The People Plan™ Toolkit

The People Plan™ Toolkit Contains:

✓ 6 Modules to build your team ✓ Strategy & Initial Planning session ✓ 12 Video trainings for your Managers & Staff ✓ 25 Templates & Checklists to customize for your team ✓ Annual Project Plan Template ✓ Everything you need to “Design It Yourself” with your team

Project Kickoff & Planning Materials

Why this is important:

When you involve your team to build your customized People Plan, employees are more committed to the final job responsibility standards, and are more open to discuss their performance and development needs. Your team feels that this a process that benefits them and their needs, not just a boring administrative chore with no purpose. We have found that if you are open and transparent about the full project process and systems, this allows managers to build their relationships with employees and builds trust. These are the two “currencies” that great coaches use to build, coach, engage and reward their team!

Included resources:

  • People Plan project action plan and sample timeline to keep your Plan on track
  • Introductory materials for team members and managers to outline the People Plan process and their role
  • Outline for email and kickoff meeting
  • Introductory video by creator Diana Southall to share with your team before you start (for a consistent message of the process and results)

Planning Resources

Why this is important:

You need 5 main plans to provide clarity to your team, focus efforts and implement to achieve your goals. These become the foundation for planning, coaching, process improvement, and rewards.

  1. Strategic plan (with one-year goals)
  2. Annual Budget (with 2+ year forecast)
  3. Sales Plan & Process
  4. Plan for the owner’s role- now and the future
  5. People Plan

Included resources:

If you do not have all of these plans developed and communicated, we have compiled resources for you to create internally, based on “best practices”

  • Strategic planning resources—articles, videos and templates
  • Annual Budget template
  • Strategic sales planning resources—articles, videos and templates
  • Plan for the owner—People Plan modules include “owner discovery” resources [identify strengths, ideal role, current and future desired involvement, and plan to transition role (what to keep, what to give up, what new roles to create)]
  • People Plan (develop based on all 6 modules below)

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

Why this is important

Stop your employees guessing what a “good job” looks like! Research shows that employees only agree with their manager on 1 of 3 top priorities… This module shows you how to get your employees on the same page and working together on the Right Things when you clarify job expectations. This builds the foundation for future modules, where you learn to hold team members accountable, coach for improvement and development, recognize accomplishments, and ultimately by doing these steps, retain and engage top performers.

You will learn

  • How to clearly define job expectations— what activities need to be done plus what results should be achieved
  • How to involve employees in defining their role (they want it clearly defined, too!)
  • 6 essential elements of an effective Job responsibility profile
  • 3 keys to create “key performance indicators” (KPI) to measure if a job is Done Right
  • BONUS- how to build individual dashboards

You will create

Job responsibility profiles for each job:

  • Profile of ideal employee for each job profile (knowledge, skills, abilities,  competencies)
  • Clearly defined job expectations— what activities need to be done plus what results should be achieved
  • List of key performance indicators (KPI) to be measured

Individual dashboards each job:

  • Visual track KPI and goals on this one-page document

Module 2—How to Evaluate Your Current Team for Job Fit

Why this is important:

Performance “reviews” are universally dreaded and despised by managers and employees!  Yet employees want to have clear and candid feedback about their performance, training and future development opportunities. The solution is not to avoid an annual meeting, it is to radically improve this process using our positive appreciative coaching format. This module shows you how increase engagement and continue to build trust and relationships with a collaborative, strength- and future-focused discussion that your team members actually enjoy!

You will learn:

  • How to gather information about an employee’s talents and traits
  • Exactly how to compare an individual’s competencies and performance trends with Job Responsibility Profiles (designed in module 1)
  • An easy system to identify areas of Job Fit and cause of any performance gaps
  • Specific process to determine if training is a solution

You will create (for each employee):

  • Objective evaluation of performance and job fit
  • Ratings on the Top 5 competencies required for success in this position
  • Clear understanding of targeted areas for performance management
  • Prioritized list of improvement areas and training needs
  • Crucial “inventory” of key talents and strengths to further develop (and gain employee commitment and engagement)

Module 3—Coaching Your Team for Top Performance

Why this is important:

How do you motivate marginal performers to strive for more, and keep your top performers engaged and challenged? How do you build a culture where employees work as a team to achieve company goals? Great coaches have a huge impact on their team: 8x higher commitment, 2-3 times higher team engagement, customer satisfaction and sales… and half as many people who want to quit.

You will learn:

  • What you can do to change your approach from “boss” to coach
  • How to create an environment where performance is clear, expected, recognized and rewarded
  • A process to hold your team is held accountable to standards and coach them positively to improve
  • Ways to communicate how employee activities and results align with department and organization goals for increased sense of purpose
  • Overview of “best practices” for ongoing feedback and formal performance coaching
  • Solutions for the four main causes of performance gaps
  • How to implement and maintain annual performance conversations

Module 4 – Individual Performance Discussions & Preparation

You will learn:

  • What should I review? Job specific review criteria for accurate and effective evaluation of every employee’s performance (aka annual review)
  • Prepare for individual performance discussions and improve the feedback loop between managers and employees
  • 7 step performance discussion meeting agenda
  • Get employee’s to agree to job performance expectations
  • Involve employees in the process to increase buy-in and to motivate employees to achieve job results
  • Follow up the performance discussion with a customized development action plan (next module)
  • What you can do to effectively address issues with motivation and attitude
  • Solutions to get poor performers back on track
  • Win back the enthusiasm of an employee who has lost it
  • Effective and constructive ways to hold employees accountable

You will create:

  • Foundation for ongoing coaching conversations and development opportunities
  • Improved relationship and trust between employees and managers
  • Job specific criteria for accurate and effective evaluation of every employee’s performance (much better than the dreaded “annual review”)
  • Official performance discussion process
    • Consistent and objective forms to guide the review process
    • Employee self review of strengths and desired training and growth
    • Tips for information gathering from peers and other sources
    • Meeting outline and “talking points”
    • A “core message” to use for clarity and focus during the individual meeting
    • Invitation to employees to involve them in the review process- email and video

Included resources

  • Critical incident process and forms
  • Specific topics and “scripts” for addressing 10 common performance issues

Module 5 – Individual Development Action Plans

Half of employees believe they need to leave their organization to achieve their career goals! This module shows you how use the most effective tool you have to retain and engage high performers- providing challenging work that develops them on their desired career path. By doing this you create a management team in-house that successful operates without daily reliance on the owner. As the book title states “Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go!” Small business owners and managers are “busy” and often neglect training for new and especially current employees– so employees can feel they are in a “dead end job” or are bored, so they find another job. This module shows you that training doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming, and a systematic training plan (tied to action plans) will exponential increase the knowledge and performance of your team.

You will learn:

  • Design a customized training program that energizes and engages your top performers
  • Get employees to commit and engage by taking more responsibility and broader roles
  • Link employee’s personal goals with business needs– they get what they crave while the organization gets higher commitment and contribution
  • Create list of mutually beneficial projects and development areas
  • Identify candidates leadership skills to groom for increased job scope and promotion
  • Implement a succession plan for to the next generation of leadership
  • Develop an systematic training action plan tied to individual goals and linking to organizational needs
  • Follow up to stay on track with training goals
  • Identify best choices for four main training scenarios
  • Create an effective plan to groom internal candidates for delegation, promotion and succession planning

You will create:

  • Individual Development Plans with each employee for continual improvement
  • Solutions for every type of employee (below, average and top performers) and goal – performance improvement, technical skill enhancement, acquiring management and leadership skills, career paths and progression.
  • Quarterly action plan timeline to maintain focus on projects, training plans, and stretch assignments
  • Objective and systematic training action plans for employees
    • at every stage of “life cycle” (new, stable, candidate for promotion)
    • tailored to individual needs and aspirations
    • with SMART goals plan for who will be responsible for training and by when

Module 6 – Recruit & Select A-Players

You can’t coach you way out a bad hire– a Fabulous Team deserves more A Players that fit the job, the team dynamics, and your culture. But you may feel that you are “rolling the dice” when you select a new person, and you are worried they will not work out. This module shows you a comprehensive selection process to systematically define and attract A Players, to save you future People Pains and continue to build your team’s fabulousness and autonomy.

You will learn:

  • Clarify the exact knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies in an Ideal Candidate
  • Which screening elements are best to use in each selection phase
  • How to attract ideal candidate with an employer brand and total rewards
  • Legal tools you can use to learn 10x more about candidates
  • Ways to streamline the process for the hiring manager, funnel and track qualified applicants, and enhance the candidate experience
  • 5 key ways to improve your interview process

You will create:

  • Your customized selection process that provides a consistent method to evaluate culture and job fit
  • Your Employer Brand statement that promotes your organization as a “great place to work”
  • A thorough interview process to uncover the “soft skills” such as attitude, teamwork, leadership, and work habits
  • Candidate communication scripts for each stage in the process
  • For each job title/ type, selection guides that include:
    • Detailed profile of the Ideal Candidate, as a foundation for recruiting and selection decisions
    • Targeted job postings that stand out and get A Players to apply
    • Recruiting source finder to identify the best places to advertise
    • Behavior based interview questions linked to required competencies
    • Candidate scorecards to rate and compare to ensure all key requirements are met before moving to the next step

Learn More

Click here to schedule a quick chat with Diana Southall.