There has been a shift away from assessing performance based on output alone. Behaviours are equally important. For example, you might have a great sales person who hits all of their targets, buts refuses to contribute in meetings, train others, or take on additional duties that detract from sales. The behaviours maybe damaging to the team, but without an element of performance based on behaviour, they would get a top grade. It sends the wrong message to your people about how work is done and what is valued.
If you don’t have behaviours included, where do you start?
Well, a good place to start is with your company values. Decide what your values are and how they would look in practice and what it doesn’t look like. You can even create behavioural competencies for different levels within the organisation.
The different competency behaviours you should consider rating using the 4-level matrix mentioned within the first lesson include:
Communication – We are clear, considerate and effective in our communication
Customer focus and quality – We get it right for our customers and focus on quality outputs
Change and innovation – We continually improve and innovate
Driving performance – We deliver on our promises and objectives
Now, you can create a deeper understanding by role to ensure clarity over expectations. Evidence can be provided by both you and the member of staff to enable fair ratings. Any gaps or issues can form part of the members development plans.
Examples:
The Board and Exec: Communicates to the business on a clear set of strategic priorities
What you should expect to see...
- Communicates a clear, focused strategy and competitive position for the business
- Communicates and focuses the business on a small number of mission-critical strategic priorities
- Communications performance, business updates and key messages on the strategic priorities in a concise, consolidated manner
What you should not expect to see...
- Is unclear (with the business, analysts, investors) about the company’s strategic focus
- Communicates mixed messages, inconsistency or overload
Senior Managers, Heads of: Focuses the business area on goals and priorities that are aligned with the strategy
What you should expect to see...
- Aligns goals and KPIs for own area with strategic priorities
- Communicates how own area’s performance contributes to the business’ strategic goals
- Devotes attention, resources and investment to the issues that deliver the greatest return to the business
- Retains a focus on the ‘big’ priorities to drive decisions and actions
- Quick to re-focus and regroup people or resources when priorities change
- Balances a focus on own area’s goals and priorities with the wider business agenda
What you should not expect to see...
- Determines ‘priorities’ for own area subjectively – does not align them with strategic priorities
- Takes no steps to interpret strategy for the team (focuses on solely on local concerns)
- Allocates time, resources or investment inefficiently – does not assess their priority/ likelihood of delivering a return on investment
- Constantly distracted from ‘big’ priorities – spends most time fire- fighting day-to-day issues
- Rarely reviews or revises priorities
- Becomes fixated on own area’s goals & priorities – at the expense of wider business performance
Middle Managers, Section Heads, Senior Specialists for all Behaviours: Focuses self and teams on the issues that will deliver the biggest business benefits
What you should expect to see...
- Communicates business priorities and translates them into clear, focused KPIs
- Helps team to understand how their work contributes to wider business priorities
- Focuses self and teams on those activities that will deliver the biggest business benefit (e.g. efficiencies, cost-savings, service levels)
- Uses commercial priorities to inform decision making
What you should not expect to see...
- Leaves teams unclear about what the most important goals or priorities are
- Talks about individual tasks – rather than the impact on wider business/ area performance
- Spends time being distracted by individual issues – loses own (and team’s) sight of business priorities
- Bases decisions on local concerns or subjective preferences – rather than the business case
First Line Manager, Specialists: Focuses self and the team on priority targets and standards
What you should expect to see...
- Focuses self and team on priority targets and standards
- Is clear with the team about what their priorities are
- Allocates people and resources to maximise efficiency and/or cost-effectiveness
- Reviews tasks to ensure they are still a priority – reallocates people and resources as needed
What you should not expect to see...
- Disagrees with or ignores set targets
- Does not determine priorities - all tasks are addressed as equally urgent/ important
- Organises things to make life easier for self/ the team – rather than efficient or cost-effective
- Sticks to a plan of action once decided; finds it difficult to change priorities
Delivering Service – e.g. Advisors, Operators, Assistants: Focuses time and attention on the things that are most important
What you should expect to see...
- Focuses on following standards, rules & procedures correctly
- Concentrates on tasks from start to finish
- Organises own time to work in an efficient way
- Spends most time and effort on urgent or important tasks
- Does what is important – not what he/she finds most interesting
- Can switch focus or priorities when things change
What you should not expect to see...
- Ignores important standards, rules or procedures; cuts corners
- Easily distracted – flips from one task to another
- Waste's time and effort by being less than organised
- Assumes everything is urgent and has to be done now
- Spends too much time on low priority tasks/ things that interest them the most
- Finds it difficult to adjust to a new set of priorities
Activity
Create a behavioural competency for one of your core values and demonstrate what good looks like, and what you would not expect to see.
Using the scale from the first lesson, assess where you would place yourself.
Be honest with yourself.
What evidence do you have?
What would your manager say?
What is a fair rating?
What development activities can you think of to help you achieve the next level?
Now assess where you would place a team member. Again, be honest and fair.
What evidence do you have?
Will there be objections?
Would others agree with your rating?
What development activities can you think of to help them achieve the next level?
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