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Back to Managing Performance Overview

• Guide to Performance Management
  • Introduction
  • Process
  • Step 1: Planning Performance
  • Step 2: Coaching Performance
  • Step 3: Reviewing Performance
  • Form
  • Training
  • Guidelines
  • FAQs
  • Job Aids and Worksheets

• Establish Performance Focus
• Articulate Performance Goals
• Align Performance Goals with the School or Department Goals
• Build and Confirm the Plan
• Key Points to Remember

Establish Performance Focus

It is important to focus the performance plan on those elements or actions that you want the staff member to spend his or her time on.

There are usually two distinct components to the performance focus.

Job Role

The first is the day-to-day functional responsibilities of the staff member’s job role.
Start with the job or role description if you have one. If not, work with the staff member to identify the five to seven key things that comprise the staff member’s job. Don’t make a list of 20 things.  Concentrate on what the person does generally, for example "develops …, maintains …, manages …," etc.  If your list is long, combine the elements that produce the same output. Select as many areas of focus as you think are manageable.

Special Projects or Assignments

Often staff members will be assigned large projects that are part of their annual performance goals. These projects are usually related to the staff member’s job role, but focus on initiatives larger than completion of day-to-day transactions.  Special projects could include things like documentation of new procedures, finding ways to improve a process, or, implementing new systems.

Articulate Performance Goals

Your role as the supervisor of others is to identify and communicate your department's overall objectives to your staff and translate them into individual objectives.

Discussing and reaching agreement on objectives at the beginning of the cycle, in addition to providing periodic feedback and modifications as needed, will lead to a successful end of the cycle appraisal discussion with minimal anxiety and no surprises.

The number of goals (typically 3-5for each individual) should reasonably reflect the most important accomplishments required for success.

Consider the work to be done, and the desired result. Describe the result you desire by using the following three elements:

• Outcome
• Measurement
• Timeframe

Including these three elements when communicating performance goals will increase the probability of you and your staff member having the same understanding of the goal.

Outcome

An outcome describes what needs to be achieved. Outcomes will vary in scope. Some performance goals may be single tasks. Other performance goals may be large scale projects.

Example:

To improve the response time required for student inquiries

Measurement

The measurement describes how both you and your staff member will describe the work to be done and assess whether the goal has been successfully completed.

Example:

To improve the response time required for student inquiries

From the current 10.5 hours to 7.5 hours

Timeframe

The timeframe establishes a specific target date for the results to be achieved. Establishing a clear timeline enables the staff member to set appropriate priorities when completing multiple tasks. It also avoids differing assumptions between staff members and managers about the priority of the task.

Example:

To improve the response time required for student inquiries

From the current 10.5 hours to 7.5 hours

By the end of the fall semester

Questions to Ask Yourself When Writing Goals

• How does this goal support school or department goals? 
• What do you expect to be accomplished at the end? 
• Why is this important? 
• Who does this benefit? 
• Who is involved? 
• Due date? 
• How? (Action steps) 
• How will you know when this objective is achieved? (Measures/observations/completion/accuracy)
• Is there any room for misinterpretation on the part of the staff member?
  

Align Performance Goals with the School or Department Goals

As a manager it is your responsibility to communicate clearly to your staff the relevance and alignment of the performance goals you just articulated with the higher level goals of the school or department (or your own performance goals). 

The main questions to ask yourself are:

• Do the goals that I’ve just articulated for my staff member link to the overall goals of the school/department in a clear way?
• Will my staff see how their work contributes to the goals of the school or department?

Build and Confirm the Plan

The extent to which you detail the specific actions you expect your staff member to take will depend on the requirements of your school or department performance management process, and your assessment of the staff members’ current performance on tasks similar in nature to the defined goals.

For staff members with lower current performance levels, you will want to have a direct role in specifying the actions required to meet the performance goals.  staff members with higher levels of performance will be able to develop their plans more independently.

The probability of goals being achieved increases significantly with detailed planning.  Consider who should own building the action plan.  Whether you, the staff member, or both of you build the plan, it is the manager’s responsibility to ensure that a viable plan is established.

Key Points to Remember

• Effective performance planning considers both the day-to-day job focus as well as project oriented goals.
• Performance goals should be stated clearly and succinctly.  Both the staff member and manager should have a clear picture of the expected outcome, how success will be measured, and the timeframe in which the work will be done.
• Managers should be able to describe to staff member how their individual work contributes to the goals of the school or department.
• The probability of performance goals being achieved increases with detailed planning.