Monitor staff performance in your business
Overview
This standard is for entrepreneurs who need to monitor staff performance in their business. People are the most important asset in any business whether they are directly employed or sub-contracted. Getting the right staff, training them and monitoring their performance is a vital part of setting up a business and of its continuing successful development. This involves setting performance targets, monitoring staff performance and rewarding them for it or dealing with poor performance.
You might do this if you need to:
- set up a business or social enterprise;
- monitor the performance of staff in your business or social enterprise;
- develop staff in your business or social enterprise through expansion or new products or services.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- specify the work that is required to achieve your business objectives or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- plan how staff will undertake the specified work considering health and safety legislation
- identify any priorities or critical activities and match them to the available resources
- set targets for staff detailing what they need to perform
- align staff targets against specific standards or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- brief people on the work they have been allocated and the standard or level of expected performance
- allocate work to individual members of staff in accordance with their skills, knowledge, understanding, experience, workloads and the opportunities for development
- encourage staff to ask questions, make suggestions and seek clarification in relation to the work they have been allocated
- check the quality of work on a regular basis against set standards or KPIs
- provide constructive feedback on performance
- recognise and reward successful performance
- identify any poor performance
- discuss poor performance with staff identifying actions for improvement
- give staff the opportunity to discuss any actual or potential problems affecting their performance
- discuss the issues at a time and place appropriate to the type, seriousness and complexity of the problem
- use information collected on the performance of individuals in any formal appraisal process
- identify whether any additional training is required
- refer staff to relevant support services
- maintain respect for the individual and the need for confidentiality
- keep records of personal details and performance strictly confidential following relevant legislation
- review staff performance on a regular basis and note their progress
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
Staff performance
1. how to plan the work for your staff, taking due account of health and safety issues in the planning, allocation and checking of work
2. why it is important to brief staff on the work they have been allocated
3. the type of performance targets, such as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), productivity, quality standards, customer responses and others
4. why it is important to set targets against specific standards or KPIs
5. the methods of setting the performance targets
6. how to assess the progress and quality of work
7. the methods of observing, discussing and getting feedback from colleagues, including customers and other stakeholders
8. how to provide feedback to individuals with aim to improve their performance
9. how to enable and encourage staff to ask questions, seek clarification, make suggestions and talk about their problems
10. why it is important to identify unsatisfactory or poor performance
11. how to discuss the cause of poor performance and agree ways of improving it
12. how to agree and follow up a course of action with the individual members of staff
13. the type of problems or unforeseen events may occur and how to support staff in dealing with them
14. how to log information on the ongoing performance of staff and use this information for performance appraisal purposes
15. how to keep the records respecting confidentiality of information
16. the relevant support services and how to refer staff to these, when required
17. how to motivate individuals by recognising and rewarding success
18. the boundaries of dealing with individual staff problems
Laws and regulations
19. the relevant legislation, regulations, guidelines, codes of practice relating to carrying out the work
20. the requirements for developing or maintaining knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities relevant to the industry