Monica Walls is vice president of HR a Nexenta Systems, a Californian storage software firm with a worldwide presence.
Here she describes the steps she takes to ensure that the company’s core competencies are communicated worldwide using its performance management system.
1. Core values
It was essential to identify the core values and 10 competencies that made sense for our culture at Nexenta.
2. Understand
We developed an understanding of the factors that made up these core competencies and defined them clearly. We have ten in total.
Every employee has the same six:
- innovation
- transparency
- accountability
- aggressiveness
- business ethics
- managing customer focus.
The remaining four are based on position:
- individuals
- contributor
- manager
- executive team member.
3. Explain
We stated why these competencies are valued and important company-wide and explained in great detail how these ten competencies would make up employees annual reviews.
4. Transparency
We were transparent in our communication about the competencies and the fact that everyone is measured based on their embodiment of these competencies.
5. Demonstrate
We preserve and maintain these competencies as we grow – at all levels in the organisation. It is up to each of us on the executive team to demonstrate to our teams that we live by our core values and competencies.
