From Melody's Desk: Performance Goals & Development Plans

Happy New Year!  We are kicking off the new year by thinking about performance goals and employee development plans.  As I hope you all know, one of the finance division goals for 2015 is to “create a development plan for each employee including internal and external training offerings.”  To that end, I’ve asked Christina Landes from the Center for Leadership Excellence to write a guest blog post on how to do this.  You will see that in this issue – please take a look and utilize the great links and hints that she has provided.  And mention this to your co-workers who may not be checking in with the blog regularly.

Don’t forget to use Finance Division goals in developing your own goals and performance plans.  And, if you are a manager, in reviewing the goals of your team.  I have two suggestions…

• Include one goal for every employee that looks to “improve service, reduce inefficiency.”  Be specific by identifying upfront during the goal development exactly what process you want to improve.
• Include one goal or development activity that looks to “improve communication and transparency with internal and external stakeholders.” One suggestion is to plan to grab coffee or to lunch with someone from another area (ITS, UHR, Procurement) and use the time to brainstorm on a solution to a shared problem.  Informal conversations can often be more productive than formal ones.

Melody