Added due to popular demand, the 9 Box Grid is a simplistic method of managing talent and succession planning within Natural HR.  

Note: if you need to use a grid of more than 3 x 3 or you want to be able to control which records get included in the dataset (for example, an average of those in the last x months) then you can use the 9 box grid – Potential (custom) and 9 box grid – Performance (custom) fields. See this article for more information.

How will the 9 box grid help my business?

• Clearly identify high-flying employees - Using the 9 box grid, you can clearly determine which employees are performing well and have the potential to be promoted within your organisation (high performance & high potential). This will enable you to further prepare them for future roles.
• Spot areas for development – If your employees fall within the “middle ground” categories (highlighted in the orange areas) these employees may require further development in their current role to help them improve their performance. Likewise, if the fall under the ‘high potential low performance’ category, they may need to be reassigned to another position which best fits their skills and abilities. The 9 box grid will allow you to identify employees who require improvement in order to make them more valuable to your organisation.
• Identify any low performers-  Alongside being able to spot those in your organisation who require improvement or even promotion, the 9 box grid also allows you to identify any employees who are performing badly with no real progression potential, these are the types of employees who may be hindering the success of your organisation.  

How to I set up the 9 box grid within Natural HR?

The 9 box grid will be automatically enabled within the Performance Module of Natural HR.

Performance -> 9 box grid

Populating the grid is achieved through creating a Custom Review Form within the Form Builder tool.

To access the Form Builder, Go to:

Administration -> Company -> Form Builder

Select ‘Add’ and create a ‘Performance Review’ form making sure to fill in the relevant fields, whilst setting up the form we would recommend setting the field Status to Inactive. This can then be changed to active by editing the form once you are ready to go live with the form.

Input field information, select ‘9 box grid - performance’ field type and add this to the form.

Remember to also include an 'Assigned Employee' field in your form.

Repeat this process for the ‘9 box grid – Potential’ field type

Both of these fields contain values of Low, Moderate and High which correspond to a section of the 9 box grid.

Both of these fields will now appear within your performance review for a manager / HR user to complete on the behalf of the employee.

Based on the results, the ratings will now appear on the 9 Box Grid within the performance module. 

When using the "simple" grid option, the scores are calculated based on the most recent submissions of these fields for the employee.

For example, if an employee had the below values (assume the below are ordered from most recent to oldest):

Form 4 – Performance = Moderate and Potential = High

Form 3 – Performance = High and Potential = Moderate

Form 2 – Performance = Moderate and Potential = Low

Form 1 – Performance = Low and Potential = Low

In this instance, we would plot the employee in Moderate on the X-axis and High on the Y-axis so they appear in the top middle as they have moderate performance and high potential in the most recent form submission. The other 3 value pairs are ignored for the employee as they are "legacy" values.