Who’s the stronger person: someone who can do the exact same work with less experience, or someone with more experience?
Performance benchmarking is a better approach for preparing a job description than putting together the standard list of competencies, behaviors, skills, experience, and academic requirements. The big reason: performance benchmarking doesn’t automatically eliminate people who are top performers who have less, or a different mix of experience. It also opens the pool to more diverse candidates, top performers from other industries.
The big idea behind performance benchmarking is to ask the hiring manager what the best people in the same role do differently than average performers. This criteria is then used to find, attract and assess candidates. Here’s an example of performance benchmarking in comparison to the more traditional skills- and experience-based approach. The job is for a distribution manager position for a well-known company currently posted on Indeed.com.
Traditional Skills and Experience Infested Job Description for Warehouse Distribution Manager
- Bachelors degree or equivalent experience plus a minimum of five years experience in related field.
- 5+ years progressively challenging experience and working knowledge of distribution operations, systems (e.g. WMS) and processes.
- 4+ years progressively challenging experience managing a medium-sized group of non-exempt employees and proven success motivating and mentoring direct reports to high performance standards, reinforcing team-building and providing feedback regarding job performance and conduct.
- Strong communication and leadership skills.
- Ability and willingness to work varied shifts.
- Proficient in PC based applications.
- Possess a sense of urgency required to work in a deadline driven environment.
- Proven decision making capabilities.
This company has about 50 distribution centers around the country. Following is the performance-based job description equivalent developed by benchmarking the performance of their best distribution managers:
Performance-based Job Description for Warehouse Distribution Manager
- Implement a Six Sigma approach for every phase of warehouse operations. As a result, consistently meet or exceed all annual budget and performance objectives.
- Update and constantly monitor performance metrics to ensure achieving a 24-hour, 100% fill rate with perfect accuracy
- Work closely with logistics and procurement to reduce backorders to less than .5% of all open orders
- Score the highest on job satisfaction and have the lowest turnover among all 50 distribution centers by developing customized personal development plans for every person in every department.
Based on the above, and assuming you’re the hiring manager, how would you answer these two questions:
- Is a person who has all of the experience and skills listed guaranteed to achieve the performance results listed? (Hint: of course not.)
- So who would you rather hire, someone who has the qualifications listed, or someone who could achieve the performance results defined?
If you were the job seeker, which job would you want – one doing more of the same, or one that’s more challenging, more important and one helping you personally grow and develop more rapidly?
