My view is that it’s useful for staff to have a more structured approach for evaluating processes and that SWOT can help with that. Here is the outcome of the work I did with those managers (using the example of the evaluation of a new system).

Strengths

What do you think works well with the system?

What have been the benefits of using the system?

What does this system give the customers?

How does it help you reduce waste, increase efficiency, improve quality of service?

How has the system improved the way you work?

Weaknesses

Is there anything that doesn’t work well?

Are there any weaknesses in the system?

Have you encountered any problems or impediments?

Is there anything you don’t think adds value?

Are customers saying there’s a problem?

Opportunities

What needs to be improved?

How could we do that?

What are we missing that could work well?

How can we overcome the weaknesses?

Threats

Is there anything outside the team / unit that is having a negative impact on the effectiveness of the system – that’s threatening its effectiveness?

In what ways could we mitigate that threat?

A start point is to give your staff member time and support in preparing for the meeting. How?

Take a look at this checklist that you could use with your staff member to help them prepare:

PERFORMANCE REVIEW / APPRAISAL CHECKLIST – STAFF MEMBER

In order to prepare for our performance review/appraisal meeting I’d like you to consider the following:

1. Your performance against the agreed objectives

Please bring examples of work which demonstrates your achievement of the objectives:

• Identifying achievements and successes
• Identifying areas for improvement
• Highlighting any barriers to performance
• Including examples of special projects or work done ‘above and beyond’ the objectives

2. Review of performance objectives

Please consider:

• Any changes facing the team or business that will require new performance objectives
• Any performance objectives that are no longer appropriate or need amending

3. Areas for development

Please consider any development needs you might have. These might relate to:

• Building on your strengths
• Addressing any areas requiring improvement
• Meeting future challenges

4. Your job satisfaction

Please consider the following questions:

• What gives you the most satisfaction in your work?
• How could we ensure you maintain or improve your satisfaction?
• Are there any other ways you and I could improve your job satisfaction?
• Is there anything I could do; more of, less of, or differently in order to improve your job satisfaction?

It’s all about making that start!

Step one: identify the tasks

The first step is to identify the tasks that would be suitable for delegation.

1. Make a list of all the tasks you currently perform.
2. Delete from the list the tasks you must do yourself. These may be tasks which:
   • Are a requirement of your job which no one else can do
   • You are ‘legally’ responsible for carrying out
   • Only you have the expertise and experience for and it would be impossible or impractical to help your team members gain that expertise and experience.
3. The tasks that have not been deleted from the list are those that you potentially could delegate totally or partially.
4. Ask the question – which of these tasks, if delegated, will free up the most time, so that I can concentrate on those tasks only I can do?

Step two: identify the individual

The second step is to identify the individual who would be best suited to undertake the delegated task.

In identifying the individual you may want to use some of the following selection criteria:

• Spare capacity (i.e. they’ve got the time)
• Best fit – in job terms
• The team member has a special interest in the task
• The delegated task may help to meet a development need
• The team member already has the skills or knowledge to complete the task

Step three: identify the appropriate degree of delegation

At this step you should consider the aptitude and potential of the team member and decide upon the ‘degree’ of delegation:

Degree 1: full delegation

The team member takes over the task fully.

Degree 2: shared delegation

You and the team member share the task and agree who will be responsible for which parts. This is useful when the person is not ready to take full responsibility but can do elements of it now and learn others later.

Degree 3: contributory delegation

At this stage the team member is not ready to take on a large part of the task but may contribute to some part of the task.

Now you’ve got the what, the who, and how much in place – is it time to delegate?

Research shows that that ‘being clear about what’s expected of them’ motivates staff to perform well. I suppose then, theoretically, then that it shouldn’t really matter how you communicate your need for new behaviours.

But of course it does matter. As I’m sure you already know, most people don’t like having new ideas which relate to the way they work, their behaviours, imposed on them. People usually have more commitment to something they co-create.

Here’s a useful framework for communicating new behaviours.

Communicating new behaviours – 3 steps

Explanation

This is all about setting the context for the change – in this case the changes you need in your staff’s behaviours.

When you want to ask your staff to make a change to their behaviours, the way they work, it’s a good idea to associate this with a change facing the business.

If you want your staff to be more effective team players, how will more effective team playing help the business meet the challenge of the change? Is it about needing to improve efficiency? Will more effective team playing improve customer service?

Most people can understand the need to make a change to their behaviours when it’s related to a bigger change – a business change. It just makes more sense to them.

Exploration

The idea here is to involve your staff in defining what the new behaviours should look like – in order to best build their commitment and motivation. Let’s take the example of ‘effective team playing’.

Options for involving your staff in defining new behaviours

1. Give them your description of effective team playing—as a draft—and ask them to make suggestions for improvement. Here’s a tip: be sure to make the description you’ve written look like a draft. Have some typos, crossing out, and so on. It’s hard to amend something that’s so perfect it looks like the finished version.
2. Give them a relevant description of effective team playing that someone else has written. For example, from a colleague, from a definition you’ve found from the internet or from my upcoming  e-book ‘176 Behavioural Performance Descriptions’ and ask them edit, amend, improve, add. (Contact me for more information on the e-book.)
3. Explain how to define behaviours and ask them to write a draft description of effective team playing.

How do you choose which option?

I’d suggest the most effective way is to ask your staff what they would prefer.

Some staff would really dislike option 1 – they want to define the behaviours (option 3).

Some staff won’t want option 3 – they’d rather you show them what you have (option 1).

Some may want you just to tell them what you want. No problem.

Agreement

This is about you and your staff member bringing together your descriptions of what effective team playing looks like and agreeing a final definition. I’d suggest you then define this as a performance objective and incorporate it into your performance review or appraisal system in the usual way.

And, of course, you’ll need to agree any coaching or support your staff need in applying these new behaviours into practice.

In summary, it’s all about clarity and ‘adult to adult’ conversation.

Proudfoot Consulting‘s Productivity Survey for 2007 (PDF, 3.1MB) shows that in the UK 33.3% of the time spent in work is unproductive. Taking into account that they estimate that the optimum ‘labour utilisation’ time is considered to be 85% this means that UK businesses are wasting just over 18% of working hours.

Here’s what they say about the reason:

“Whatever business you’re in, pay particular attention to the calibre and capabilities of those who directly supervise frontline workers. Poor worker supervision has always been a prominent reason for wasted working time in our Business Reviews and in the last two years has risen to become the dominant factor.”

That’s just short of a day a week, then, lost to poor supervision. Not good practice in any circumstance but in the current economic climate, potentially disastrous.

Before we explore this issue further I should point out that this report is based on research of large businesses (with turnover in excess of £100m). Clearly, managing staff in a smaller business can be very different. For example, there’s less likelihood of there being a long ‘chain of command’ and it’s clearly more difficult for staff members in a small enterprise to be unproductive, at least intentionally.

However, I’d say it’s worth all businesses, whatever the size, periodically taking a critical look at how they manage their staff.

Here are a few questions you can use to assess your people management practices (based on my model of effective people management):

1. Are your staff crystal clear on what’s expected of them? Have you described and agreed what good performance looks like for their job? Are these agreed descriptions written as performance standards or objectives?
2. Do you monitor your staff’s actual performance against the standards or objectives on an ongoing basis? Are your staff involved in monitoring their own performance?
3. Do you and your staff review together their performance on a regular basis (every three months is standard good practice)? Do you give them objective, evidence- based feedback? Do you agree on areas of outstanding performance and how these can be built upon? Do you identify and agree any areas of improvement?
4. Do you discuss your staff’s job satisfaction with them so that you can, together, develop ways to maintain or enhance their satisfaction?

Do you now feel like having a lie down?

I do know this all sounds like an awful lot of work and it certainly does take some time commitment to manage your staff effectively. However, research does demonstrate again and again that not only does effective people management positively impact productivity and business performance but it also positively impacts your staff’s job satisfaction.

A win for the business, a win for your staff and not nearly as hard as it sounds with the right tools and techniques.