Are the Right People in the Right Seats?
Examine one role at a time: its outcomes, conditions, work evidence, team interfaces, and capacity. Bring the employee’s perspective into a confidential discussion before making decisions.
What work must this role deliver?
Confirm what the organization needs from the role before reviewing a person against it.
What must someone bring to this seat?
Name up to three essential capabilities. Set the level the work needs, then compare it with specific evidence. The prompts below are examples. Confirm the job-related requirements for your organization.
Level 3 = independently handles normal work. Level 4 = handles complex work and guides others. “Required now” means the work needs qualified coverage today; it is not a verdict about the person.
Can the person succeed in this seat?
Rate the current role design, not the person. Leave unknown items blank.
1 = frequently blocked · 2 = inconsistent support · 3 = workable · 4 = reliably supported.
What does the evidence show?
Use specific work samples and observations across situations, with the employee’s perspective.
1 = rarely demonstrated · 2 = inconsistent/developing · 3 = consistently sufficient · 4 = strong and repeatable. Unknown is a valid answer.
Which behaviors matter here?
Select one or two work behaviors or enter your own. If your organization has defined values, translate them into observable job-related actions. Do not score vague “culture fit.”
How does this seat work with the existing team?
Look for complementary work, clear interfaces, backup, and the ability to raise concerns early. Base this on the work, not social similarity or personality.
These ratings describe team processes and support. They do not measure whether someone is “like us.” Unknown is preferable to guessing.
What must be stronger before you add complexity?
Map the work across People, Process, Systems, and Decision Rights. Hear from the people doing the work before locating a problem in one person.
Work already underway
Inventory the actual work product and next owner. Keep existing initiatives in the map instead of starting over.
Neuroscience-informed facilitator prompts
- Where are we using human memory and vigilance as infrastructure?
- Which work creates unnecessary cognitive load because ownership, sequence, or decision rights are unclear?
- Where does the organization depend on one person as the nervous system of a process, and what would need to be externalized into the system?
- If volume increased tomorrow, where would stress narrow attention and make errors more likely?
Use these prompts in a facilitated discussion. Capture actual examples, owners, and work products before making changes.
What will change, and when?
Review the proposed paths below, then make an agreement with an owner and a date.
A possible 30/60/90 day plan
The person this seat needs
Team integration plan
Infrastructure priorities
From seat review to a 90-day operating plan
This draft identifies what your organization would own and where Kelly could help execute. Scope, fees, participants, confidentiality, and deliverables require a separate agreement. Your leadership and HR retain personnel decisions.
What this assessment draws from
The questions are informed by established sources. The role prompts and generated plans are illustrative; this site has not been validated as a personnel selection instrument.
- O*NET Content Model: a structure for job tasks, work activities, knowledge, and skills. Your organization must confirm the actual requirements for each seat.
- Salas, Sims & Burke (2005): teamwork research describes coordination, backup, adaptability, and shared understanding. These inform the team process questions.
- Edmondson (1999): research on speaking up, asking for help, and team learning informs the issue escalation prompt.
- EEOC selection guidance: confirm job related criteria and evaluate any use in employment decisions with your HR team.