EFCOG Best Practice #1
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Title: Roles Responsibilities Accountabilities and Authorities (R2A2's)
Facility: Brookhaven National Laboratory
Point of contact:
Why the best practice was used:
R2A2's are developed to form an understanding between each employee and their supervisor regarding performance expectations, based on the employee's role.
What the benefits of the best practice were:
- An employee's R2A2 is the only comprehensive document that achieves the following;
- A clear communication of management expectations through the assignment of one or more roles for each employee, and the responsibilities, accountabilities, and authorities associated with each role;
- Employee understanding and acceptance of what is expected of them.
- Employee R2A2 are intended to be used to
- Establish, communicate, and document management expectations and employee understanding and acceptance;
- Form a basis for establishing employee goals;
- Form a basis for employee performance appraisals;
- Communicate and document changes in employee responsibilities during the course of a performance year;
- Identify training needs;
- Help determine employee job classifications;
- Inform job candidates about prospective positions;
- Assess employee workload so that managers can make staffing decisions.
What problems/issues were associated with the best practice:
Determining the level of detail and how individualized they should be.
Getting (some) employees to agree to sign the document. They were fearful of that the document might be used against them.
How the success of the best practice was measured:
All of the R2A2's were collected and evaluated for consistency and completeness.
Feedback from line management and staff during the course of goal planning and annual performance evaluations.
Periodic self assessments of management systems look at the R2A2's to assure that they are aligned with the requirements of the management systems.
Required annual review of the R2A2's by the staff.
A formal Senior Management/Human Resources quality assurance review was conducted to assure the R2A2's were properly linked to performance evaluations.
Description of process experience using the best practice:
Early on in the implementation of the R2A2 program there was some resistance and apprehension from the staff in documenting precisely what their roles, responsibilities, accountabilities and authorities were. As the program matured and the line
management and staff started using the R2A2's to assist in goal development and annual performance appraisals the benefits began to emerge for both the line management as well as the staff. An additional benefit was to help focus job training and qualification requirements so that
only necessary and appropriate training was completed, freeing up resources. The staff's level comfort level with the process is getting better as we approach the second revision cycle.
From an administrative standpoint, benefits are emerging from using the R2A2's as an attachment for job requisitions to help clearly define the job requirements and expectations as well as the compensation requirements.
Further information on the development of R2A2's and examples of generic R2A2's can be found at the Brookhaven National Laboratory Standards Based Management Web Site at
https://sbms.bnl.gov/standard/0x/0x00t011.htm
For further information contact Bob Kelly at kelly2@bnl.gov or Steve Hoey at hoey@bnl.gov
