Topgrading

I had the chance to talk to a fantastic Topgrader last week, Travis Isaacson of Access Development Corporation. We were talking about Job Scorecards, and Travis had some fantastic advice about them. Here are five points worth considering:

1. To relieve stress, tell people, especially the Hiring Managers who are responsible for creating them, that the Job Scorecard is a living document that will change. You don’t have to get it perfect the first time. When you realize that it’s not quite right, you can change it. Hiring Managers are more willing to do a first draft if they know they can change it later if situations change.

2. Look at what you already have in your systems, culture, and processes. You have people who are receiving bonuses, you have lists of responsibilities. Start from where you are. How do you get bonuses? That should be on the scorecard. Turn responsibilities into accountabilities.

3. You can build scorecards the way you build budgets. If a company wants to make $50M, you have to figure out how much revenue is going to come from each department. The same sort of process can work all the way down to individual contributors. A Sales Manager has to generate a certain amount of revenue, and then that’s broken down to individual sales people.

4. Start at the top. Build the CEO/President scorecard and work your way down.

5. Scorecards aren’t just used for hiring. They are central to our entire talent management process because they are the center piece of our performance management system.