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When performance metrics are developed in collaboration with staff and treated as a basis for incentivizing and rewarding superior performance, this entails a rethinking of the role and process of supervision. Check-ins between managers and staff, or between department chairs and faculty, can become a structured dialogue centered on the key performance measures and the resources needed to support faculty and staff in achieving success. We turned to Pat Sanaghan, president of The Sanaghan Group, and Mike Theall, an associate professor at Youngstown State University and a leading thinker on faculty evaluation, to learn more about what more effective supervision for faculty and staff would look like. Here is their advice. Effective Supervisory Dialogue Sanaghan, who is publishing a chapter on structured supervisory dialogue in his forthcoming book, How to Actually Build an Exceptional Team, suggests the guiding principle that the focus of supervision has to be the success of the team member in contributing to the unit’s goals. “The dialogue between supervisor is not meant to be critical,” he cautions. “Supervisors need to be asking themselves not how they can correct problems, but how they can incentivize, promote, and reward superior performance.” To facilitate a productive dialogue with that […]

Few changes offer as much opportunity for resistance and tension within a unit as changes to the method of evaluating performance. It’s critical that not only the decisions around identifying the key metrics themselves but also the decision-making process, communication of the decisions made, and the steps for rolling out the new system are equally intentional. We’ve identified three key principles of an effective transition to a new system for evaluating faculty or staff: The metrics are developed as a collaborative effort between staff and supervisors The goals of moving to a more sophisticated system of performance metrics are clear, and it’s communicated that the metrics will be used as the basis for incentives and rewards for superior performance The process for rolling out the metrics is phased and deliberate Develop the Metrics in Dialogue with Your Staff Rick Dupree, assistant dean of development and alumni relations for the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, emphasizes the importance of not just dictating goals but of developing metrics in partnership with your staff. “Chat with them about what they’re sensing about the economy, about donor perceptions. Find out what challenges they’re facing. Let your officers play a role in determining […]

Once you have identified and weighted those activities that have the greatest impact on your department’s ability to meet its operational objectives, the next step is to determine what evidence would be sufficient to determine if these activities have truly been carried out in a satisfactory, superior, or less-than-satisfactory manner. This is true whether you are looking to adopt more intentional metrics for your admissions office, your major gift officers, your faculty, or staff in any other division within the institution. By identifying and publicizing thoughtful and intentional criteria for measuring the success of staff activity, you avoid relying on purely qualitative or subjective assessments of staff or faculty performance –- and you ensure that the way staff performance is evaluated is aligned with the decisions your unit reached about what activities are truly important in meeting the unit’s goals. Let’s take a closer look at how rubrics might be applied within both an administrative unit and an academic department. Example: A Rubric to Assess the Quality of Annual Fund Visits When Scott Peters rolled out more intentional performance metrics for his annual gift officers at the University of Richmond, he wanted to take a more rigorous look at how […]

Staff metrics and evaluation can be used to incentivize both superior staff performance (by giving managers the rationale and flexibility to reward high performers) and meaningful progress toward the strategic goals of your unit –- if you approach staff metrics in a thoughtful, credible way. This entails: Defining what activities are truly critical to measure Establishing criteria or rubrics for various levels of performance Designing and rolling out metrics through a fully participatory process Ensuring that the metrics inform effective supervision and staff development There is often need for greater intentionality in deploying staff metrics across both the administrative and academic divisions of an institution. In this edition, we’ll address examples from both sides of the organization. Focus on Results, not Tasks First, just because something is easy to measure doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to measure. It may be easy to track the number of service requests responded to by facilities management staff or the number of events organized by alumni relations staff, but these measure tasks completed, not necessarily progress toward that unit’s strategic outcomes. To take a more intentional approach to measuring performance, identify the outcomes that truly matter to the division (whether these are learning […]