  • If the respondents did not assess the employee's skill either positively or negatively, then it is not taken into account. That is, if colleagues did not select an employee in any of the skill-related questions, this is not considered a negative skill assessment.

As an employee works on their skills, the number of positive responses tends to rise. This can be assessed in dynamics using pulse surveys.

In open responses, colleagues can give a recommendation to the colleagues they've tagged in response to a survey question. Recommendations for improving skills are displayed in the “Comments” section.

Survey results also can be found in the “Employee report” section. For this you need to select the appropriate column when choosing the information for display. Here you can see the ratings of employees by leadership style:

When calculating the results, the system looks at how many votes each of the employees received for a certain type of leadership, after which it compiles a rating of employees from the one with the highest number of votes to the lowest.

The system determines the percentile for each employee by position in the list (what percentage of employees received fewer votes than the one which result you are looking at). The person with the #1 position on the list has a percentile = 100% (that is, 100% of employees scored fewer points than he did), and the last one on the list = 0% (that is, 100% of employees scored more points than he did). The employees who received no responses on social capital in the past 13 weeks get an 'n/a' metric.

More about social capital metrics: Social capital rating

Social capital indices

Apart from Social capital ratings in the “Employee Report” you can find the Social capital index balanced and Social capital indices for each of the types of social capital.

More about social capital metrics: Social capital indices

Social capital index balanced

The absolute social capital of an employee, which takes into account the number of his contacts and the severity of his leadership.

It is calculated as the arithmetic mean of all types of social capital (Integration, Expertise, Domination, Innovation, Protection). If an employee does not have any of the types of social capital, then this will reduce his total social capital.

Social capital indices for each of the types of social capital

Social capital index are calculated for each of the types of social capital. It is an index that takes into account the number of contacts of an employee and the severity of each of the five leadership styles (Integration, Expertise, Domination, Innovation, Protection).