Since introducing its new performance review and recognition system in late 2009, Maroondah City Council in Melbourne’s east has seen a 47 per cent increase in its performance review completion rate.
The increase means the completion rate is now sitting at 93 per cent.
The RADAR (Review, Acknowledgement, Development and Recognition) program was introduced to increase consistency between performance and recognition across Council.
Prior to aligning the two programs, Council coordinated a series of employee and management focus groups to provide feedback on its current performance, development and recognition programs.
The feedback concluded that Council’s reward and recognition program should be aligned to the performance and development program and a business case was developed to align the two processes.
A Steering Committee was formed to review current processes, benchmark various models and to develop an alignment and implementation plan.
Over a period of seven months, the Steering Committee successfully developed, piloted and implemented a framework, including forms, guidelines and policies, as well as rebranding the process to ‘RADAR’.
RADAR now provides a consistent approach to evaluate employee performance through:
- setting, monitoring and measuring key
result areas - identifying, defining and measuring
key competencies (which align with
workplace values) - rating and weighting key result areas
and core competencies by whether an
employee demonstrates a consistent
level of competent behaviour - identifying gaps in skill, knowledge or
behaviour and using these as
opportunities for improvement through
the employee development plan.
The RADAR Program also contains a Workforce Planning component that enables Council to capture critical workforce data such as education, qualification levels, aspirations, lifestyle changes and transitions to assist in determining the need for strategies to support the workforce in the future in accordance with Council’s strategic priorities.
After extensive consultation RADAR was successfully launched with the support of a comprehensive training program for supervisors and employees.
Council’s Manager Human Resources, Dianne Vrahnas, said the program was introduced so that all employees would have access to a consistent level of reviewing.
"We wanted to develop a high level of consistency within Council," she said.
"We wanted our employees to be receiving the same standard of feedback and reviews from across Council that they clearly understood.
"We also had to look at industrial requirements to see what we needed to keep and what could be changed."
The program is currently gathering Workforce Planning Data to enable Council to better suit its employees.
"We are asking our employees how long they plan to stay with Maroondah, about their career aspirations, retirement intentions and whether we can support their transitions and skills through different employment options," Dianne Vrahnas said.
