In this eighth edition, we will discuss how organisations who provide support and care to their clients as part of their service offering can use ELMO to deliver their outcomes and responsibilities; however, these ideas will translate regardless of your industry...
System - Recommendations.
Best Practice - Pay point progression.
HR Operations - Supervision plans
Recommendations
Back in our second edition of the newsletter, we discussed the power of the "thumbs up" for promoting team engagement and recognition. This feature is available in all ELMO systems.
We also mentioned in the Note that if you have purchased the Succession module, you can automatically bring Recommendations into your Performance Appraisal template.
You do this in the Appraisal sections, by selecting Recommendation from the module drop-down list:
When you do this, any Recommendation received by the employee during the performance period will show inside their appraisal without you having to go to their profile to review them.
But what if you don't have the Succession module and this isn't an option?
While it would be cool to do this automatically, if this isn't an option, then you can still consider Recommendations by others as a part of the appraisal process.
We recommend doing this as a part of the final checkpoint, where you can include in the checkpoint description something like:
In considering how the Employee has contributed to a harmonious and positive work culture during the performance period, refer to any Recommendations they have received by viewing the Resume section of their profile:
You can also include the question of:
Did ::FIRSTNAME:: receive any Recommendation/s during the Performance Period?
Yes/No
If yes, please summarise the key observations from others about ::FIRSTNAME::.
While performance should not be a popularity contest; sometimes it's the quiet employees who don't bang their own drum, who are having a significant impact on a positive workplace culture, and it is important that this is recognised, so the employee feels valued.
Pay Point Progression
For any organisation that works with the SCHADS Award, pay-point progression is a part of life. In our experience, many clients automatically progress their employees to the next pay point every 12 months without any formal process, or consideration as to whether the employee warrants moving to the next pay point.
Clause 13.3 of the Award says:
Progression
(a) At the end of each 12 months’ continuous employment, an employee will be eligible for progression from one pay point to the next within a level if the employee has demonstrated competency and satisfactory performance over a minimum period of 12 months at each level within the level and:
(i) the employee has acquired and satisfactorily used new or enhanced skills within the ambit of the classification, if required by the employer; or
(ii) where an employer has adopted a staff development and performance appraisal scheme and has determined that the employee has demonstrated satisfactory performance for the prior 12 months’ employment.
(b) Movement to a higher classification will only occur by way of promotion or re - classification.
For the reasons highlighted above, it is best practice to have a formal process in place for assessing competence against the role classification and communicating this process clearly to employees to ensure their expectations are appropriately managed.
To do this, you can set a up a performance template specifically for the purpose of assessing pay point progression eligibility, or, as most of our clients choose to do, you can include a section that specifically asks for the input and justification for the pay point progression.
In the example below, the Remuneration Review section is only visible to the manager; however, to promote transparency, you can have this section visible to both the Employee and the Manager and promote discussion as to why (or not) an employee should be approved to progress to the next pay point.
The reason this section is a question section, is because if you want to have checkpoint notifications switched on for the appraisal template, to ensure other checkpoints are actioned in a timely manner, the checkpoint reminder notification will be sent to the employee, even though they cannot see this section.
However, if you are willing to have this section visible to the employee, setting it up as a checkpoint will assist with driving reminders for completion.
In this section you can ask generic questions so that the section applies to all employees, not just those covered by the Award:
Or if only applying to Award-based employees, or if you set up a dedicated pay point progression plan, you can make the questions more specific:
Regardless of the format you decide upon, using the Performance module to help support the decisions for pay point progression will better formalise the process and lend support to any decision to hold back on an employee's progression to the next pay point.
Supervision Plans
For many NDIS and/or support organisations; supervision and self-care plans are a large part of how they keep their employees engaged and ensure holistic well-being.
Did you know you can build one in ELMO using the performance module?
We have created two types of supervision plans for our clients – a monthly supervision plan that reassigns to the employee every month and a yearly supervision plan with monthly checkpoints.
In this article we will explain the yearly supervision plan with monthly check-points, which would look something like this:
Under the Appraisal settings, choose a relative plan, make sure to set the duration scale to monthly.
The phase for the appraisal, known as the “Action Phase”, can be called the Supervision Assessment, which will go from month 0 through to month 12.
Then under Appraisal sections when adding each checkpoint make sure to change each end period after every month, through to 12.
Create a checkpoint with the following questions:
1. Provide a rating for your self-care over the past month (Employee question)
a. I need some support to improve my self-care
b. I am happy with my level of self-care
c. I am doing great and have no concerns about my self-care
2. Provide a rating for how you are going in your role (Employee question)
a. I need more support in my role
b. I'm doing great and have all the support I need
3. Provide a rating for the organisational culture during the last month (Employee question)
a. The culture at [company name] has not been great in the last month
b. The culture at [company name] has been okay during the last month
c. The culture at [company name] has been good during the last month
d. The culture at [company name] has been excellent during the last month
4. What topics would you like to discuss at the Supervision Discussion Meeting (Employee and Manager question)
After the 12 checkpoints have been completed, some optional fields can include a goals section and a development section for employees to work towards as well as a final end of year self care review meeting before their final end of year review.
Content credit: Isabella Porreca and Martha Travis
To view the original newsletter on LinkedIn and/or subscribe please click here...
Comments