Accountability has become a hot topic of discussion in the workplace but what does it mean and why is it so important? Accountability is the responsibility of a group or an individual to account for their actions and results.
Employee accountability ensures that everyone is playing by the same rules and has a shared understanding of what’s expected. It encourages ownership, an essential ingredient for success in any organization.
Transparent and objective performance management practices can help build accountability by creating an atmosphere of trust and openness.
Here are some ways to build accountability through transparent and objective performance management practices:-
The Goals Must Resonate With the Organization’s Values, Vision & Mission
One of the prime steps to building accountability and trust is to align the team’s goals with the organization’s values, vision, and mission. This means we must clearly and frequently communicate what the organization is trying to achieve, why it matters, and how each team member contributes to it.
We need to ensure that the team’s goals are aligned with the organization’s values and reflected in the performance management framework. By aligning goals with the vision, mission & values a sense of purpose and ownership can be created, which helps them to see how their efforts and contributions impact the bigger picture of the organization.
Deployment of Corporate Scorecard
The mutually agreed corporate scorecard amongst the leaders lays the foundation for building accountability.
The scorecard should be Co-created collectively by the leadership team through an intense engagement with the respective teams based on real-time performance results of the current year, growth plans for the upcoming year while factoring for various challenges likely to impact the growth plan.
It is very important to deploy the annual corporate objective to the respective business units and functions.
A Balanced Scorecard approach in corporate goal setting tends to drive the strategic business units and functions towards a transparent approach towards designing the respective Key Responsibility areas. The four perspectives of the balanced scorecard (Customer, Operational, Innovation & Capability Development, and Financial) ensure leaders, teams, and individuals focus on the respective deliverables through quantifiable, challenging but achievable KRAs & KPIs.
All KRAs of individual employees to the last mile are linked to the balanced scorecard of their superiors thereby creating a linkage between the Corporate Scorecard and Individual scorecards of employees. This helps the team understand what is expected of them, how their performance will be measured, and how they can achieve their goals.
Performance Conversations
Once the goals are defined the most important aspect is to have a periodic conversation on the performance against the set goals. The process of a Mid Term Appraisal (MTA) plays a pivotal role.
It helps in tracking the progress of mutually agreed goals. The purpose of MTA is not to evaluate an employee for his or her performance level but to engage in a performance review dialogue to look back on the initial six months of the appraisal period and to plan for the coming six months of the appraisal period.
Similarly, the annual appraisal conversation between the employees and the respective managers helps empower the individual to develop a sense of accountability where the previous year’s hits and misses are discussed along with the performance plan for the upcoming year as well as the capability development path of the individual employee.
By involving and empowering the individuals through the conversation we can demonstrate our commitment to the holistic development of an employee.
The Role of Competency
Competencies are an integral part of a performance management system. Typically there are two types – Technical/Functional and Behavioural. These competencies can be further classified into different sets based on organization levels.
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Role-based competency proficiency maps also help in defining and articulating what behaviours are expected and what levels of performance are needed to achieve results which in turn helps to establish accountability.
They also help employees understand what behaviours and actions will be valued, recognized, and rewarded. Competencies also play a pivotal role in defining career development paths of employees.
Career Development Framework
Anything that is not upgraded periodically becomes obsolete. Humans are no exception to that theory. A well-designed career development framework presents guidelines for advancing and promoting employees within organizations and provides them with a meaningful career.
It also helps employees overcome barriers that can hinder their success and professional development and brings an enormous amount of clarity and accountability. Each role requires a specific learning that must be tagged with the grade/role enhancements.
Performance Linked Variable Pay
The performance-linked variable pay is one example that can make an individual accountable for their performance levels.
A performance-linked variable framework that provides focus on individual, team, and company goals helps to build a sense of ownership among the employees and it also strengthens linkages between individual and organizational results. This approach also helps to align the compensation with the business results.
Accountability is a key ingredient in a healthy workplace. When employees feel that they are held accountable for their work, they are more likely to be productive and take pride in their work.
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