So I know what you're thinking. What, I'm not done? Why can't I measure my employees based on these great objectives I've just written? Well, that's a big step toward your performance management. But let's talk about a couple of other concepts before we leave. After this video you'll be able to, 1, identify three measures used in developing performance standards, and develop performance management standards for entry level or managerial position. So focus, when am I going to put my focus on standards? When we talked about results and measuring results in the past video, we talked about specific results, we talked about specific objectives. But to get the results we need, we also want to look at taking those objectives one step farther and looking at what we're going to call performance standards. So let's look at some typical measures that would be used in performance standards. You want quality. Certainly for any employee it's the quality of a product that we want. We want time, timeliness, reports on time, coming to work on time. Standards need to be looked at there as well. And finally quantity. We want to measure the quantity and volume of work. So these are the three things typically you'll put in some performance standards. So rather than just look at these individually, let's look at some examples that you can develop in your own organizations to make effective standards. And remember, for objectives they tend to be on the goals and outcomes. With standards we're going to be looking a little bit more at behaviors. So let's use an example of receptionist. What are we looking for in a receptionist on standards? One we might look at is customer service. Receptionists always deal with the public. One of my favorite examples in HR was the receptionists are directors of first impressions, very important to have good customer service skills. So as a performance standard you'd want to have them understand that their job is to greet customers immediately in a friendly manner. So you get a little bit of a specifics there, but it's a little more generic and general than you would have in your performance objectives. You do want to tell them when to be at the office, so the office, open the office at 9 AM, Monday through Friday. Little bit specific, but it's a standard. It's just something they either do or they don't do. And finally, you want to behave in a friendly, professional manner to all customers, not just the ones that come in but on the phone and everywhere. So this would be a standard for customer service. Another one you might want from the receptionist, and these would be clerical as well, answer phones in a friendly professional manner within two rings. So again, you'll see a standard here, how they do it and what they do. These tend to be things you look for in performance standards. You want to understand functions of the technology. You want them to be confident in their job. Again, this is standard can be measured. It's not a goal, it's a standard. Distributes incoming and prepares outgoing mail to individual boxes by 3. So again, another thing that they do or they don't, and when you're managing performance you can pretty much figure out if they're achieving this standard. And finally some keyboard skills, maybe 60 words a minute in this case. Again, you'd pick the standards that fit your organization, but you want these standards. So this individual knows what's expected of him in day out and day other duties. And these, again, are usually articulated up front in the performance process. Lastly on some clerical skills, you'd want them to maintain files in organized fashion so they're clearly located. This is clearly one that I would work on for myself if I were in the clerical function. That's why I'm not in the clerical function. But this would be a standard I would not excel at. Next one is return and refile all materials within the day of return. You want them to know what their responsibilities are for this as well. And finally you want to look at duplicating materials. Again, all these things have in common one thing. It clearly defines the standard and a little bit of the time frame in which they need to accomplish it to be successful. Lastly, office equipment maintenance. This may be one you have with an employee, maybe you've outsourced it, but if they are responsible for it, they need to contact service personnel as needed. So again, standards are important beyond the objectives. You also want to have performance standards for your mangers. So I have an example here. For managers it's a little bit more nuanced. In the front line positions, like the receptionist we just talked about, you can say open the office at 9, answer calls within a certain time frame. But with managers, their jobs are more complex. So let's look at a few examples you can use in developing standards for your managers. The first one might be communication skills. We have a variety of communication skills, but in this particular example we're going to look at written communications. In the HR function especially, we often have to look at who our audience is and how much sensitive and controversial material might go out. So I'm certainly going to have a different communication memo to my boss than I will to my front line people. So be able to know the difference, what's important, what's not. That's a higher level functioning standard. I'm also going to have managers that have staff reporting to them, so I'm going to want my managers as a standard to coach staff on best practices. I expect them to be coaching and developing their people. I'll also want them to be effective at meetings, so I'm going to ask them to use agendas and effectively facilitate team meetings. And finally, important role of a manager would be to provide feedback. That's an important part of the performance management process certainly. So I might have a standard that talks about that they need to provide immediate and ongoing feedback for staff development. So by using performance standards in addition to your objectives I talked about in the last lesson, you can help clarify what specific performance you want out of your employees and enhance their performance overall.
