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9 Box Talent Review: What Is It? How To Use It Effectively?
Published on:
December 23, 2024
Updated on:
December 23, 2024
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Identifying and nurturing talent is a crucial aspect of long term success for any organization. And in order to achieve that state, there are several tools available to companies that are amazing assets, one of them being the 9-box talent review!
This model is a simple yet effective framework that allows organizations to categorize their employees based on both performance and potential. It offers a comprehensive understanding of your workforce and gives you invaluable insight on how you can utilize that information correctly. So let's dive in!
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What is a 9 box talent review? As the name suggests, it is a grid-based method and it’s used to measure different levels of performance and potential.
It is convenient because it allows you to compare how your employees stack up on a single visual chart, in other words, you get a bird's-eye view of your team's talent landscape.
Furthermore, you can use 9 box grid talent reviews to develop an effective succession plan.
A 9-box assessment is a visualization of your team's talents and it allows you to quickly organize your employees into groups based on their performance and future potential.
A 9 block rating will help you open up conversations about future leadership, succession planning, and talent management. It's not set in stone but it sparks useful discussions.
The 9-box grid helps you and your management see who could be your future leaders and where to invest talent-wise.
9 box talent review is a convenient method of measuring your organization's talent pool but sadly it has some limitations and these limitations can create serious problems. Here are the most common limitations of using the 9 box talent review method.
A 9 box talent review has limited validity because the person who conducts the review can be biased. On top of that, the potential of your employees can't be objectively measured by it.
After all, it's not a reliable test used by psychologists. There can be unexpected variables affecting a person's performance.
When your 9 box talent review is not based on truly objective data, it won't yield reliable results. Therefore, KPIs and measurement metrics should be used when gathering data instead of using personal opinions.
When you use the 9 box talent review method, you are labeling people which can cause self-esteem issues. They might have to endure toxicity at work because their colleagues may perceive them negatively.
Office politics is a sad reality in any workplace and it has symptoms like favoritism and subjectivity. 9 box talent reviews can be abused if managers are playing favorites and are ready to label people they don't like as bad employees.
9 box talent reviews can lead to conflicts in the workplace because they can reveal office politics or biased attitudes. Your employees might also not be happy with their classification and it can create drama.
Meetings where you discuss the results of your 9 box talent review can be stressful for both employees and their managers.
Before we get to a detailed step-by-step on how to conduct your reviews, let's first consider how you can implement it into your workflow briefly. First and foremost, you'll have to define your criteria. Clearly outline what performance and potential is to your organization and utilize measurable KPIs and skills. From there, gather data on your employees, collected through performance reviews and feedback tools.
One you have this information ready, create your grid and conduct talent review meetings where you will bring HR leaders and managers together to discuss possible placements, mapping out your workforce across the nine categories you've set.
Last but not least, you'll analyze the results and develop an action plan to put the information to use. For example, you can opt to create development action plans for both high and low performance tailored to each category. Most importantly, once you have your steps ready, communicate transparently with your workforce. Let them know what's up and discuss their career aspirations for an even better tailored plan and don't forget to regularly review and adjust.
Let's go over how you can implement the 9-box talent review method step-by-step, together.
Before you dive into your 9 box talent review, it's a must to talk about what you will assess and how you will do the assessment with your team. This is especially important if you have fresh faces in HR.
While doing so, you should also provide example criteria you will use to put employees into categories based on their potential and performance.
It's time to evaluate how your employees are doing. In this step, you need to use performance expectations, goals, or both to rate the performance of your employees.
The questions below can help you reveal significant data points about the performance and potential.
Another important step in conducting a 9 box talent review is linking the growth potential levels with specific personality traits.
To do this, you need to determine the behaviors that are associated with high potential such as pursuing opportunities for skill development and actively seeking new ways to serve your company by requesting new responsibilities.
9 box talent reviews can be tricky since it's hard to categorize people and your biases can sneak in while categorizing. Therefore, you need different views that can provide you with an objective perspective about an employee's stance in the 9 box rating.
To avoid biases in a 9 box performance review, include managers and executives in the evaluation of employee performance and potential.
It's also a good practice to finish up one department before jumping to the next.
Once you've put employees into categories, you can now talk to the management and debate future steps. The topics you need to discuss with the management include:
Sharing the growth potential level to employees is not easy because you are putting them into a box (literally) so some companies avoid disclosing this important information.
Keeping them in the loop is important and this information can be critical for them to improve their skills. They might need this information to improve their skills by taking courses or making some other improvements.
However, you need to use a positive tone when you disclose the growth potential and convey the message that it's not a definitive result.
Another step of conducting a 9 box talent review is announcing an open position. You should avoid mentioning the potential vacancies and wait until the position actually opens.
Spilling the beans too soon can frustrate your employees and you may even lose your talent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6OqhjtPLa8
To have an effective 9 box talent review, you need comprehensive performance review software that can collect data about different employee performance metrics. You should keep in mind that measuring performance is a complex task and solely relying on a 9 box grid would be oversimplifying it.
You need to have comprehensive review software because there are so many performance metrics to measure. Thankfully, Teamflect has got everything sorted out for you!
The all-in-one performance management tool Teamflect offers some of the most powerful performance evaluation features available in the Microsoft Teams ecosystem.
As you use Teamflect to conduct performance evaluations, you will have access to essential data on all the distinctive factors that affect employee performance, including task completion rates, employee recognition, goal achievement rates, and 360 feedback tool.
You can use all of these functions together through Teamflect's integrated 9-box grid succession planning feature!
While implementing a 9-box review is a great practice, the framework is only as valuable as the accuracy and insight it provides and for that to happen, you must make sure you're approaching it as effectively as you can. To ensure you get the most accurate results, we have some tips for you!
As you keep these tips in mind while implementing the 9-box talent grid, you'll be able to seamlessly and effectively reap the rewards of this powerful framework.
The 9 box grid is a three-by-three framework that includes performance on the x-axis and potential on the y-axis and it's important to know how to manage the employees that fall into different categories in the grid.
Below you will find nine different categories that you will analyze when you conduct a 9 box talent review.
These employees are your rock stars and they deserve rewards and recognition. To make sure that they are happy in their roles you can do the following:
These employees have tons of potential but might not be hitting their peak yet. This might be related to not having enough time to fully grow in their position.
High potentials can be your future stars but you need to provide them with coaching or training opportunities to give them a push needed for career advancement.
Dysfunctional geniuses are employees who score low in performance but high in potential. These employees should be able to adapt to work easily since they have high potential. The expected interval to reach high to moderate performance is within six to twelve months.
To help them succeed you can communicate performance expectations clearly and you should also tell them that you believe in their potential, and they need to see that too.
High performers are already making meaningful contributions but if they feel ambitious, they need to join classes to improve their skills so that they can perform better. Strategies with high performers include:
These are your reliable employees who have potential for career advancement. You can bring core players to the right side of the 9 box grid by:
These employees who are also called inconsistent players have potential but their performance is poor. So, you need to analyze why they are performing poorly. To make sure you understand the reasons for poor performance you can do the following:
These employees perform well but they don't have potential. So, you can't promote them or give them extra responsibility. However, you should keep them content in their roles, because they're reliable.
Grinders perform well enough but they have low potential. So, investing in them might not pay off. However, you should give them a chance by:
If your 9 box talent review results indicate that someone is a bad hire, then you should try to analyze the potential roadblocks that prevent them from performing well.
It's important to remember that each employee is unique and you should approach them differently to make sure that they are succeeding!
While the 9-Box Grid may seem like it is just a bunch of boxes lined up in rows of three, it actually is a very versatile management tool.
Sure its overall impact has been diluted over time through constant memes and social media posts it has plenty of different use cases and applications in the workplace. We listed a few of them:
Succession Planning: The 9-Box Grid helps identify potential leaders and plan for future leadership roles, ensuring a smooth transition and organizational stability.
Employee Development: By pinpointing strengths and areas for improvement, the grid aids in creating tailored development plans, fostering employee growth and skill enhancement. It is a must-use in every employee development plan.
Career Pathing: The 9-Box Grid can be used to guide discussions about career aspirations and possible trajectories within the organization, aligning individual goals with company needs. This in turn results in your employees being aware of the fact that you see a future with them.
Talent Retention: When an employee knows that their organization has something in store for them, or simply sees a long-term future with them, their chances of leaving are decreased heavily. This results in high employee retention rates and low employee attrition rates.
Workforce Planning: Understanding the distribution of talent across the grid allows for strategic decisions regarding hiring, training, and resource allocation, optimizing the overall workforce performance.,
The 9 box talent review is one of the useful tools for organizations to assess and manage their talent effectively. They provide a visual representation of employees' performance and potential, and they create a bird's-eye view of your team's talent landscape.
Categorizing employees within the 9 box performance review process can be challenging. Therefore it should involve multiple perspectives to help maintain objectivity. To improve the effectiveness of 9 box talent reviews, you should use the most comprehensive performance management tool, Teamflect!
Teamflect can gather data on various performance metrics, including task completion rates, employee recognition, goal achievement, and 360-degree feedback, and facilitate a more nuanced talent review and also offers 9 box grid capabilities! With these features, you can objectively measure employee performance and avoid performance review biases.
If your ultimate goal is to create a workplace that promotes productivity and positivity, try Teamflect for free today!
An all-in-one performance management tool for Microsoft Teams
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