Six Sigma HR

Six Sigma is a management technique that seeks to drive defects to less than 3.4 defects per
million. Defects are defined as any non-conformance to customer specifications. Once the
causes of defects are identified, processes are modified to avoid the causes. However, many
companies fail to have systems and processes to assure the human performance component of
the processes!

PerformanceWare and the other Roster Network products and services create the
opportunity to optimize your hiring and other HR processes to support Six Sigma or
other quality system initiative with technologies and processes for...
• Understandable, objective and measurable position requirements and
performance standards
• Hiring and candidate selection processes driven by the position requirements
• Identifying leaders for management positions
• Effective, objective and accurate performance appraisals
• Focusing training and development programs on specific position
requirements and individual performance
• Integrating individual performance with overall performance and quality
management system
• Eliminating waste and inefficiencies
• Tracking and measuring continuous improvement in your HR processes
Assuring the quality and effectiveness of your hiring and HR processes will improve the quality
and profitability of your entire organization! No matter how automated your processes, people
still make sales, design the products, program and maintain robotics, provide customer service
and develop continuous improvement. Having the right people with the right training in the right
job who are held accountable to specific job standards will do more than anything to improve
quality and profitability.

Six Sigma HR - Measurable Position Requirements

To hire the right person for a position, it is essential to define what a person must do in support
of each process. Most job descriptions are woefully inadequate for Six Sigma or other
performance management systems. They often consist of a jumble of personality traits,
undefined objectives and general responsibilities and accountabilities that fall short of concisely
defining, documenting and communicating what people actually do in measurable terms.
Without this information, employees cannot be objectively selected, trained, managed and
reviewed.

The Position Matrix Communication System and PerformanceWare provide objective

and measurable position requirements that integrate fully into your performance
management system for objective and measurable...

• Goals • Specific work

activities
• Tools and
processes used • Levels of
 responsibilities
• Impacts on
others • Position
challenges

By defining, documenting and communicating what employees do in a measurable way with

the Position Matrix Communication System and PerformanceWare, individual performance
can be quantified and measured in terms of something other than vague and fuzzy monetary
amounts, responsibilities and accountabilities, turnover rates, employee opinion surveys and
other well-meaning but generally useless standards for measuring the effectiveness of HR.

The Position Matrix

Communication System
A management system that starts with these essential features:
1. Objective Job Descriptions

2. Objective Performance Appraisals

3. Objective Physical, Mental and Environmental Performance

Demands for ADA compliance.

4. Minimum Education, Training and Experience Requirements

5. A Metric is nothing more than a standard measure to assess

your performance in a particular area, as well as a summation of
all the different activities and processes that are given to attain a
standard of performance.

The Position Matrix defines, documents and Performance appraisals are easy
communicates in measurable terms the and fair when the position is
specific... objectively defined and ADA
compliance is much easier.
• Metric Goals of Supervisor
• Metric Goals of Employee
The Project Matrix provides the
• Organizational Chart same level of detail for teams, other
• Macro and Expanded Work work groups and projects.
Activities
• Tools and Processes used
Including Process Mapping
• Level of Responsibility
• Key Impacts of work
• Position Challenges
 • Minimum Position Requirements
• All Performance demands

The Position Matrix is the starting point for

our Performance Management
Documentation Facilitation, the process
we use for developing manuals,
documentation and systems and
implementing PerformanceWare for ISO
9000, Knowledge Management and other
performance and quality management
applications.

What is a Position Matrix?

Click to see a Position Matrix Form or a Completed Position Matrix and Performance
Appraisal

The concept of the Position Matrix Communication System is simple and straight forward. The
Position Matrix is a one page living document that creates an objective and comprehensible job
description. The employee, his supervisor and the persons affected by his work all commit to
that job description and then follow it with periodic appraisals which evaluate the employee’s
performance against that description. The forms are easy to use and flexible so that the
description of the job can change with the needs of the company. Finally, the Position Matrix
record is maintained as a memorialization of the performance requirements of the job and the
employee’s performance as measured against those requirements.

The Position Matrix is a dynamic tool. It will change as often as job responsibilities change. It
is not to be completed, filed, and forgotten until next year, but should be used constantly as a
checklist to ensure the position incumbent is accomplishing key goals; and it should be
modified as those goals change and as new opportunities arise. Accordingly, the Position
Matrix is a tool to promote true empowerment of employees. They should be encouraged to
change their Position Matrix as often as need be. If they develop a better way to do something
or see a new way to add value, all they have to do is revise their Position Matrix and get their
supervisors and key impacts (those co-workers affected by their work) to agree to the change.

Six Sigma HR - Hiring and Candidate Selection Tools

If a company can't objectively and measurably define what a person is to do in a given position,
how can it identify and hire the right person for the position? Unspecific individual performance
standards lead to...

• Inefficient • Putting the

recruiting process wrong person in
that waste HR and the position
hiring managers'
• Poor
time
performance
• Employment
• Ineffective
discrimination
training and
 claims development
• Poor product
or service quality

We have developed a unique Position Matrix based technology to identify and screen
candidates based on their objective experiences with the specific individual position
requirements for each position. This system identifies the right person for the position in an
objective and measurable way!

Hiring and interviewing procedures, checklists and forms which are designed to promote
objectivity, measurability and legal compliance are found inMeetingBusinessNeeds.com, our
on-line source of performance management systems and procedures.

These technologies and systems can be used by your staff or you can outsource the process to
our professional search and recruiting division.

Six Sigma HR - Identifying Leaders for Management

One of the greatest mistakes companies make is to promote their best technicians or
performers into management positions when these persons are not qualified for
the management aspects of the position. After all, the skills of a technician are far different
from those of a manager. Yet companies make this most fundamental mistake over and over
with the end result that it is estimated that 60 - 70% of managers are incompetent.

Our systems and services assure the right persons are hired or promoted to
management positions by ...

• Identifying the individuals with the requisite skills for the position as defined,
documented and communicated by our Hiring and Candidate Selection Tools as
noted in the prior screen
• Evaluating the attitudes, interests and motivations of management candidates
through proven and validated personality assessments
• Identifying the training needed to develop the individual to meet the
performance standards demanded in the next position

If the manger is incompetent or otherwise not up to the task, the company is wasting his or her
salary and achieving far less than optimum performance from the people reporting to the
manager! All of this leads to poor quality and profitability and yet can be avoided when the
same proven concepts which have been applied for years in the production quality systems are
applied to the hiring process!

Six Sigma HR - Objective Performance Appraisals

Employees cannot achieve Six Sigma in their positions if they are not doing what they are
supposed to do! It seems like an obvious premise, but most HR systems simply do not provide
this information in an objective performance appraisal based upon specific performance
standards for the position. HR must rise to the challenge and achieve Six Sigma in
performance appraisals.
As you have already seen, a good performance appraisal process has to start with good
measurable position requirements. If a company hasn't defined what an employee is to do in
measurable terms, how can a manager determine whether or not he or she has succeeded in
the position? It is not enough to measure whether the employee hit an overall goal such as
sales and production. He or she may have been shortcutting something else (like quality or
customer service, for example) to get there. To achieve the continuous improvement mandated
by Six Sigma, ISO 9001:2000 and other performance management systems, the position
requirements must be broken down into measurable goals and activities for all aspects of the
position!

The Position Matrix Communication System and PerformanceWare provide the ability
to...

• Objectively measure all aspects of an individual's performance

• Relate and integrate this performance into the overall performance
management effort

To embed continuous improvement into each individual, they must initiate their own
performance appraisals with a self appraisal. The next step is an appraisal by the individuals
impacted by their work as identified by the Position Matrix. The supervisor then reviews both
appraisals and completes his or her appraisal of the employees performance. When offered
the opportunity, employees will time and time again be more objective in their appraisals and
seize the opportunity for continuous improvement.

Six Sigma HR - Training and Development

How does an organization train an employee if it has not defined what the person is to do in an
objective and measurable way? The simple answer is they can't, yet companies waste billions
of dollars a year trying to accomplish this very thing! You have to start with the right person in
the position. Without productive employees doing what they are supposed to do, any Six
Sigma or other quality initiative is doomed.

The Position Matrix Communication System and PerformanceWare provide the ability
to...

• Hire the best persons for the position which simplifies and reduces training
• Identify specific training needs
• Provide training on specific work activities and tools and processes used in
those activities
• Objectively measure the outcome of the training
• Track training on an individual level

All of the above will facilitate on the job training that...

• Meets both the employer's and employee's expectations

• Grounds training in the reality of the job - not theory
• Generates a greater training return on investment
 Six Sigma HR - Overall Benefits
Six Sigma is an excellent process improvement tool, but once the process has been improved it
is essential to define, document and communicate the individual human performance standards
required by the improvement. People perform the tasks that comprise the process and to
improve the process, you must improve (change) what the employees do and how they do it.

The Position Matrix and PerformanceWare are unsurpassed as tools for defining human
performance in objective, understandable and measurable terms.

Only the Position Matrix and PerformanceWare...

• Integrate individual performance into an overall performance and quality

management system
• Eliminate waste and inefficiencies
• Track and measure continuous improvement in your HR processes
• Promote Six Sigma throughout the organization

Roster Network can provide the technologies, systems and training to achieve your Six Sigma
or other performance management goals. We can even develop data base applications
tailored to your specific needs to track your progress to Six Sigma throughout your
organization. If you like, you can outsource your entire HR function to us!