Module 2 – Evaluating Your Current Team for Job Fit

Action Items

  • Training video: Evaluate Your Team for Job Fit
  • Draft Individual Performance Discussion forms
  • Training video: Preparing for Your Performance Discussion (employees)
  • Employees Complete Self-Evaluation, Submit to Manager
  • Evaluate Employees for Job Fit – on Performance Discussion forms

All the forms for the performance discussion and action plan (Modules 3-7) are combined into the Manager’s Performance Handbook. (Individual forms are also separate for your convenience).

Your next steps

  1. Watch the Video
  2. Draft Individual Performance Discussion forms 
    • Email job specific form each employee who reports to you.
  3. Invite employees to complete performance self-evaluation
  4. Evaluate employees for job fit
    • Complete Performance Discussion forms
      • Review employee’s self evaluation, gather additional feeback, and use your observations.
      • Step 2A- complete performance ratings based on the past year.
      • Step 2BCompetency “BARS” Descriptions – lists behaviors to help you rate the competencies.

 

People Plan™ Toolkit Support Request

Contact us if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions for improvement. My team reads every email and we are dedicated to your People Success! -Diana Southall

Module 1- Clarify Job Expectations (Design Job Responsibility Profiles)

Action item

  • Training video: Clarifying Job Expectations & Profiles
  • Training video: Completing Job Analysis (employee)
  • Employee Job Analysis Questionnaire (completed by employee)
  • Manager Job Analysis Questionnaire (completed by manager)
  • Job Responsibility Profiles drafted
  • Review Job Responsibility Profiles with employees

Your next steps

  1. Watch the videos
  2. Invite employees to complete job analysis
  3. Complete the related documents
    • Complete Manager Job Analysis Questionnaire (JAQ) for each position that reports to you (prior to seeing employee version).
      • If more than one manager, determine who is responsible to complete for each job title.
      • Compare employee version with manager version.
    • Draft Job Responsibility Profiles based on JAQ for review with employee(s).
  4. Schedule follow up meetings with employees
    • You can meet with each individual or as a group if more than one person in a job title.
    • Review the draft Job Responsibility Profile and get feedback.
  5. Finalize Job Responsibility Profiles

 

People Plan™ Toolkit Support Request

Contact us if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions for improvement. My team reads every email and we are dedicated to your People Success! -Diana Southall

People Plan Kickoff

Much of the time will be spent preparing for and meeting individually with your team members — an investment in their development that will start paying dividends almost immediately.

Your next steps

  1. Watch the video
    • 9 Steps to Building a Fabulous Team  for an introduction to this systematic team building process (and/or read ebook).
    • If you have managers or team leaders, schedule a meeting to watch the video or assign the eBook.
    • Discuss current People issues (pains and opportunities) and make a list of what you hope to accomplish with your People Plan.
    • Map your team on the People + Performance Profiler
  2. Schedule a meeting with your key people  to discuss current People issues (pains and opportunities) and make a list of what you hope to accomplish with your People Plan.
  3. Complete the project action plan and timeline
  4. Schedule your complimentary People strategy session with Diana Southall
  5. Schedule weekly project appointments
  • Pick a day each week for the next 12 months to make a 2 hour commitment (less than 5% of your week) to building your team.
    • Months 6-7 you will be leading individual performance discussions with each person, so expect to spend 90 minutes per person.
    • Many of the elements are designed with your team leaders/managers, so have these people block off their calendars as well.
    • Wednesday or Thursday mornings are a good time (start of the day).
  • Put these on your calendar and treat as a client appointment—don’t cancel on yourself and your team.
  • For each module, you will watch the training video, complete the template, and plan how you will integrate the powerful tool into your People coaching.

 


People Plan™ Toolkit Support Request

Contact us if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions for improvement. My team reads every email and we are dedicated to your People Success! -Diana Southall

Thanks for the $500 :(

Thanks for the $500 :(

More than half of for-profit employers pay out some sort of “year-end bonus” – sometimes it’s called incentive, profit-sharing, distribution, bonus checks.

I heard two examples this month of employees who were actually disappointed/ mad after receiving a fairly generous bonus!

Many well-meaning employers have one of these “plans” but there are two key problems that indicate you should re-design the plan:

1 vytorin 10 40Not linked to performance

For most small employers and a surprising number of large ones, it is also a mystery to employees how they “earned” it and how they can get a bigger one next year. Your employee is thinking something along the lines of “thanks for the $500, what is it for?”

If you are going to spend money – cold hard-earned profits- I suspect you want to get some “bang for your buck.”

If your employees do not understand these three things, it’s time for a re-design:

  • why they received $x in annual incentive,
  • how it ties to either their and/or the company performance, and
  • what they can specifically do next year to make this incentive larger

2. Becomes an “entitlement”

I have yet to meet an employee who will turn this down but often employees are actually MAD or disappointed when they get their bonus check.

Can you believe it!? An owner or manager group could take all the profits for themselves, yet they choose to share some with the staff. Instead of feelings of gratitude and joy, a poorly designed or communicated plan actually has the opposite effect.

And these feelings can linger and fester and actually lower the commitment and enthusiasm of your staff.
Yikes! A client recently used the phrase that sums this up: “we don’t need to spend money to piss people off!”

Typically the reason employees are actually dissatisfied with the bonus amount is because they expected more (for whatever reason) or think their amount is “unfair.”

Perhaps they thought they would get the same as last year (entitlement thinking) but profits were down so the overall pool was less. Or they thought that the promotion to manager would earn a bigger bonus. Or I should earn more than Larry because (fill in reason here.)

If you are hearing grumblings or outright complaints, it’s time for a re-design. Sometimes the plan is effective but it needs to be better communicated to shape employee expectations,  explain the equity in method, and align performance with the payout.

The solution to bonus pains: Our model is to leverage the three  3C’s necessary to have a successful performance-based incentive plan- under employee’s Control, not Complex, clearly Communicated for alignment to company goals.

We have a ten step process to make sure your plan shows what is important to achieve, how each person contributes, and how they can be rewarded.

If you are interested in getting more bang for your incentive buck next year, I’m happy to chat- click here to book a phone session


Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Saying Thanks to Your Team this Thanksgiving

Saying Thanks to Your Team this Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving holiday (in America) is this week, and then the busy holiday season is upon us!

I personally love thanksgiving—the food, the time to spend with family, the time to reflect on gratitude and what is meaningful.

Many employers give out a thanksgiving turkey or a holiday ham, and I know many friends who appreciate this gesture. But if you have been doing this  a few years, employees begin to see it as a corporate event and not a personal gesture.

I want to encourage you to also take the time at least once over the next four weeks to personally thank each of your employees.

Here are a few articles from Inc magazine to get you in the “thanking” spirit and some suggestions on how to personalize your notes:

Building a Culture of Employee Appreciation

How to Thank Your Employees in 8 Words


Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Allergic to deadlines

Allergic to deadlines

When I speak with business owners and managers, they all seem to long for this illusive state of “accountability.”

Typically they mean a desire to trust that employees are doing the Right Things, and are “kept in the loop” when issues arise or things are not being done. Instead, most report that they have to keep a close eye on everyone’s performance, chase people down for status updates, put out big fires  because they are not told when a tiny spark starts, and spend a whole bunch of time following up (dare I say nagging?) to get projects moving forward.

So I ask you, is your organization allergic to deadlines? (Thanks to a client for this vivid phrase). What happens when someone is given a task? Do they keep track, report back when progress is made, keep everyone updated, agree to a reasonable deadline and then meet it? How often does this happen (just one person or almost everyone)?

After a client monthly update meeting where there was no progress to report on 6 projects (again), the owner looked at me and said “is this because of me?” Sadly, yes, many managers and owners are allowing their employees to be less than accountable. In fact, many build an atmosphere where this behavior is inadvertently rewarded.

What can you do to create an “Accountability Culture?”

Focus on results

My client was having weekly status update meetings (a great start) but people came without “doing their homework” or had loads of excuses … every week. What message does this send to those that actually hit their commitments and to those that do not? People still do what is rewarded—if going above the norm to actually completed an assigned task is ignored then I might decide not to bother next time. Conversely, if I “get away with” reporting no progress every week, this rewards me as I didn’t have to do anything extra.

Get specific- “Soon” is not a deadline

People do what is expected and measured. If a weekly team meeting includes assigning reasonable deadlines and then people report back that they completed the task by the deadline, this builds an organization with results focus. If one out of ten employees reports every week that “I didn’t get to that” what implied feedback does the one shirking Sally get? After about 3 weeks of eyebrow raises and uncomfortable silence, Sally just might be motivated to complete her tasks so she can report back they were done on time.

Set direction and “inspect what you expect”

The first step is to set expectations (results expected and by when) and then, yes, follow up. As a manager, you should have a list of all the projects and other commitments with who is assigned to each task and a deadline for each. This provides a bird’s eye view of everything promised so that you can keep track of who is doing what, and what is due this week/ month. This makes regular, routine follow-up more of a rhythm and less of a foot race.

Be flexible and solve problems

Of course, urgent requests come up and roadblocks are encountered.  Make yourself accessible and helpful to re-prioritize and re-deploy resources so that key commitments can be met as much as possible.

Recognize effort and results

Especially if you are slowing moving towards full team accountability, recognize small efforts to change and celebrate even small results achieved. Remember it takes 10 positive comments to change a behavior and 4 positive comments to maintain a current one. And be careful to not publicly criticize those that miss deadlines and targets—keep the reports factual and without judgment. Just the mere reporting that something wasn’t done can be feedback enough. A good management rule to follow is the 4P’s- Pound in private, praise in public.


Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net