Clarity brings success
Define the Role for Role Clarity
- Success in any job is about being clear on what’s expected.
- Role clarity increases accountability, ownership, performance and overall satisfaction in the role
- Agree upfront the contribution an individual’s role will make, why it exists and the skills needed to be successful
- Clarity upfront ensures there’s no ambiguity about the expectations of the role
- To encourage personal ownership, individuals can draft the Role and then agree it with their manager
- Individuals can later check their skills and build a growth plan against against the skills needed for the role
- With job roles and responsibilities ever changing, it’s important to keep Roles up to date as they evolve
Roles and Role Levels
- Add a Role from the Roles and Responsibilities screen of either Plan+Do or Talent
- Individuals can have multiple roles
- Roles have a title, are past, current or future and state the organisation name
- If you have more than one current role, elect your Primary Role
- Assign a Role Level which describes the level of responsibility, impact and decision-making of the role. Skills needed for a role will vary in complexity at different role levels.
- Entry level, Intermediate, Experienced, First level leader, Leader of leaders, Executive Leader
- You can select the Role Level directly or use the Help tool to get help to define the role level
- You’ll be asked a series of questions about the role in relation to: Level of expertise and experience required by the role
- Level of autonomy
- Level of decision making
- Scope of responsibility
- The complexity of problems encountered
- The degree of planning and contingency management required
- The level of communication, influence and negotiation
- You’ll then get a recommendation on the level that this role is operating at
Role purpose
- The Role Purpose is the overarching reason why the role exists and the impact it will have on the team or organisation. Knowing why the role exists will help define what it will do in terms of responsibilities and objectives.
- When defining your Role Purpose consider;
- What’s the key thing this role will contribute that will help the team or organisation achieve its goals?
- What impact will this role have and on whom?
- What value does it add?
Defining your Responsibilities
- Responsibilities are the key responsibility areas of the role (not a laundry list of everything the role might do). A high level description of the most important things for the role to satisfy its purpose.
- Key responsibilities for some roles can form part of your performance assessment by electing to measure them through objectives.
Get Help Defining Responsibilities
- You can add the responsibilities directly or use the Help tool to get help to define the responsibilities
- You’ll be asked a series of questions about the role in relation to its responsibilities in: •
- Leading or developing people
- Financial management
- Delivering products or services
- Continuous improvement, quality and innovation.
- At the end you’ll be asked to identify the high impact activities, and then add them to your Role
Measuring Responsibilities
- How you will measure success for this role?
- Here you can choose whether you plan to measure any of these responsibilities in your regular pulse check
- You’ll be able to define all your objectives in detail for this role either now or later. This can include a mix of projects with activities, numerical targets or responsibilities
- Responsibilities selected here will appear as draft objectives in your Objectives page where you can complete the detail and send to your manager for agreement along with your other objectives
- When adding responsibilities you’ll be given the option of adding the measures for any of the responsibilities you’ve elected to measure.
- You can choose which of the responsibilities you’d like to add measures to now. Add the measurement details of each responsibility you’ve selected and then send each objective for agreement. See the Setting Smart Objectives guide for more guidance on how to set an objective
- Responsibilities that are not defined now can be defined later. They will appear as draft objectives in your Objectives page where you can complete the detail and send to your manager for agreement along with your other objectives
Behavioural Skills Required for this Role
- The Skills for success – ensure clarity about the behavioural capabilities required to be successful in the role. Skills can either be behavioural or technical. Behavioural skills, often known as soft skills, are transferable from role to role
- Choose a maximum of 6 behavioural skills. The skills vary in complexity based on the role level you chose earlier. Eg Communication at Entry level looks different than Communication for a Senior Leader.
Technical Skills Required for this Role
- Technical skills are discipline specific knowledge or training required for the role.
- Choose the most important technical skills important for success in the role and the level of competence needed for that skill.
- Skills are grouped under Disciplines of other like skills.
- Select the relevant skill
- Determine the level of competence required for each skill. Later you’ll be able to assess your own level of competence against this skill in your Skills Check
- You’ll be provided with suggestions for other skills that are commonly added alongside this skill, to consider adding into your role
- Add any that are relevant
Agree it with your Manager
- Agree the role – send to your manager for agreement.
- Managers may agree or suggest changes. Either way, it’s a great way to proactively start the conversation about what individual’s are here to do.
What’s Next?
- Keep it relevant – update the role or create a new one as the role changes to ensure continued role clarity.
- Individuals can check current skill level against skills needed for the role in their Talent Profile to see strengths and growth areas and create a plan for growth.
- Managers have insight into the skills of their teams and where to provide more targeted development opportunities.
- If you’ve marked some responsibilities to be measured, complete the detail of the responsibility objective in your draft objectives and get it agreed with your manager. They will appear in your pulse check for ongoing review.