From yesterday’s comments, some great questions.

Question:
I’ve been thinking about performance appraisals and Time Span lately because many of our front line workers are Stratum I. We have a weekly scorecard and we measure and reward every week, which fits their time span.

Our healthcare company is licensed and, as a stipulation of our license, we’re required to “review” each employee annually. Since I’ve been introduced to Time Span, I can see how these annual reviews are a waste of time for Strata I and II. So, what’s the most meaningful way to comply with our license without wasting everyone’s time?

Response:
First, if it is a requirement of your license, you are not wasting anyone’s time. If you lose your license for non-compliance, then you will be out of business. So take this very seriously. The paperwork should be completed and conform with accepted guidelines.

Now, let’s talk about making Performance Feedback meaningful. You have correctly identified that goals should be reviewed concurrently as they are achieved, meaning, if a team member is working on weekly goals, then they should be reviewed on a weekly basis. It shouldn’t take a lot of time, but a few minutes each week to acknowledge a “job well done,” will pay large dividends to the organization.

So, what would be important to talk about at least once a year? I call it calibration time. Elliott Jaques called it the “Personal Effectiveness Appraisal.” And it doesn’t have to happen ONLY once a year. Calibration should occur at least once a year or any other time the manager sees an observable change in capability (usually positive).

Here are the questions.

• Is the team member functioning satisfactorily, given the Time Span task assignments in the role?
• If yes, could this team member function effectively in task assignments with a longer Time Span?
• If no, could this team member function effectively in task assignments with a shorter Time Span?

This calibration discussion has three participants, the team member, the manager and the manager-once-removed. This discussion rarely takes more than ten minutes.

The brilliance of Elliott’s discovery is that we can use the Time Span of a goal to calibrate and match task assignments to the capability of a team member. This matching is designed to keep people engaged in task assignments that are both well-suited and challenging. What happens to job satisfaction when people are challenged to their maximum level of capability? Not beyond, not below, but right at their maximum?

Because people grow and mature, this calibration should occur at least once a year or any time a manager notices a change in capability.