Study after study has shown that the most important variable in improving employee performance is their level of understanding of what is expected of them. People in an organization generally deliver what they are measured on. Because traditional job descriptions focus on activities, activities are what are measured. Because what gets measured gets done, measuring activity leads to the generation of more activity. A results-focused job description addresses the realities of today’s work by identifying the results a job delivers and how those results will be measured. Results are those things an employee must accomplish, not how it should be done. So what is a result? The test of whether or not you have defined a result is simple: If you can leave it behind when you walk out of the door, it is a result. If it is something you can take with you, it is not. For example: “marketing” is not a result but an activity; however, “sales leads” is a result of marketing.

Work is no longer predictable and mechanical. Individuals need to be aligned to the strategy and clear on what they need to deliver for an organization to be successful. When jobs are defined from a results perspective, it is much easier to understand how they connect to strategy, how pivotal they are in driving the achievement of that strategy, and whether or not the incumbent is up to the task. That’s where a results-focused job description can rocket your performance system to a new level.

I know, you’re probably saying, “ This isn’t very exciting, critical or strategic. There are a number of generic job descriptions out on the web and I can just grab one of those, check the box, and be done with it”. But the truth is there isn’t anything more strategic you can do as a manager than making sure your employees know what they need to deliver. I’m not talking about annual goal setting, but the fundamental reasons the job exists. I’ve been writing results-focused job descriptions for over 10 years and I rarely work with a manager who can easily define the deliverables of the job without having to spend a couple of hours coaxing it out of them. It’s not that these managers don’t have an idea in their heads of what they expect, it’s that they haven’t ever been asked to think about jobs in this way. So how can you know good performance from bad if you can’t readily describe it? Even more unsettling is how will employees know what it looks like if you can’t tell them until after it is too late – usually the annual performance appraisal? The beatings will continue until morale improves!!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying activities are bad. Activities are the things we must do to get results. What I am saying is that focusing primarily on activities won’t generate the results you need, and creates a workforce that is unaccountable and waiting for instructions on the next activity. After all “we” did what you asked us to do, just because “you” didn’t get the result “you” wanted isn’t our fault. I need my employees to understand the big picture and how the work they do contributes to the organization’s success so that they can have the flexibility to identify what activities will get us there the most effective way.

So let’s break out of the activity trap where we feel compelled to write “all other duties as assigned” because we don’t want to hear, “It’s not my job.” With a results-focused job description we can clearly tell the person why it is part of their job because it is a way to achieve the required result. And we can make the process of performance management simpler and more meaningful because we are focused on results. Click here to view a sample results-focused job description.

In a survey by Hay Group in 2009 only 19% of respondents agreed with the statement, “We treat our talent management processes as seriously as we treat our annual budgeting process.” That is a depressing number considering people can represent up to 80% of an organization’s budget. So getting talent management to the top of the agenda requires talking in the language of the business and tying talent strategy directly to organizational strategy. Hay’s research shows that organizations committed to this approach get the best results.

There is no blueprint for your talent strategy. Each organization must fit its approach to its immediate needs and company strategy. Solutions must be fit-for-purpose, rather than simply “best practice”. Effective talent strategies involve directly linking people to business strategy and operations and putting time, money and energies where they will matter most. It requires a clear understanding of talent needs in the context of business goals, and the capacity to design and implement practical, long-term plans to source, develop and retain talent where it’s needed when it’s needed.

Preparedness for changing conditions and building organizational agility to meet the requirements of those changes are key aspects of talent strategy. In order to accomplish this, leadership must be able to articulate possible future states, anticipate the ramifications of those states and how they impact workforce requirements. The ability to identify different scenarios and make a judgment call on which one is likely to occur is a key differentiator of the companies that are leaders in talent management.

The first step in aligning talent with business needs is developing an in-depth understanding of where the organization is currently, where it is going, and how it plans to get there. This entails reviewing the strategic plan with an eye toward what types of skills and abilities will be required; then segmenting current jobs by those that make a strategic contribution and which do not (differentiation). Strategic jobs are typically less than 15% of the organization’s positions, and can appear at any level. Next it is important to identify the specific employee competencies and behaviors needed in these strategic roles. You can then look closely at existing employees to identify how much talent you possess (or lack) to drive strategy and change.

Another key component of effective talent management is utilizing human capital metrics that offer visibility into how talent decisions affect business results. The challenge is to identify those significant few that reflect how your talent strategy is supporting business success. This is substantially different than the metrics HR reports on today — organizational turnover, time to fill, headcount, etc. are transactional measures that do little to inform the business.

With the strategic roles identified and backed by insightful workforce data, HR and line executives can lead the organization in formulating an enterprise-level strategic talent plan that outlines what the organization must do to close any capability or talent gaps. Alignment and a clear line of sight to business objectives ensures that talent decisions in the areas of acquisition, development, compensation and succession planning become strategic and add value. Prioritizing talent actions and investments based on a clear business rationale increases the likelihood that the talent management programs that are critical to achieving the organization’s objectives are appropriately supported, funded and executed.

The main reason assessments work is because behavior is remarkably consistent over time. Because much of our behavior is influenced by our basic psychological makeup, we tend to act in very reliable and predictable ways across both time and situations, whether we want to or not. Although people can and do change over time, those changes are usually gradual and predictable. Of course, job performance also depends on a number of other factors such as how managers treat their employees, and how work is structured.

Reason #1: Efficient Hiring Can Provide Competitive Advantage
Even with significantly more candidates in the market place due to the economic downturn, it is still more critical than ever to reach the best people for your openings as quickly as possible. Assessments enable an organization to quickly prioritize candidates based on their potential for success in a given role. The development of Internet-based hiring systems makes these tools accessible, affordable, and instantaneous. The best candidates rise to the top, so they can be contacted first – preventing the loss of top talent to competitors. This allows hiring managers to spend time meeting with only those applicants who have the highest potential for success. Matching what a company measures to job requirements in a fair, objective and efficient way [through online assessments] is also key to staying inside the law.

The assessment also gives the interviewer a new set of tools to transform the interview into a genuine discussion about the person’s real fit for the job as well as their likely level of job satisfaction. When conducted prior to an interview, a pre-employment assessment can identify areas to probe. Combining this information with good behavioral interviewing skills can vastly improve your hiring process. For example, if assessment results indicate that a candidate is low in decisiveness, the interviewer could devote part of the interview to asking about the last few specific decisions the candidate made. How did they make them? What were the results? What would they do differently in the future? Pre-employment assessment data makes your interview more effective and efficient.

Reason #2: Assessments are More Accurate than People
Using job interviews, background checks, and resumes to screen applicants yields random results. One might as well evaluate applicants using a coin flip. Research suggests only a 14% likelihood of a successful hiring decision (one good employee in every seven hires) using common hiring practices that do not include pre-employment hiring assessments. This success rate jumps to 26% with a background check – but this is still one good hire in every four! When an assessment is used that measures behavioral traits, thinking, occupational interests, plus job match, excellent employees are successfully identified better than 75% of the time.

Many of us think we are good a “sizing up others”, but few of us truly are. People’s behavior is complex. When people make hiring decisions, they tend to combine candidate information in a highly ineffective manner. Hiring managers and recruiters frequently over-emphasize the importance of more specific characteristics such as the college a person went to or their last job title, while undervaluing more subtle clues that may be a better predictor of performance. Additionally, there are things that candidates have no control over that influence the hiring decision — things such as physical appearance, the mood of the interviewer, etc.

In contrast, an automated assessment process takes a highly systematic, through, objective and often very complicated approach toward collecting and interpreting candidate information and they only focus on information gathered from the candidate and are not influenced by other non-job-relevant information or situational factors. This doesn’t mean people’s evaluations of candidates are not important. They are the heart of the process. But people’s hiring decisions can be much more accurate if they utilize assessment information as part of the decision-making process.

Reason #3: Assessments are Cost Effective
Most people view assessments as an expense. True, assessments are not free, but what is the cost of a bad hire in your organization? Consider the amount of time and money spent in the interview process, in training, on wages and benefits, the lost revenue because of poor performance, and the cost of retraining a new hire, not to mention the cost of missing out on a better candidate who is now with another company. Wouldn’t you be willing to spend some money upfront to minimize the likelihood of a wrong hire? Pre-employment assessments can actually save you money by helping you choose the best candidate for the job. By ensuring better job fit, assessments improve retention and help organizations better preserve their investments in hiring, on-boarding and training.

Additionally, the quality and speed of decision making provided through assessments means hiring managers and HR professionals can do their jobs faster and easier.

Last, but not least, many organizations continue to approach training and development with a “one size fits all” approach. You’ve seen it before, a program on Management 101 is run and everyone who manages people is required to sit through it; regardless of organizational level, skill or ability. This approach continues to provide sub-optimized results. By using the results of assessment to focus development on the areas where job-specific improvement would provide the greatest results, companies can use their limited resources more effectively.

Reason #4: Assessment can be used to Inform a Variety of Talent Decisions
Managers are just as responsible for developing the talent pools in their organizations as they are for accomplishing operational goals. Unfortunately, while they get a lot of information pertaining to how they’re doing on operational goals, they get no information on the knowledge and skills of their people. Good assessment programs can provide this valuable data.

Assessments are designed to collect data from candidates that can be used to predict their future job performance. They do this by measuring three basic types of information:

1. Eligibility – What candidates have done in the past (previous work experience, job-relevant activities, accomplishments and education).
2. What candidates could do based on their aptitude for different tasks and activities.
3. What candidates want to do in the future based on their work and non-work goals, preferences and interests.

Reason #5: Assessments take the Emotion out of Feedback

Coaching employees regarding development is often a difficult process. The objective nature of assessments allows companies to more effectively place people into jobs where they are most likely to succeed. Assessments also help reduce the influence that people’s subjective beliefs about personal appearance, background, or ethnic characteristics have on hiring decisions.

Summary
Personality Assessments have been available for about 60 years. Many of the “popular” assessments in use today were not designed to predict job performance. The DISC and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are two popular assessments often used for selection that were not designed to predict job performance. How would you effectively use an assessment for job selection that has no ability to predict job performance? Some people say that they can use these assessments for employee development. However, this also isn’t possible. The main point of employee development is to improve performance and if an assessment does not measure the factors that relate to job performance, how can it significantly help to develop employees?

Dr. Dan Harrison, architect of Harrison Assessments Talent Solutions (HATS), has over 20 years of experience in job behavior assessment. He cites several key factors that enable a behavioral assessment to effectively predict performance. These include:

1. The ability of the assessment to measure more than 100 traits in order to effectively compare to a variety of jobs
2. A questionnaire that is work focused
3. The ability to detect false answers and to identify self-deception
4. Performance research that is used to create job success formulas for specific jobs
5. Reports that are job specific, numerically quantified and easy to understand.
6. The ability to weight and integrate eligibility score and job behavior assessment scores

Harrison Assessments’ Smart Questionnaire™ sets the standard for assessment questionnaires. The Smart Questionnaire™ measures 156 traits in less than 30 minutes, while providing the most deception proof technology in the industry. Harrison Assessments offers a complete research database of success traits for different position types as well as complete customization to an organization’s values or specific job requirements. Harrison Assessments measures all the factors relative to job success— all while substantially reducing an employer’s legal risks. For more information on Harrison Assessments, click here.

An effective job eligibility/suitability assessment can obtain a high level of predictive accuracy for job performance. This gives interviewers a new set of tools to transform the interview into a genuine discussion about the person’s real fit for the job as well as their likely level of job satisfaction. Combining this information with good behavioral interviewing skills can vastly improve your hiring process. When choosing assessments always maintain your focus on what matters most: Does the assessment predict the employee behaviors and job outcomes that are critical to your organization? Be wary of assessment vendors that don’t spend any time identifying the specific employee behaviors and job outcomes you want to predict.

In today’s knowledge economy, HR professionals are increasingly being asked to demonstrate how human capital strategies impact business results. In the 1980’s Jack Fitz-enz introduced measurement to the HR function. However, since that time most of the focus has been primarily on measuring the efficiency of the HR function rather than addressing the more meaningful issues of how human capital creates value and how HR interventions serve as a mechanism for improving business outcomes. According to research by the Conference Board, only 75% of companies measure anything in their HR departments, while fewer than 25% indicate they have anyone on their HR staff who can define, measure, and track HR metrics that are aligned to business strategies.

So what evidence do you have that your selection, development, competency frameworks, and engagement surveys are having any impact at all? Keeping the CEO happy might look like you have produced convincing evidence, but it isn’t.

Evidence-Based HR is about changing the way HR practitioners think, the way they look at information, solve problems, and evaluate solutions. Evidence-based HR is focused on providing factual evidence as a foundation for decision-making. Evidence means collecting data and facts that apply directly to your own organization, in its own context, now. Practicing evidence-based HR will provide the opportunity to become strategic partners in the business and help the profession move beyond chasing fads to getting to the real work of helping their organization improve business results through more effective management of people.

Evidence-based HR while very much in its infancy is the natural outcome of the ongoing evolution of the practice of HR management. For most HR professionals, the evidence-based approach represents a fundamental shift in their business roles. While it does provide the opportunity to become strategic partners in the business, at this point the approach is not widespread, so there is very little in terms of a “paved road” to identify a universal set of concepts, standards, practices or principles that are necessary for creating a genuine “decision science” for human resources.

But that shouldn’t stop us from pressing forward. Rather than wait to be challenged, learn to start strategic conversations with the right data. Start small and keep it simple. Begin with a small area to build experience and capability.

Evidence-based HR management requires challenging conventional wisdom and even personal preferences about particular management interventions. Be prepared to uncover weaknesses in long-held assumptions about human resources management.

Since the recession began, employees have been asked to do more and receive less in return. Organizations have focused on cutting costs and riding out the downturn. The data is disheartening for employees: 60% of firms froze salaries, 15% cut salaries, 28% cut bonuses, 20% cut or eliminated their 401K match, and 40% decreased their training and development budgets. It’s no wonder the majority are planning to change companies as soon as the economy improves.

These actions have had a significant impact on engagement. The Corporate Executive Board states that prior to the downturn, the highly disengaged represented approximately 1 in 10 workers. Estimates from the first quarter of 2009 show that number has increased to 1 in 3. The greatest drop in engagement comes from high performing employees – who fell close to 25% since last year. With disengagement estimated at costing the US economy about $300 billion a year, it isn’t hard to see that reducing the number of disengaged can have a huge impact on the business.

The report also identified that employees commitment to discretionary effort has decreased by 64% since 2005. This decline has been mostly proactive. With a 50% drop in employees willing to volunteer for additional duties. A 40% drop in employees commitment to seeking better ways to do their job, and a 60% drop in willingness to help others with heavy workloads.

So how can we improve engagement?

1.
Engagement has to be a leadership-driven initiative. No one affects an employee’s engagement as much as his or her immediate leader. Managers need to be capable of providing constructive feedback to support and encourage development; providing stimulating and challenging assignments; and effectively communicating changing responsibilities and expectations to their direct reports.
2.
Engagement is all about fit. Research has repeatedly shown that when job fit is high, an employee performs better and is more likely to stay with the organization. However, not all roles are created equally. It is important to identify the roles that have the most significant impact on achieving business strategy and make sure your best performers are in those roles.
3.
Systems need to support and foster engagement. Recruitment, development, performance management, rewards and recognition, and other systems must be critically reviewed to ensure they promote the desired outcomes.

Building and maintaining an engaged workforce is a long-term, ongoing initiative that requires a coordinated and consistent effort from leaders, organizational systems, and individuals. It must be aligned and linked with the most important drivers of organizational success or it will be viewed as the latest “fad du jour” that will quickly fade into the sunset.

HR, perhaps more than any other part of the business, is constantly challenged to play a more strategic role in the organization, but only in a cost effective (usual translation: cheaper) way, while at the same time continuing to provide a broad array of transactional activities. Balancing the need to contribute at a strategic level with the need for operational excellence is an endless challenge.

So what exactly is HR Transformation? HR Transformation means putting strategy first by identifying the HR outcomes that will facilitate the achievement of business results; and developing the tools and workforce that can execute that strategy.

Studies show that in many organizations, HR and line managers do not see eye to eye on human capital issues and expectations. Key to successful HR Transformation is to ensure that key stakeholders are active participants. This means not only the members of the HR department, but business leaders and line managers. It is critical that they connect to and support their appropriate roles and responsibilities in the process of managing the organization’s human capital.

Starting HR Transformation by defining each and every HR outcome and determining how the outcome contributes to the business provides a mechanism to identify what work is strategic and what is transactional – a critical step in HR Transformation. Until strategic work and operational work are separated, neither gets done well. Until you can identify which HR work has the greatest business impact, you won’t have the clarity and focus required to be a strategic partner. Additionally, HR organizations that don’t do transactional work flawlessly are not credible when they attempt to play strategic roles.

HR Transformational efforts need to look at HR processes as an integrated system. When HR systems work together with a unified strategic focus to achieve the same outcomes, they have substantial impact on business results. To spend time getting better candidates into the recruitment pipeline and not look at selection, hiring, on-boarding, and deployment you probably won’t get the kind of results you are looking for. Even with carefully chosen candidates, ineffective selection, hiring, on-boarding and deployment can lead to high turnover, which drains key talent from the company and eventually diminishes its competitiveness – a critical strategic issue.

So what does it look like when HR has completed is transformation? HR leaders are fully engaged with the business in strategic discussions and decisions. All levels of HR staff understand business issues and needs and apply that knowledge across all aspects of their work. Administrative and recordkeeping activities are efficient. Organizational leaders and line managers play their part in managing the organization’s human capital effectively.

HR Transformation isn’t easy and doesn’t come overnight. Before you embark on a HR Transformation process start with leadership and make sure you spend the time to clearly understand what it means to them for HR to be “more strategic.”

Management guru Peter Drucker once said, “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.”  In its report “Developing Business Leaders for 2010″ the Conference Board predicted “we will have an environment of extreme cognitive complexity in many industries, requiring extraordinary strategic thinking skills and the ability to make high-quality decisions quickly in the face of competitive pressure and uncertainty.”  Leadership isn’t getting any easier.

Even with these increased expectations on leadership, many organizations continue to use competency models that consist of a list of rather generic terms to describe and drive leadership. These competencies are applied to everything from selection to performance management.  It’s hard not to like the concept of competencies.  After all, it generates a nice list of behaviors that are hard to argue with.   They have been around for over 30 years and enough companies have them to drive one to conclude they must provide some value, right? But there are several problems with using these competency lists to drive effective leadership selection and progression.

First and most importantly, it assumes that everyone who will excel in the same role will display the same behavioral competencies.  This approach chooses to fight against the uniqueness that is inherent in each of us and drives toward a conformity that requires each leader to manage in the same way to be successful.  Yet history has shown us that our most effective leaders possess very different traits.

Secondly, leadership is a balancing act – fraught with tensions and tradeoffs.  Traditional competency models don’t reflect these paradoxical dilemmas as the list ignores the relationship among competencies.

Lastly, how do you know this is the right list?   Competency models assume that most leadership roles tend to be similar in terms of the necessary skills and behaviors.  Yet research demonstrates that leadership roles come in a variety of shapes and sizes requiring a variety of skills and behaviors.

So how can competencies add value?  If you want to use competencies, they are more appropriately applied as a diagnostic for understanding why leadership results are low or high; and supporting communication of performance in new and different roles.

Defining and understanding what results leadership needs to achieve across the leadership continuum is critical for effective leadership assessment and development.  Leaders who act without full knowledge of the results required may work harder but accomplish less.  (We aren’t talking about annual goals here.) Despite similarities, there are a variety of significant differences in the results leaders need to achieve depending on the shape of the role, proximity to business results, and the level of operational or strategic focus.   So as managers move upward, the complexity of work increases and the competencies demonstrated by effective leaders also vary.

A results-based definition of leadership provides the framework to bring clarity to generic competency models and drive more effective selection, appraisal and development.

While executives spend significant time crafting organizational strategies and goals, employee understanding of how their job connects to these strategies is still extremely low.  Consider the following data points:

1. In Towers Perrin’s 2007 “Rewards & Challenges Survey”, they identified that 82% of employees felt they had a low to average level of understanding of the impact of their performance on business results.
2. Additionally, it is estimated that 64% of performance issues stem from the employees lack of understanding of the requirements of his/her role.
3. IDC research determined that on average, 1 in 4 employees misunderstands at least one crucial aspect of their jobs — costing businesses an estimated $37 billion.
4. In DDI’s 2007 survey “Leaders in Transition” they identified that nearly 1 out of every 5 people leaders ranks making a leadership transition as the most challenging life event. With 1/3 of strategic leaders making that claim! Additionally, 52% of these leaders stated that the #1 item that would help them make a successful transition was “a clear sense of performance expectations.”

People in an organization generally deliver what they are measured on.  Traditional job descriptions focus on what activities the employee should be seen doing.  Because what gets measured gets done, measuring activity leads to the generation of more activity.  Employee surveys show that if people are not clear about their roles and how they relate to each other in the group, effective teamwork may be difficult to achieve.

Results-focused job descriptions identify the results a job delivers, how that performance will be measured, and the specific skills and competencies required for successful performance.  Defining the “deliverables” of the job rather than providing an all-exhaustive list of the tasks an employee is expected to perform gets employees out of the activity trap, helps drive employee line-of-sight to strategy, provides a mechanism to see how responsibilities cascade through the organization, addresses the nature of today’s knowledge-based work, enables innovation and diversity, and facilitates effective measurement.  See a sample.

When employees know what is expected of them, which aspects of their jobs are most important, and how their performance will be evaluated, work groups typically will be more effective.  People will take initiative, appropriate risk, and innovate when necessary because they – like the rest of the organization – understand the scope and interrelationships of their roles.

Moreover, the process of creating a job description offers a rare opportunity to examine your team and your company as a whole, and consider what human resources you will need to succeed. Where are you now? Where would you like to be in the future? And what kinds of skills and abilities will your people need to help get your company from here to there? A carefully drafted job results-focused description positions and prepares your group for the future.