Assessing People
From Individuals to the Whole Team
What's the composition of your team?
How strong or weak is it? If you scan across your team or teams - what's the overall strength of your workforce?
Uncovering Strengths, Gaps, and Potential in Your Team
Take a moment to step back and consider your team in detail.
Which roles are the most critical to success, and who fills those seats?
Evaluate not only performance—how well each team member is delivering—but also their underlying potential.
If someone is underperforming, ask yourself why: is it due to skills gaps, lack of motivation, or perhaps misalignment with the role’s core requirements? What specific development or support could unlock greater performance?
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Beyond current output, think about each person’s capacity for future growth: could they take on wider responsibilities, or are there clear limits? Are they highly motivated and truly committed, both to the company and their work?
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For every key position, reflect honestly: should you invest in their continued development, consider a promotion, or—even if it’s challenging—seek a high-impact replacement? Recognise those who are thriving (Good), watch closely those who need support or a boost (Observe/Develop), and take decisive action for roles where performance or fit falls short (Action Required). The decisions you make, and how you act on them, will shape your team’s future impact as much as your company’s culture and results.
Why Assessing People Matters
Most managers and many leaders don’t know how to assess people. They were never trained to do so.
Yet assessing people is the foundation for developing their potential and improving performance.
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The Complexity of Assessment
Assessing people can be complex, sometimes lengthy, and often distracting. However, unless you do it properly, you’ll fail to unlock their full performance and developmental potential. The seven steps shared below will help you assess people more easily and effectively.
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​Where To Keep This Information
You’ll also need to consider where to record your findings — and what to record. Some information may be personal or sensitive, and depending on your organisation and local laws, you may be restricted in what you can store. In some cases, it might be appropriate to make notes in your “to-do” or performance tracking system; in others, you may need to rely on memory or encourage the individual to record the relevant points themselves.
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Assessing During Hiring
If you’re making new hires, this kind of understanding can be developed during the interview process.
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Fitting Assessment Into Daily Work
Given you've got a day job to do, you can't just stop what you're doing and jump all in to assessing your team members - you've got to keep delivering to meet the needs of the business. The most practical approach to assessing your team members is most likely to be, to do so on an ongoing and ad hoc basis. For example aim to assess one person every week.
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For those people you’re actively looking to develop - such as people who have skills gaps, people who are underperforming or who you are working with to develop them to support their career growth, for example moving into a new role or promotion - then you'll want to be sure to have assessed them as part of this process - immediately, as part of that process.
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Managing Managers​
If you're a manager of managers, whilst you'll want them to assess their team members, you'll also want to have a reasonable level of visibility of their reports - how strong are their teams.
Assessing People
Made Easy In Seven Steps
1) How is the person performing currently?
How is the person performing currently? What general observations do you have about the person and their performance? Are they performing at a top level, average, or is their performance below expectations? Is the person new or established, and do they seem happy? How aware are they of their own performance level?
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2) What are their underlying competencies?​
There are 16 main competencies: Communication, Teamwork, Problem Solving, Leadership, Adaptability, Initiative, Planning and Organizing, Customer Service, Decision Making, Conflict Resolution, Creativity, Emotional Intelligence, Time Management, Technical Skills, Analytical Thinking, Collaboration. In practice, most people are skilled in 6 to 8 of these, reflecting their strengths and experiences. Has the person undertaken a competency assessment test? You may already have a solid sense of which competencies stand out for your employee, based on daily observation or results from formal assessments. Additionally, review their background—such as roles held, achievements, and development activities—for clues that validate your judgment.​
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3) Background and track record?​​​​
What educational qualifications and certificates do they have? Have you seen the persons CV or otherwise what can you understand of their past experience, their career trajectory or LinkedIn profile. How successful has they been, in what circumstances or environments, what's the scope and scale of their track record - and the context?
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Industry or market expertise – how well do they understand your sector, customer base or ecosystem?
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Functional experience – have they done the type of work required, at the right level?
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Seniority and scope – what kind of authority, decision-making, and team leadership have they held?
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Track record – what measurable results have they delivered over the last 3–5 years? Problem-solving ability – how have they tackled similar challenges in the past?
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4) Motivations, Goals & Developmental Needs​
What drives them, and is there a strong fit with your current stage, culture and goals?
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Different people have different motivations - ranging from ones they're deeply passionate about, others more modest. Such as maximising earnings potential or achieving top rankings to pursuing personal growth, serving others, or maintaining work life balance. The key is to understand what truly motivates someone in the context of their work and what they want from their career.
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In addition to motivations, it’s important to understand what they like and dislike doing most, and how they view their own strengths and weaknesses.
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Some people are ambitious and have clear career plans; others are not, or do not. Ask people how they wish to develop their careers and, similarly, what they'd like to experience in their world of work. On an immediate basis, what areas, if any, do they need to develop or improve to become top performers?
On a longer-term basis, what are their career goals? What capabilities or credentials do they need to gain to support their long-term aspirations? And how can you best support them?
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5) Personality type
As a manager, understanding an employee’s personality type is important because it reveals how they communicate, solve problems, and work with others, allowing for more effective coaching and team alignment. Different personality frameworks describe a variety of types, such as analytical, expressive, driver, amiable, and others like introvert, extrovert, conscientious, open-minded, or detail-oriented types. Other descriptions could include strategists, innovators or trouble-shooters - each with their own strengths and ways of contributing to team goals. You can identify these characteristics by observing day-to-day behaviour, asking about work preferences, and using established assessment tools or structured interviews to better understand each person.
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6) Ability to impact and emotional intelligence
How effective are they at getting things done? How conscious are they of what matters most within the role’s requirements? If you asked them to list the top five priorities, what would they say—and would their answers match your expectations? And what about the next five - priorities six to ten? How self-aware and curious are they? Do they demonstrate good self-discipline, a strong understanding of others, and effectiveness in relationship-building and getting things done through others? Are they sometimes too strong or too weak?
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7) Preferences & Priorities
Ask how they like to be managed. Different people like to be managed in different ways. Some will appreciate regular check-ins; others are more independent and prefer to reach out when they need support. Of course, if someone is struggling or has skill gaps, it’s important to take a more active and hands-on approach. Even those who value independence still expect meaningful contact from time to time—and, like everyone, they’ll want their efforts to be noticed and recognised.
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What's their preferred learning method? Some people like to learn on the job through doing, others like to work through courses and others through coaching or mentoring.
By having open conversations about these topics, you can tailor your approach for better engagement and growth. Ask on a regular basis: How are things going? How can I best support you?
Additional Points Of Reference
To Help You Assess & Develop People
How To Create A Job Spec That Actually Works
To assess someone effectively — when hiring, or in their current role or future potential — you need clarity on what you’re assessing for. A well-defined job spec makes evaluations sharper and more meaningful. That said, broader assessments still have value, especially when exploring development or career growth. Getting the spec right from the outset helps reduce hiring risk.​
ASSESSMENT -
YOUR PERSPECTIVE
Yearly, Quarterly and Monthly...
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​​Assessing performance starts with knowing what matters most. You need to identify your five most important performance metrics. These are your non-negotiables – the core outputs or outcomes that define success in the role. Anything else is useful, but secondary.
Once you’ve got your top five, measure performance against them using a clear, simple scale:
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5 – Excellent
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4 – Good
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3 – Satisfactory
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2 – Some gaps
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1 – Unacceptable​
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This gives structure to your evaluation and keeps it objective. You’re not measuring effort, likeability, or potential – you’re measuring output.
But performance doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s driven by skills and behaviours. Here are ten key contributors to performance – useful in any professional setting:
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Clarity of thinking
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Speed of execution
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Ownership and accountability
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Adaptability
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Team collaboration
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Communication
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Problem-solving
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Resilience under pressure
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Customer or stakeholder focus
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Commitment to improvement
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When someone’s underperforming, don’t stop at the score – ask why. What’s blocking them? Is it a capability gap, a mindset issue, or something else? Similarly, when someone is excelling, find out how – and whether their approach can be applied more widely.
Reviewing performance alongside these ten contributors helps you spot patterns. Each behaviour is influenced by several factors – habits, environment, skills, motivation – and when you look more closely, you’ll often uncover something you can fix.
Performance gaps aren’t always personal flaws – sometimes they’re training needs, workload issues, or process problems. But you won’t know unless you talk about it.
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Assessment isn’t just about judgement. Done properly, it’s a tool for understanding, learning, and improvement – for both the individual and the organisation.
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ASSESSMENT -
THEIR PERSPECTIVE
Coming Soon
In today’s fast-paced and ever-evolving workplace, achieving both individual and team success requires more than just meeting targets—it demands a clear, structured approach to performance and personal growth.
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That’s where a robust Performance & Growth Plan comes in.​ Designed to align employee ambitions with organizational goals, this plan provides a shared roadmap for success, clarity, and ongoing development.
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Find out more, here in our performance and growth plans guide in PDF format. NB this is a work in progress feature.