Talent assessment framework

Strategies for aligning leadership and evaluating performance

DEAR STAGE 2: As we approach the year's end, my CEO tasked me with establishing a comprehensive process for evaluating our entire team. While we currently have a performance review system in place that includes peer feedback, we are looking for a way to get our leadership team aligned around our top performers, gaps in our org, and opportunities to improve our coaching and management. Do you have any frameworks you can share to help facilitate a conversation at our next offsite? ~People Ops Everywhere

DEAR PEOPLE OPS EVERYWHERE: Great to hear that you are already doing performance reviews and incorporating peer feedback — off to a strong start! I’ve personally used a number of frameworks over the years including a grading system, stack rank, and 9 box exercise. In my experience, one of the hardest parts of using these tools is getting the entire leadership team aligned and creating consistency across departments. 

To help address this question, I called on Stage 2 LP and VP of People at Lob, Victoria Ashton. Her first reaction? “It’s critical for leaders to align and calibrate, not just on performance quality or business impact of work performed, but how their teams show up to do the work. This is an increasingly important caveat of performance to define, evaluate and manage within remote working environments for success.” And I couldn’t agree more. In a world of more and more hybrid and remote work, you can’t skip this step!

Framework TL;DR

• Have managers rate their teams on a 1-3 (or 4) scale for two headlines: Performance and Values

• Sum the two headline scores for each employee

• Lead a conversation to exit your 2s, coach your 3-4s, and retain and grow your 5-6s 

Get leadership aligned

Once you all agree and recognize what top performance looks like in action, it informs both your talent acquisition and talent development strategies. 

Victoria recommends starting with some prep work — share the framework and set up 1:1 conversations with leaders of each department. Use these discussions to delve into specific performance examples, and set the stage for what leadership expects of the organization. Victoria highlights that it is “just as important to define what high performance does NOT look like, or what behaviors you want to eliminate.” A few questions that have worked well for her:

• What skills sets, behaviors, or outcomes does your leadership team recognize as commonalities across the org’s top performers? 

• What is missing that the leadership team sees the need for more of (conversely, less of?) 

• Do the org’s core values align to what you find to be true of your top performers? Are there discrepancies between the two, and if so, your core values may not be defined correctly to drive the behavior and approach 

Implementing the framework

Build on your existing performance review cycle summarizing all feedback into 2 headlines — performance and values. Once manager/peer and self reviews (Victoria recommends a 360 approach!) are completed, ask managers to set a numerical score for each headline. The precise definition of these headlines within your organization is adaptable, but here's an example of how Victoria has previously put this into practice:

Headline 1 : Performance 

1-Not meeting Expectations (10-20%)

2-Meeting Expectations (50-60%)

3-Exceeding Expectations (10-20%)

4-Sets a new standard of performance (<5%)*

In our experience, manager’s tend to be most complimentary of his/her own team, which is why the first step of aligning around objective definitions is critical. You need to normalize that “Meeting Expectations” is a GOOD thing and “Exceeding Expectations” is RARE. 

In fact, no more than 10-20% of your total org should fall into the “Exceeding Expectations” category if your leadership team is aligned on setting a high bar, and this high bar is critical for talent acquisition. Your existing team is naturally going to be used to calibrate when evaluating the quality of an external candidate. By setting a high bar you will help raise the bar over time. 

If your team is having a hard time with this, Victoria has seen benefit in including an optional 4th option for Headline 1: “Sets a new standard of performance.” This should not be a greater percentage than 5% of your total org and helps to identify your rising leaders. 

Headline 2: Values 

1-Does not demonstrate core values 

2-Demonstrates core values 

3-Role models / sets the bar for core values 

Victoria reminds us “This is predicated on the company having a strong core value framework that employees, managers and leaders are highly familiar with. Encourage reviewers to be detailed and correlate examples in their review with specific core values that person demonstrates (or violates).”

NOTE: Another way to leverage this axis is to consider “Potential” to create a framework that grounds you in performance and potential instead of performance and values — both are effective and serve slightly different purposes. 

Assessing the entire team

Now that the headlines are defined, simply sum headlines 1 and 2 for each employee  and you can use the numerical values to plot the team. Your values will range from 2 - 6 (7 if you are using the optional 4th category in the performance section) and you can use these numerical headlines to ground your conversation. Victoria outlined a few ideas for how you might guide the conversation and act on this framework:

2s: Exit

Anyone at the value of 2 should already be on a performance management plan. This is really a lagging indicator, if the review period is of the previous 3-6 months and likely leadership should consider (or have already decided on) moving these individuals out of the business. 

3-4s: Move up or out 

These are your “move them up, or move them out” employees over the next 3-6 months and where you should spend most of the time in discussion: Is there a performance issue, a quality of work issue, do they struggle to align and work within your company’s core value framework? 

Victoria advises “If your organization is truly committed to setting a high bar, this mid-rated group should have movement over time. One of the biggest detractors from a high performing organization is a high percentage of 3-4s that remain at that level over time and are simply “okay”, bringing others with them across the org to a level of mediocrity that becomes the new norm.”

Additionally, if considering core values and viewing performance also through the lens of “how we work”, there are a few important questions Victoria recommends  the leadership team should consider: 

• What is the stance on a top performer that drives outcomes, but who doesn't bring others along, creates discord, etc? 

• What are the instances in which a conversation to change behavior makes more sense than implementing a skill/outcome based performance plan? 

• How do you quickly identify performance issues or behavioral misalignment within a remote working environment? (For hybrid teams, this is an even more complex question to spend time on – how does this look different when the work is done in person vs. async?) 

• If someone role models the values but is not meeting expectations of performance, even if they are technically a “4”, how does your company weigh performance vs. values? Equally? 2:1? 

5-7s: Retain and grow

5-7s are your top performers and likely those that your leadership team needs to ensure are properly set up for retention, promotion and opportunity to further develop others and bring them along. 

Victoria recommends capturing learnings from this group to incorporate into your hiring process. What are the behaviors and qualities demonstrated in the top 5-7s? How can you seek those our in your interview process? Either as a stand alone interview or woven throughout the process, a set of questions should be consistent throughout all interviews that actively seeks out candidates that have high potential to be part of the 5-7 group of your org. The more top performers that you bring in over time, the higher that the bar of performance across your entire org will rise!

NOTE: there is one exception here. If you are using the optional 4th category for the performance headline, a top performer who is not demonstrating your core values needs to be included in the “Up or Out” bucket. 

Our final piece of advice? 

Watch for the trends

Over time, you will be able to overlay the headline results of each review cycle and quickly identify those that are moving up, moving out and use the data to understand the efficacy of performance development and quality of hiring across all teams. 

Good luck running your first team evaluation! 

Until next week!