Formal Bi-Annual Performance Appraisals
Understand the current competencies of individuals and teams
Describe the methods of conducting individual and team competence reviews
Team Review Methods
• Formal bi-annual performance appraisals- these take place within the company on a bi-annual basis, objectives are set against corporate aims and then reviewed within the appraisal process.
• Action plans- these are set as a way to meet a requirement, normally these come from the appraisal process, for example a training need could be established and the action plan details what is required and when it needs to be achieved and then a review on whether the outcome was achieved.
• Probationary reviews- the COMPANY has a 6 month probationary period; this is similar to the appraisal process as an expected level of ability is required to perform the role that the applicant has successfully been assimilated in to. …show more content…
Competencies are assessed and action plans can be agreed to bring the member of staff in line with the expected performance.
• Informal one-to-one review discussions- these are not part of the appraisal process, so the agreed aims are more of a pointer of where the member of staff should be with regards to performance. Other avenues can be explored if performance is deemed as unsatisfactory, such as the COMPANY Managing Unsatisfactory Performance Policy. This policy details what is required of the employee and process that is in place to bring the employee back in line with the performance requirement.
• Observation on the job- by witnessing a member of staffs work processes you can assess their performance against what is expected, this is useful in customer facing roles as the member of staffs manner can be assessed.
• Skill- or job-related tests- these are specific to the role that is being undertaken.
• Assessment centres, including observed group exercises, tests presentations, etc. These are useful in assessing staff within a pressure environment as well as how individuals interact within a team
• Survey of opinion of others who have dealings with the individual- these can be from other staff members or externally from the customer base.
• Psychometric tests and other behavioural assessments- to profile staff members based upon specialist questions that identify behaviour through decisions relating to scenarios.
2.2
Identify the links between current competencies and the team and organisational objectives
Strategic aims and visions are incorporated into operational aims and objectives. These are connected at all levels via the ‘bigger picture’ and then individually with departmental teams through policy and practices. The structure that is put into place reinforces and appraises the achievements made and feeds back through the different levels.
The individuals competancie requirement is dependant upon the teams aims and objectives which are defined and set so as to achieve the organisations objectives in response to the external pressures.
The COMPANY has objectives set by the political party that holds office within the council these are;-
• making the community safer
• secure our public services
• secure jobs and homes
• make the community cleaner
• deliver value for money
By working towards and achieving the COMPANY’s Corporate Values these are-
• Offer world class customer service
• Put results for residents above all else
• Work as ‘one council’
• Look for value for money in all we do
These aims and objectives are incorporated into the Performance Appraisal Process by way of the Ealing Values Matrix within the Appraisal Process policy document, this details how the authority expects members of staff to conduct themselves as well as the expected behaviours required to achieve the corporate values.
One such example of a performance target for the Business Services Group in which I work is the roll out of a new ICT infrastructure for staff and elected members, this has provided efficiencies as log-in time has been dramatically reduced as well as current up to date applications for staff to use to perform their roles. Savings have also been experienced through the rationalisation of the application base as well as negotiations on contract pricing this has gone towards achieving the ‘Deliver Value for Money’ Council objective as well as the ‘Work as “one council”’ and ‘Look for value for money in all we do corporate objectives.
2.3
Identify the activities to support the development of current competencies of the team and future team organisational objectives
Development activities that support the development of the team and future team organisational objectives include:
• Personal study- study that does not necessarily have to be role related to provide a benefit for the organisation as the study approach and methodology necessary can improve organisational skills. Within the COMPANY where the study is relevant to the organisations aims and objectives the benefit is quantified prior to the course sign up and knowledge gained is disseminated amongst the team.
• e-learning is available for quick instant access training, this is ideal for refresher training and can be seen as an extension of the ISO 9001 quality framework
• internal or external courses to provide training in specific areas, knowledge can be shared between team mates so the benefit of the course is experienced by a wider staff base.
• workshops- interaction with other teams or member of staff within the organisation can provide valuable networking opportunities and a way for knowledge/best practice to be shared within the organisation.
• Work shadowing and planned experiences can benefit individuals and teams in providing an understanding of what is required within different roles and teams.
• Coaching and mentoring can improve an individual’s performance and provide pointers on ways and where improvements can be made.
• Away days- these can unify team members by partaking in team focused activities away from the office environment. This can improve communication within a team/company by breaking down hierarchal barriers associated with staff roles as cleaner and managing director can be assigned to the same away day task, this leads to communication and an understanding of others that would normally rarely occur within the work environment.
Word Count: 901 Know how to develop the competencies of individuals and teams
3.1 Identify development opportunities for individuals and teams
The development need for the organisation can provide opportunities for individuals and teams this can occur in the form of career progression with greater responsibility being attributed to an individual’s role or skills enhancement through training.
Data is collected based upon the need of the organisation, this can be taken from appraisal processes or restructuring to meet a change in demand.
Change is normally the trigger for the need within organisations, you need to assess the individuals and teams ability and willingness to adapt to the changing work environment by assessing their current position and where you want them to be, GAP analysis can be used to perform this assessment. Where a need is identified the relevant skills and knowledge can be used to bridge the ‘gap’ and in doing so achieve the organisations aims.
An understanding of staff members learning styles is a prerequisite of tailoring the learning and development plan to best meet the needs of the
individual. The theorist David Kolb created the theory of the ‘Learning Cycle’, for a learning experience to be beneficial for the member of staff the staff member must have a ‘Concrete Experience’ this can occur by means of a (un)structured learning activity, i.e. a course or job shadowing. This must suit their learning style so as to get the best possible experience for the member of staff. Some individuals are best suited for self-directed learning whereas others prefer the structure that a class based course provides with direction from a tutor.
The ‘Reflective Observation’ phase is where the member of staff that undertook the training reflects upon the learning experience, did it achieve the aims set out before the training began? This leads onto the ‘Abstract Conceptualisation’ phase where the individual reviews what has been learnt and the method it was learnt in and appraises whether things could have been improved if the training need was not met.
The ‘Active Experimentation’ phase is where the individual puts what they have learnt into practice and adapts their learned experience to one that is tailored towards the specific role that is carried out by the employee.
The ‘Learning Cycle’ theory can be used to understand the development needs required by staff as the process evaluates the knowledge and experience that is currently obtained and looks for ways of improving the staff member’s knowledge by adapting the learning experience within the ‘Concrete Experience’ phase by gaining more/different experiences.
3.2
Describe the methods of agreeing development opportunities with individuals and teams
Methods of agreeing development opportunities include:
• Performance appraisal processes- the COMPANY has a bi-annual process with feedback and review occurring between the individual and team leader, development needs are discussed and an action plan is put in place to achieve the agreed development need.
• Team Meetings- team members can formally discuss what is needed to achieve the organisations goals.
• Departmental forums- the COMPANY finance has a General Ledger Super user forum that meets to discuss finance IT needs and the ways in which my team can configure the finance system to best meet those needs, sometimes the requirement is that the Accountancy staff need to be trained on a new process to meet their need. The method and location of the training is agreed within the forum and suitable end users are assigned to the training sessions.
• 1-1 meetings with individuals- these can occur outside of the appraisal process as a reaction to a change to working practices or organisation restructure.
3.3 Identify processes to measure and review individual and team development objectives
Processes to measure and review individual and team development objectives can come in two forms quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative can be measured numerically and statistics can be compared over time as long as the definition of the measure is the same. Qualitative measures are hard to quantify they usually relate to statements and questionnaires where the measure/question is open-ended.
• Appraisals- performance statistics are used to measure a member of staff’s performance against agreed levels. For my area these would include the resolution of service requests and incidents which can be quantified by start and finish times against service level agreements between ICT and service areas within the authority.
• Performance data analysis (e.g. NI’s, key PFI’s) these can come from central government in the form of financial performance targets or from performance benchmarking forums for the improvement of service delivery within specific areas.
• Measuring performance against core values and competencies- as stated earlier this is defined within the appraisal process. Monetary savings can be quantified by cashable savings through a reduction in costs.
• Customer/Resident satisfaction surveys- these are useful in gauging the opinions of the local population for service delivery (how well COMPANY performs against the main aims-
making the community safer
secure our public services
secure jobs and homes
make the community cleaner
deliver value for money
• Mystery shopper- this is predominantly used within the retail sector where the customer experience is rated by an actor who is monitoring the staff member’s responses unbeknown to them.
Word count: 812
Reflective Statement
I found this part of the course interesting, I analysed the performance measures that we have put in place within my area and have been reviewing the weighting that we give to the completion of certain tasks for example a simple password reset would be quantified as a successfully completed incident within our statistics with the same weighting as resolving a highly technical server error. This broad method of measurement that we use does not take into account the complexity of the work/time involved and for a staff member performance comparison would blight the member of staff who deals with the more complex queries as they will not complete as many incidents as the user who primarily resets passwords. I have now amended the statistical measures to take into account this by placing further sub measures within the reporting system to highlight the level of complexity of the incidents resolved.
The Kolb ‘Learning Cycle’ theory was also useful in providing a solid methodology of appraising training that we go on and how successful the training was in meeting the needs of the staff member who attended the course. I did not feel that we fully reviewed the effectiveness of training as some of the courses use data that is not relevant to the database information that we work on so not entirely helpful in resolving future queries. We now create test environments on our data and bring the learning resource to us, so as to best adapt the learning experience to our staff member’s needs.
Word Count: 290
References
Kolb D.A. (1984) 'Experiential learning experience as a source of learning and development ', New Jersey: Prentice Hall (http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/styles/kolb.html)
Describe the methods of conducting individual and team competence reviews
Team Review Methods
• Formal bi-annual performance appraisals- these take place within the company on a bi-annual basis, objectives are set against corporate aims and then reviewed within the appraisal process.
• Action plans- these are set as a way to meet a requirement, normally these come from the appraisal process, for example a training need could be established and the action plan details what is required and when it needs to be achieved and then a review on whether the outcome was achieved.
• Probationary reviews- the COMPANY has a 6 month probationary period; this is similar to the appraisal process as an expected level of ability is required to perform the role that the applicant has successfully been assimilated in to. …show more content…
Competencies are assessed and action plans can be agreed to bring the member of staff in line with the expected performance.
• Informal one-to-one review discussions- these are not part of the appraisal process, so the agreed aims are more of a pointer of where the member of staff should be with regards to performance. Other avenues can be explored if performance is deemed as unsatisfactory, such as the COMPANY Managing Unsatisfactory Performance Policy. This policy details what is required of the employee and process that is in place to bring the employee back in line with the performance requirement.
• Observation on the job- by witnessing a member of staffs work processes you can assess their performance against what is expected, this is useful in customer facing roles as the member of staffs manner can be assessed.
• Skill- or job-related tests- these are specific to the role that is being undertaken.
• Assessment centres, including observed group exercises, tests presentations, etc. These are useful in assessing staff within a pressure environment as well as how individuals interact within a team
• Survey of opinion of others who have dealings with the individual- these can be from other staff members or externally from the customer base.
• Psychometric tests and other behavioural assessments- to profile staff members based upon specialist questions that identify behaviour through decisions relating to scenarios.
2.2
Identify the links between current competencies and the team and organisational objectives
Strategic aims and visions are incorporated into operational aims and objectives. These are connected at all levels via the ‘bigger picture’ and then individually with departmental teams through policy and practices. The structure that is put into place reinforces and appraises the achievements made and feeds back through the different levels.
The individuals competancie requirement is dependant upon the teams aims and objectives which are defined and set so as to achieve the organisations objectives in response to the external pressures.
The COMPANY has objectives set by the political party that holds office within the council these are;-
• making the community safer
• secure our public services
• secure jobs and homes
• make the community cleaner
• deliver value for money
By working towards and achieving the COMPANY’s Corporate Values these are-
• Offer world class customer service
• Put results for residents above all else
• Work as ‘one council’
• Look for value for money in all we do
These aims and objectives are incorporated into the Performance Appraisal Process by way of the Ealing Values Matrix within the Appraisal Process policy document, this details how the authority expects members of staff to conduct themselves as well as the expected behaviours required to achieve the corporate values.
One such example of a performance target for the Business Services Group in which I work is the roll out of a new ICT infrastructure for staff and elected members, this has provided efficiencies as log-in time has been dramatically reduced as well as current up to date applications for staff to use to perform their roles. Savings have also been experienced through the rationalisation of the application base as well as negotiations on contract pricing this has gone towards achieving the ‘Deliver Value for Money’ Council objective as well as the ‘Work as “one council”’ and ‘Look for value for money in all we do corporate objectives.
2.3
Identify the activities to support the development of current competencies of the team and future team organisational objectives
Development activities that support the development of the team and future team organisational objectives include:
• Personal study- study that does not necessarily have to be role related to provide a benefit for the organisation as the study approach and methodology necessary can improve organisational skills. Within the COMPANY where the study is relevant to the organisations aims and objectives the benefit is quantified prior to the course sign up and knowledge gained is disseminated amongst the team.
• e-learning is available for quick instant access training, this is ideal for refresher training and can be seen as an extension of the ISO 9001 quality framework
• internal or external courses to provide training in specific areas, knowledge can be shared between team mates so the benefit of the course is experienced by a wider staff base.
• workshops- interaction with other teams or member of staff within the organisation can provide valuable networking opportunities and a way for knowledge/best practice to be shared within the organisation.
• Work shadowing and planned experiences can benefit individuals and teams in providing an understanding of what is required within different roles and teams.
• Coaching and mentoring can improve an individual’s performance and provide pointers on ways and where improvements can be made.
• Away days- these can unify team members by partaking in team focused activities away from the office environment. This can improve communication within a team/company by breaking down hierarchal barriers associated with staff roles as cleaner and managing director can be assigned to the same away day task, this leads to communication and an understanding of others that would normally rarely occur within the work environment.
Word Count: 901 Know how to develop the competencies of individuals and teams
3.1 Identify development opportunities for individuals and teams
The development need for the organisation can provide opportunities for individuals and teams this can occur in the form of career progression with greater responsibility being attributed to an individual’s role or skills enhancement through training.
Data is collected based upon the need of the organisation, this can be taken from appraisal processes or restructuring to meet a change in demand.
Change is normally the trigger for the need within organisations, you need to assess the individuals and teams ability and willingness to adapt to the changing work environment by assessing their current position and where you want them to be, GAP analysis can be used to perform this assessment. Where a need is identified the relevant skills and knowledge can be used to bridge the ‘gap’ and in doing so achieve the organisations aims.
An understanding of staff members learning styles is a prerequisite of tailoring the learning and development plan to best meet the needs of the
individual. The theorist David Kolb created the theory of the ‘Learning Cycle’, for a learning experience to be beneficial for the member of staff the staff member must have a ‘Concrete Experience’ this can occur by means of a (un)structured learning activity, i.e. a course or job shadowing. This must suit their learning style so as to get the best possible experience for the member of staff. Some individuals are best suited for self-directed learning whereas others prefer the structure that a class based course provides with direction from a tutor.
The ‘Reflective Observation’ phase is where the member of staff that undertook the training reflects upon the learning experience, did it achieve the aims set out before the training began? This leads onto the ‘Abstract Conceptualisation’ phase where the individual reviews what has been learnt and the method it was learnt in and appraises whether things could have been improved if the training need was not met.
The ‘Active Experimentation’ phase is where the individual puts what they have learnt into practice and adapts their learned experience to one that is tailored towards the specific role that is carried out by the employee.
The ‘Learning Cycle’ theory can be used to understand the development needs required by staff as the process evaluates the knowledge and experience that is currently obtained and looks for ways of improving the staff member’s knowledge by adapting the learning experience within the ‘Concrete Experience’ phase by gaining more/different experiences.
3.2
Describe the methods of agreeing development opportunities with individuals and teams
Methods of agreeing development opportunities include:
• Performance appraisal processes- the COMPANY has a bi-annual process with feedback and review occurring between the individual and team leader, development needs are discussed and an action plan is put in place to achieve the agreed development need.
• Team Meetings- team members can formally discuss what is needed to achieve the organisations goals.
• Departmental forums- the COMPANY finance has a General Ledger Super user forum that meets to discuss finance IT needs and the ways in which my team can configure the finance system to best meet those needs, sometimes the requirement is that the Accountancy staff need to be trained on a new process to meet their need. The method and location of the training is agreed within the forum and suitable end users are assigned to the training sessions.
• 1-1 meetings with individuals- these can occur outside of the appraisal process as a reaction to a change to working practices or organisation restructure.
3.3 Identify processes to measure and review individual and team development objectives
Processes to measure and review individual and team development objectives can come in two forms quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative can be measured numerically and statistics can be compared over time as long as the definition of the measure is the same. Qualitative measures are hard to quantify they usually relate to statements and questionnaires where the measure/question is open-ended.
• Appraisals- performance statistics are used to measure a member of staff’s performance against agreed levels. For my area these would include the resolution of service requests and incidents which can be quantified by start and finish times against service level agreements between ICT and service areas within the authority.
• Performance data analysis (e.g. NI’s, key PFI’s) these can come from central government in the form of financial performance targets or from performance benchmarking forums for the improvement of service delivery within specific areas.
• Measuring performance against core values and competencies- as stated earlier this is defined within the appraisal process. Monetary savings can be quantified by cashable savings through a reduction in costs.
• Customer/Resident satisfaction surveys- these are useful in gauging the opinions of the local population for service delivery (how well COMPANY performs against the main aims-
making the community safer
secure our public services
secure jobs and homes
make the community cleaner
deliver value for money
• Mystery shopper- this is predominantly used within the retail sector where the customer experience is rated by an actor who is monitoring the staff member’s responses unbeknown to them.
Word count: 812
Reflective Statement
I found this part of the course interesting, I analysed the performance measures that we have put in place within my area and have been reviewing the weighting that we give to the completion of certain tasks for example a simple password reset would be quantified as a successfully completed incident within our statistics with the same weighting as resolving a highly technical server error. This broad method of measurement that we use does not take into account the complexity of the work/time involved and for a staff member performance comparison would blight the member of staff who deals with the more complex queries as they will not complete as many incidents as the user who primarily resets passwords. I have now amended the statistical measures to take into account this by placing further sub measures within the reporting system to highlight the level of complexity of the incidents resolved.
The Kolb ‘Learning Cycle’ theory was also useful in providing a solid methodology of appraising training that we go on and how successful the training was in meeting the needs of the staff member who attended the course. I did not feel that we fully reviewed the effectiveness of training as some of the courses use data that is not relevant to the database information that we work on so not entirely helpful in resolving future queries. We now create test environments on our data and bring the learning resource to us, so as to best adapt the learning experience to our staff member’s needs.
Word Count: 290
References
Kolb D.A. (1984) 'Experiential learning experience as a source of learning and development ', New Jersey: Prentice Hall (http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/styles/kolb.html)