Evidence-Based Management: This is how WE do it. Maxime Loose, Flemish Government AOM Philadelphia, 2014

1. THIS IS HOW WE DO IT
Evidence Based Management
AOM 2014 – session 308
Evidence-Based Management in Action

2. Government of Flanders
2

3. Who am I?

4. The Dream
4
All decisions concerning HR & OD in
the government of Flanders are
grounded on
the best available evidence.

5. 5
It's a matter of professional
integrity! No girl wants to marry a
doctor who can't tell if a man's
dead or not! Scherlock Holmes, 2009

6. Becoming an evidence based
organisation
6
1. It starts with your mind
2. Everyday practice and learning
3. Integrating evidence based practice
in the organisation
Rousseau, D.M. and Barends, E.G.R. (2011) ‘Becoming an
evidence-based HR practitioner’. Human Resource Management
Journal 21: 3, 221–235.

7. Becoming an evidence based
organisation
7
• Our plan:
• Develop competencies
• Applying the methodology
• How do we implement it?
• Is it feasible?
• Communication/ Marketing
• Convincing the organisation
• Blog, presentations, factcheck,…
-> Support from CEBMA

8. 8

9. Developing competencies
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• Trained 12 colleagues during 5 halve days
• Content:
• Developing awareness
• formulating explicit questions
• looking for evidence
• appraising evidence
• HR-analytics (I-nostix)
• …
-> the 1+6 A’s
(awareness + ask, acquire, appraise, aggregate, apply, assess)
• Goal:
• providing basic competencies
• Providing a common language
-> It starts with your mind - Awareness

10. Developing competencies
10
What we've learned
 Involve corporate HR & OD + the ones who
implement it
 We created basic knowledge of EBM
 We created awarenes
• understanding of the added value and even necessity of
EBM
• Inspired colleagues with new possibilities and ideas

11. Developing competencies
11
What we've learned
 But how to implement, how wil we do it?
• Searching for scientific evidence= challengeing for some
colleagues
• What about external partners
• What will we expect from partners?
• What about expectations of our clients?
• ….
 5 sessions, too much?
• Depends on background
• Some expressed a preference for a shorter but more
intensive training

12. Applying the methodology
12
• Try-out in already planned projects:
• Burn-out, high potential program, new ways of working,
autonomous teams and organisational values
• Goal
• Building a portfolio of cases
• Learn about how difficult/ easy it is in reality
• Practicing the competenties
-> Everyday practice and learning

13. Applying the methodology
13
What we've learned
• Difficult to implement in ongoing projects
• Threatning to internal consultant and client
• Difficult to question already made choices
> integrate the methodology in new projects from
the beginning
> Implement it step by step

14. Applying the methodology
14
What we've learned
• Evidence based working challenges external
partners
• Evidence based working asks difficult questions towards
proposed tools & methodologies
> Communicate with external providers
> When writing a commision demand for EB
proposals
> External partners are able and willing to follow the
EB logic
> Acquired knowledge can not be neglected

15. Applying the methodology
15
• Evidence based working challenges our beliefs
• External comments are sometimes right
> Question our own position
> Criticaly exploring our own choices makes our
policies better

16. Applying the methodology
16
• Evidence based working is possible
• Exploring the 4 sources of evidence might seem time-
consuming
> Does every HR-professional need the skill to
consult scientific evidence?
> In the beginning focus on projects with big and/or
long-term impact
> There is a learning curve

17. Communication
17
• Infographic
• Communicating in an attractive and positive fashion
• Blog
• Sharing our experiences
• Factchecker
• Showing the potential of Evidence Based working
• Involve decision-makers
• If they expect ‘evidence based’ propositions, we will take a huge
leap forward
-> It starts with your mind

18. 18

19. The future
19
• Realising the dream step by step
• First focus: Important projects with potential big impact
and/or long term consequences
• Toolboxes
• New corporate policies
• Next challenge: integrating Evidence Based working in our
processes
• Involving our external partners
• Building a solid knowledge base= long term project

20. The future
20
• Providing a competence pool
• Making a pool of experts in evidence based working
available for the organisation
• Marketing evidence based working in the
organisation
• A what works centre for management in Flanders?

21. Questions?
21

22. 22
Maxime Loose
Internal consultant – government of Flanders
Maxime.Loose@Bz.vlaanderen.be
Twitter: @maximeloose
Slideshare:
http://www.slideshare.net/maximeloose/evidence-
based-management-how-we-do-it