Performance Maps

Why a Performance Map?

Typical job descriptions don’t tie back to performance goals and have no form or measurement. Performance appraisals accelerate too quickly to results and don’t provide guidance for how to behave to be successful on your job. Realizing this gap, Starway worked to meld the two documents into one. That’s how the performance map was born. This proprietary document gets employees get engaged in the right, meaningful work that drives the business forward – and puts it in a language they understand.

Once created and loaded onto Starway, employees have access to their individual performance maps anytime by simply logging onto the system. This accessibility provides full-time transparency and proves invaluable during mid-year supervisor or self-reviews that help monitor and benchmark performance. New and existing employees alike have a clear understanding of what they should be doing and how their projects & efforts connect back to the company’s strategy. And with that understanding comes less ambiguity and, ultimately, greater employee accountability.

The performance map is a critical component to Starway, as it contains the consistent, relevant info that ultimately shapes the various Starway assessments.

Assessments

Starway uses the info gleaned in the Performance Maps to generate Self, Manager and Multi-point (or 360 degree) Assessments. These assessments are concise, web-generated online review forms that are personalized for each employees and evaluated against both behavioral and competency criteria to drive clear, objective feedback.

Starway assessments differ from others in four distinct ways:

	Connection back to strategy. Assessments include rating competencies and behaviors that tie directly back to their employee performance map, which tie directly back to the company’s strategy. This means the actual ratings reflect work that matters to the company. This connectivity provides a clearer view of how that employee performed, which leads to smarter decisions on org structure and talent management.
	Format & consistency.The clear-cut, consistent format of Starway assessments breed familiarity for employees (which reduces stress in the review process) and for supervisors (which makes their lives easier and aids in the efficiency and consistency of the review completion process).
	Tracking & reminder delivery process. Starway automates the follow-up process associated with these assessments by alerting employees via e-mail to complete reviews on time. From a monitoring standpoint, managers can quickly see the current status for each employee review by accessing an activity dashboard. This automated process minimizes hand-holding by HR and keeps assessments coming in on time.
	Efficiency, ease & brevity. Thanks to the brief format the typical assessment often takes just 20 minutes or so to complete -- versus the 1 hour or more often needed with hard-copy assessments. Managers now get to spend their time on accurate ratings and helpful comments – vs. confusing questions and convoluted criteria.

Types of Assessments

>> Self-assessment: The self-assessment tool enables employees to assess their own performance. In addition to this being a standard assessment for yearly reviews, supervisors have the flexibility to quickly generate a mid-year self-assessment if an employee’s performance needs improvement. These sorts of midstream checkpoints create instant dialogue and communication to get employees to a better place sooner than later.

>> Supervisor Assessment: Managers assess the same competencies and goals as the employee and co-workers. In addition, all of the assessment data populate the supervisors Assessment Summary Report.

>> Multi-Point Assessments: Multi-Point feedback is in essence a turbo-charged 360 survey. It places practical weights on feedback values while focusing attention on core competency descriptors and behaviors. This means it enables you to bring the quantitative and qualitative together for a holistic employee assessment - clearly translating for each of your employees what work is needed and how it should be done.

The multi-point tool enables employees to receive performance feedback from many individuals within their organization including managers, peers and direct reports.

With Starway's assessment tool, you

Hiring/Interview Guides

Starway Interview Guides are easy-to-follow documents developed in collaboration with you. -- and personalized for each employee position. These clearly-written guides direct your managers to ask specific questions that target the specific requirements to uncover the most qualified candidates. Instead of subjective, personality practices your organization now simply connects the dots in a methodic, consistent fashion -- to help uncover the behaviors and competencies essential for achieving a position’s requirements.

Report Generation

Starway’s functionality allows you to access and create actionable reports in the way you need them -- and for the tasks you are seeking to accomplish. Quickly run an excel report by competency in order to see who needs training. Or sort by completion/incompletion to quickly see whose assessments are overdue. The reporting system enables you to get a clear picture of each employee's performance history. With the click of a mouse you’ll quickly see which employee appraisal was the last employee appraisal -- and when the next one is due.

Automated Tracking/Reminder System

Starway sends out reminders to supervisor’s e-mails, creates the actual review templates (all ready to be filled out by supervisor), and then uploads the completed reviews back into the system. This automated process virtually eliminates the back-and-forth communication and hounding by HR that wastes time and leads to missed reviews – or no reviews. It eliminates the hassles of tracking paper, following up with employees via phone, and conducting one-off 360 surveys.