Management Questions

• Do you have a simple, clear and consistent method of ranking positions throughout your organization, on a global basis?
• Do you have an accurate, easy-to-use means of ensuring internal equity across job families
• How do you currently ensure that your organization has a reliable base for determining pay for positions?
• Do you have an effective means of measuring your organization’s position against the market?
• Is your organizational structure appropriate, considering its future operating system and existing population?

Source:
International Position Evaluation System (IPE)
Mercer Human Resource Consulting

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• The reason the company created this job is to …
• The most important ways a person doing the job should spend time are …
• The two or three most important duties of someone in this position are …
• If someone asked me what it takes to be successful in this job, I would say …
• The easiest way to determine whether this job is being done well is by …

Source:
Good Job – Kind of, Sort of
by Carol Orsag Madigan
Controller Magazine, May 1998

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Conditions affecting morale are varied and complex. If you are wrestling with this issue you should find guidance by answering these questions:

• Look at your performance appraisal system. Does it hold people accountable for results that depend on a bigger process than they control?
• Is everyone in your organization well-trained, informed, and involved?
• Do reward systems encourage and reinforce high performance?
• Do you aggressively measure and manage those factors with the highest impact on customers, employees, and production and service processes?
• Are accounting and management information systems designed to make it easier for customers and those serving customers, or are they designed for the managers only?
• Similarly, are front-line employees serving their internal and external customers – or just managers?
• Are you hiring highly self-motivated people?
• Are supervisors, managers, and executives acting as effective coaches and team leaders?
• Are people skills and leadership ability key criteria in all promotions?

The most important question of all is – how do you know? Get the people whose motivation and morale you’re concerned about to provide the answers to these questions.

Source:
Morale Problem? Look in the Mirror
by Jim Clemmer
The Clemmer Group

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• Are job outputs and standards linked to customer and process requirements?
• Are process requirements reflected specifically in the appropriate jobs?
• Are job steps in a logical sequence?
• Have supportive policies and procedures been developed?
• Is the job environment ergonomically sound?
• Do performers understand the outputs they are expected to produce and the standards they are expected to meet?
• Do performers have sufficient resources, clear feedback, signals, and priorities, and a logical job design?
• Are the performers rewarded for achieving the job goals?
• Do the performers have the necessary skills and know how to achieve the job goals?
• Do the performers have the physical, mental, and emotional capacity to achieve the job goals?

Source:
Performance Improvement – A Classic Checklist
by Rick Sidorowicz
The CEO Refresher

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• How efficiently and effectively does the HR function deliver services?
• How effectively is the function focusing on priorities and completing milestone tasks?
• Is HR managing its finances prudently, complying with legal, regulatory, and internal requirements?
• How do HR customers rate their service experience?
• And, most important, how is the HR function contributing to the value of the organization?

Source:
Unfinished Business: Mastering HR Business Design
by John Koob
Mercer Human Resource Consulting

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• Can we measure the trade-off between an investment in our culture and an investment in new products or services?
• How should we balance cultural continuity against the need to adopt fresh ideas and practices?
• How can we build a “talent brand” to attract the best people?

Source:
The talent-growth dynamic
by Andrew Doman
The McKinsey Quarterly, 2000 Number 1

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• Can we make a business case for all of our development programs?
• What balance should we attempt to strike between developing our own talent internally and bringing in talent from the outside?
• How does the shape of our promotion pyramid affect our growth prospects?
• Do we have too many people at the top?
• Should we train anyone at all?

Source:
The talent-growth dynamic
by Andrew Doman
The McKinsey Quarterly, 2000 Number 1

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• What effect would losing one high performer have on our share price?
• What if we lost ten?
• How much value do we forgo by hanging on to poor performers?

Source:
The talent-growth dynamic
by Andrew Doman
The McKinsey Quarterly, 2000 Number 1

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• What are the sources for your new hires — newspaper ads, recruiters, referrals from current employees?
• What source produces the most productive and long-term employees?
• Just how good is your hiring process?
• Are you getting high-caliber people?
• Are they staying long enough to offset your investment in them?

Source:
Loyalty and the Bottom Line
by Carol Orsag Madigan
Business Finance, February 1999

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• Do we agree that empowerment is a key ingredient in our continued success? If so, why? If not, why not?
• Does our performance review process support or hinder participation and commitment of all staff?
• Do we compensate and promote those who embody the values we espouse?
• Do our communication channels promote or inhibit free exchange of information and ideas between individuals and departments?
• What informal messages do people receive about our culture? What impact does this have on productivity and morale?
• What do we suppose employees say about our organization when we aren’t in the room?
• Once people are trained and have proven their competency, do we have the courage to trust them?
• What happens when someone takes an educated risk and fails?

Source:
Thoughts on Empowerment
by Rick Maurer
CEO Refresher

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