A Framework for Performance

A manager must firstly ensure that the employee knows specifically what their role purpose is. In the case of a sales representative, for example, the purpose of the role is to ensure that the sales of the products that the representative is responsible for achieve or exceed their agreed targets. Within this general role purpose, the manager should outline the various Performance Areas that constitute the role and in the case of the sales representative, these could be areas that cover the following:

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• Sales - Amount of product sold versus agreed target.
• Activity - The number of calls achieved per target customer group versus agreed target. This could be a mixture of face to face calls, meetings, exhibitions etc.
• Budgets - Are marketing, customer, or PR budgets utilised effectively and kept within an agreed amount.
• Projects - How the representative performs whilst working in set projects.

It may be that each of these areas is "weighted" in that each PA will have a certain level of importance in relation to the overall business. In my experience, Sales usually has the greatest weighting (anything from 50- 90%) and that projects have the least.

Performance Areas are strictly only "groupings" of what are termed objectives and it is these objectives that should be the focus of the representative and they should be structured in such a way to ensure clear understanding of what has to be achieved.

The best structure I have seen used is that of the C-SMART structure where:

C - Challenging
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable
R - Relevant
T - Timed


A manager must take time to ensure that every objective follows the C-SMART guidelines. Only this way will clarity and specificity be achieved. If we look at some examples of C-SMART objectives in relation to the Performance Areas then you might see the following for a sales representative:

Performance Area	Objectives	Measures	Timescales
Sales	To achieve 100% of target of product X	Monthly Sales	Quarterly
	To achieve 100% of target of product Y	Monthly Sales	Quarterly
	To achieve 100% of target of product Z	Monthly Sales	Quarterly
Activity	To achieve agreed target of GPs – 1:1	Weekly Reports	Quarterly
	To achieve agreed target of GPs – Meetings	Weekly Reports	Quarterly
	To achieve agreed target of GPs – exhibitions	Weekly Reports	Quarterly
	To achieve agreed target of Practice Nurses	Weekly Reports	Quarterly
Budgets	To achieve /- 5% of marketing budget	Monthly Financial Reports	Quarterly
	To achieve /- 5% of customer budget	Monthly Financial Reports	Quarterly
	To achieve /- 5% of exhibition budget	Monthly Financial Reports	Quarterly
Projects	To achieve specific objectives in relation to project plan	As Agreed	As agreed

The above table is simplistic but covers the main responsibilities of the average General Practice Sales Representative. It is important that these objectives are set as early in the financial year as possible and that the representative has an input into the actual numbers relating to the objective. Simply dictating the numbers with little or no consultation is weak management and only results in de-motivation.

The trick for the manager is to ensure that the representative has an input and that this ensures ownership of the objectives. The manager then must review how the representative is progressing against their objectives on a regular basis both informally on field visits and formally in set review sessions, preferably every quarter but at least twice a year. The sales representative must be motivated to continually review their progress against the objectives and the manager must take time to challenge and support progress ensuring that the representative stays on track throughout the year. The aim should be that when it comes to the year end appraisal, there are no surprises and that the representative has achieved all their agreed objectives. This way, the company hits its results and the representative and the manager achieve their bonus!

The manager who only does the year end appraisal with little informal or formal review of objectives during the year must surely have their own objectives reviewed, and in the case of any objectives relating to reviews, have these marked with "Failed"!