The Performance Agreement - Set Your Objectives PART 1

Process: Step 2

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Lesson duration

About 20 minutes

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What you will learn:

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Setting your Objectives

 

What is your goal?

Take a minute to read through the following pointers before you start your agreement. Understanding the purpose of a Performance Agreement will impact on how you approach it, and what you get from it.

 

In creating your Performance Agreement, you will take the following steps:

  1. Identify what you have to achieve and want to achieve in your job in the year ahead.
  2. Make sure your manager agrees with your goals, and how you are going to work towards achieving them.
  3. Make sure the way you formulate your goals (via its defining measures and targets) causes them to be tangible, easily measurable, trackable, etc.
  4. Determine the relative importance of each goal. Work objectives are not all equal in importance.
  5. Send everything to your manager for approval.

All of this may take up to 2 months to finalise unless you can start from a previous, and well-structured agreement.

 


An example

See below a fully populated KPA section. Your Stretch Targets will have a similar layout; the other sections will be simpler.

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The Key Performance Areas Section

We are going to plan your agreement using the above example as a roadmap.

 

Perspectives Level

(Optional, depending on company settings)

Refer to the section The Performance Agreement - Overview for background on the use of perspectives.

On the side menu, click the Key Performance Areas section.

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Notice that the relative importance of the Key Performance Areas section is 70% - in our example.

We are going to focus on the perspectives level first. Perspectives are used to group key performance areas, and key performance areas are in turn used to group key performance indicators.

Let's remove all the KPAs and KPIs from our example and see the perspectives in isolation. In the example, there are two perspectives:  Internal Process (worth 70%) and Learning and Growth (worth 30%).  All our KPAs will be loaded under one of these two perspectives.

Notice how the total of their relative weights adds up to 100%.

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If you are working on a new, blank agreement, we suggest loading all your perspectives together and assigning their weights. This way it is easier to get an overview of them before adding KPAs and KPIs, and visually easier to get their weights to total 100%.

 

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Key Performance Areas Level

Refer to the section The Performance Agreement - Overview for background on Key Performance Areas.

Now we are going to focus on the KPA level. Key Performance areas (KPAs) are used to group Key Performance Indicators.

Let's remove all the KPIs from our example and look at a KPA in isolation, under its parent perspective called Internal Process.

Notice how the total of all the KPA weights (under one parent perspective) adds up to 100%.

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If you are working on a new, blank agreement, we suggest - for a specific perspective - loading all its key performance areas and their weights at once. This way it is easier to get an overview of all the KPAs under a perspective before adding KPIs, and it's easier to get their weights to total 100%.

 

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Make sure you load each KPA under its correct parent perspective – you cannot move them later; you will have to delete the KPA record and recreate it if needed.

 

 


Key Performance Indicator Level

Refer to the section The Performance Agreement - Overview for background on Key Performance Indicators.

Now we are going to focus on the KPI level. There can be more than one KPI under a parent key performance area (KPA), as in the example below.

Notice how the total of all the KPI weights (under one parent KPA) adds up to 100%.

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Make sure you load each KPI under its correct parent KPA (and perspective) – you cannot move them later, you will have to delete the KPI record and recreate it if needed.

 

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If you are working on a new, blank agreement, we suggest - for a specific KPA - loading all its Key Performance Indicators and their weights at once. This way it is easier to get an overview of all the KPIs under a KPA. 

 

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Now do it!

Before we move on to the other sections, practice the steps above.

 


What else is there?

We only discussed adding the primary levels to the KPA section of the Performance Agreement. But there are a few additional functionalities to consider.

 

Person and manager comments on a KPI

After adding a KPI the record is displayed on the screen. 

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General Comments

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On the menu to the left of the screen, locate and click General Comments. This is a separate section, meant to be used in conjunction with all the other sections.

Enter any notes, remarks, concerns, and other clarifying comments on the content contained in a Performance Agreement.

 

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Documents

Documents in support of your chosen objectives, or for omitting objectives, can be loaded on Perspective, KPA, and KPI levels. See below for the location of the Documents icons at each level.

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Actions on a Key Performance Indicator

Listing a KPI under a KPA usually implies some form of action e.g., "Implement the online tool by...".

To support achieving a KPI, additional activities might be needed e.g., "Procure funds".

These actions can be loaded and linked directly to a KPI record.

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Note the following about the Action Plan:

The action plan can be created in support of a specific KPI.

In addition, an action plan can be an ad hoc activity in support of or flowing from the Employee's Performance agreement.

The screen contains optional training-related fields if the action plan is training focused.

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An employee and/or manager can at any time click the action plan and provide comments and a progress update. Use the fields Progress and Person Comment (or Manager Comment).

 


Suggestions for building a robust Performance Agreement

 


 

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Revision #59
Created 7 February 2022 14:27:10 by Eduard
Updated 29 June 2022 11:40:30