Guidance for Managers
On this page you will find some examples of how you might use the Career Sliders as a manager. These are just examples and not an exhaustive list. Use the sliders however you find them useful. There are no rules!
As part of a formal performance management framework
Annual performance reviews often centre around performance goals - i.e. the what an individual achieves. But we all know there is more to being a high performer than that. How an individual achieves their goals and approaches their day-to-day activities can be just as important.
Sometimes the how also forms part of the performance review process, but it can be challenging for managers to assess individuals in a transparent, fair and consistent fashion. This is where Career Sliders can help.
Whether or not performance reviews at your organisation include assessing how an individual goes about achieving their goals, you need a framework. Career Sliders can be used to help you frame conversations relating to the how over the course of the year and as part of a formal performance review.
To deliver difficult feedback
Having difficult feedback conversations with your team members is one of the more challenging aspects of being a manager. It’s a tough but necessary activity if you care about the growth and development of your team members. Having these conversations without a structure is even more challenging and here’s where Career Sliders can come in handy.
You can use the Career Sliders - any number of them, or just one - to help team members visualise and understand where they’re at and where you expect them to be from a behavioural perspective.
Check out this blog post for more thoughts on how to deliver difficult feedback well.
To set expectations for an individual
Career Sliders can be used to frame conversations around minimum behaviour expectations for a particular role or level. This may be helpful for newcomers joining your team, or for an individual who wants to switch to a different role or get promoted.
To set expectations across an organisation
You may wish to formalise Career Sliders and set expectations across your organisation. If so, you may find it helpful to align the Career Sliders to your company’s values.
Below is an example of how you might set expectations. Minimum expectations will vary from organisation to organisation. Set them according to what makes sense for you in your team, your department, or your organisation.
These, for example, would be my minimum expectations of engineers in my team. To give you some sense of levelling, a T6 would be equivalent to a Senior Software Engineer.
