Performance development Prepared by Agency Human Resource Services Department of Human Resource Management Commonwealth of Virginia March 2010

2 Performance development what it is (and what it isn’t) Strengths and Talents Provide Knowledge, Information, Expectations Measure Results Continued Growth & Development of Talents What Is It? An ability to know, understand, leverage, and grow employee talents to successfully achieve desired organizational results. What Isn’t It? A once-a-year review of employee performance and opportunity to identify weaknesses for future development. What Are Talents? Talents are your naturally recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior.* * Now Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton, The Gallup Organization, 2001

3 Performance development step-by-step Understand Talents Leverage Talents Define Results Tools for Success Measure Success Apply and Grow Employee & Organization Success Employee and Organization Success is achieved through a deliberate step-by-step application of talent deployment and development.

4 #1 - Understand talents The foundation and cornerstone for successful Performance Development is the understanding of individual employee talents. Significant research has been conducted that shows how a talent/strengths focus can create organization success. Some of the most well-known research comes from Gallup: –“The best-led organizations know that the most direct path to individual, team, and organizational improvement begins with a primary investment in their employees' greatest talents. The key is to discover what's naturally right with people, then build on it.” –“All organizations seek to improve performance. To get there, though, far too many follow conventional wisdom: Focus on fixing weaknesses. Find what's wrong with your people and try to correct it. Unfortunately, that "wisdom" leaves them struggling on the path to mediocrity.” Talent/Strength focus can improve employee engagement, which can in turn improve business results through increased employee retention, productivity, profitability, and customer retention. Talents may be understood through observation, employee input, history of successes (internal and external to the organization), and other employees’ feedback. Source: Gallup, Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for and you will succeed. – Sydney Smith

5 #2 - leverage talents Once Talents and Strengths are known and understood, a manager should work to find opportunities to best leverage those talents and strengths. –Examples: An employee whose talents include being deliberate and disciplined and solving problems may make a strong project leader. –An employee whose talents include empathy, an ability to listen effectively, and an ability to find solutions may make a strong customer liaison for the most challenging customers. In some positions, there may exist core responsibilities that all employees must perform. If so, try to incorporate opportunities to leverage individual strengths in project assignments, customer assignments, the application of specialties, and any other way that makes sense for your business area. Tip : Employees do not have to have identical talents to be successful in the same type of role. Employees may have some differences in talents and be able to leverage them successfully. Tip : By allowing employees to best leverage and grow their talents, the organization can create “go-to” people who are the best at what they do.

6 #3 – define desired results Goal Setting: To be able to measure future results, the organization and its employees first need to know what they want to achieve. When establishing goals, try to focus on SMART Goals. – S = Specific – M = Measurable – A = Achievable – R = Relevant – T = Time-bound Measurement techniques: It is also important to identify what methods will be used to measure results to ensure agreement and ability to measure. In the examples above, the organization might use a customer wait time system, customer self-reporting, and/or a customer satisfaction survey as methods to measure results. Examples of SMART Goals: Achieve a 5% decrease in average customer service time by 12/31; Achieve 10% improvement in average customer satisfaction scores between 1/1 and 6/1.

7 #4 – Provide tools for success Leveraging talents may not be enough to ensure organization and employee success. Organizations and managers must provide the right tools at the right time to set the stage for success. These tools should include: –Knowledge – basic information about the organization, the work team, other work teams, organizational culture, organizational politics, processes, legislation that impacts the work, technical facts, etc. –Updates – new information about the organization, work team, other work teams, processes, legislation, etc. –Feedback – perhaps one of if not the most critical tool for success. What is feedback? It is the act and process of evaluating progress towards meeting established goals. How is it provided? It can be verbal and written. It can also be provided pictorially (e.g., dashboard or scorecard). Feedback is also often considered “two-way.” A manager may provide it to an employee and the employee may provide it to the manager. Tip : 360 degree feedback is a concept in which an employee asks for and receives feedback from multiple sources. Feedback may be sought from peers, other managers, and subordinates as applicable. Click here to learn more.

8 #5 – measure success There are many different ways to report success. Methods may include, but are not limited to, the following (these could be used both organizationally and at the individual level): –Scorecard – A scorecard provides an easy-to-read summary of key performance measures and their results. Dashboard – A dashboard is a way to display scorecard metrics. It is often designed to look like a dashboard in a vehicle with key information on one page. Stoplight – A stoplight is a pictorial view often used with a scorecard. Goal progress or outcomes are “colored” like a stoplight – green indicates success, yellow indicates caution, and red indicates lack of success in meeting the desired goal. –Appraisal – The traditional performance appraisal is also another technique to report goal measurement. This technique typically uses a once- or twice-a-year formal document and discussion to report on goal attainment. Other variations on the traditional appraisal include quarterly performance updates, self appraisals, and on-line performance review systems. The Debrief: Conclusions and Lessons Learned –This component is critical to setting up the employee and organization for future success. What are the employee’s talents? Any new talents? How can they be best leveraged? What worked well? What did not? What changes should be made for the next cycle?

9 #6 – apply and grow After understanding lessons learned from the debrief process, the employee and manager may identify opportunities for continued application of talents and identify opportunities for the growth and expansion of talents. Tools: –An Individual Development Plan is one tool that can help map out opportunities for the growth of known and new talents. See the sample template attached.sample template –Development and setting of new goals is a tool that should be used in the identification of opportunities to leverage talents in the attainment of new goals. –Use this opportunity to understand and leverage the talents of the work team as a whole. For example, partner employees with complementary talents on projects to bring a greater depth and/or breadth of successful performance to the organization.

10 Employee and organization success An investment in talent identification and deployment is the most effective Performance Development method. –A focus on weakness identification and improvement will only yield mediocre results as weaknesses can only be improved by a limited amount. Performance Development that is focused on talents will contribute to employee and organization success including: –High levels of employee engagement. –Maximized organizational performance. –Improved productivity and quality individually and organizationally. And, continuing to grow and leverage talents across the organization will allow the organization to expand its capabilities and services.

Degree feedback 360 degree feedback is a process that allows employees to receive feedback from multiple sources within and, sometimes, external to the organization. –The employee seeking feedback works with the manager to identify those to be invited to participate in the process. Usually, invitees will include peers, managers, subordinates, key customers, key partners, etc. –Invitees are asked to complete a survey including comments. Typically, it is an anonymous process unless the invitee wishes to identify him/herself. Benefits of 360 degree feedback Improved/more accurate feedback from multiple sources. Allows the employee to understand any differences between feedback groups. Individually and in aggregate, can contribute to training needs assessment by job type. Challenges of 360 degree feedback Fear that the feedback is not really anonymous can prevent honest feedback. It can be used by some as a way to “get back at” others. It is not recommended that 360 results contribute to performance ratings. It requires time and resources to administer the process. Click here to return Tip : Agencies may be able to use an electronic 360 degree feedback tool called eListen. Please contact Agency Human Resource Services for more information. Also, see attached 360 sample tool.360 sample tool