Finding hard measures of management competence

A manager's competence is not just about the achievement of goals and objectives; it is also concerned with their impact on the human capital within their teams and the teams that they work with. We are all familiar with the impact of a manager who is extremely task orientated, but lacks the people skills or concern to bring their team along with them. In ths short term, such an individual will be able to demonstrate goods levels of performacne in an environment where only the achievement of tasks and objectives is being measured. However, in the medium to longer term, the debt of bad feeling within the team will begin to show in terms of reducing levels of productivity and increasing sickness absence and staff turnover. Typically, the manager will have moved onto pastures new before this debt is realised; which is good for them, but not so good for the organisation. In the US, for example, Sears found that a four per cent increase in employee satisfaction lead to an increase in market capatilisation of $250 million, so imagine the impact of a similar decrease in satisfaction! Therefore, a manager's competence, times their commitment, should be measured in terms of 'how' they deliver as well as 'what' they actually deliver.

With this in mind, it is important to gain a rounded stakeholder view of a manger's performance, as well as basing conclusions on hard measures and feedback from the managers themselves. Therefore, we would suggest a joint approach of 360 degree appraisal, against clearly defined competencies, married to the collection of hard measures, baseline objective assessment and evidence from the manager's own work to be discussed at appraisal.

For advice and assistance in adopting this approach in your organisation and for a discussion about how we could tailor our testing and appraisal software to meet your needs, please contact us.