The framework · Business Operations
16 People & Talent
11 sub-categories. The three numbers on each are the typical opportunity in that area across businesses — not your result.
Time6.8/10Financial7.5/10Automation6.2/10
These three numbers are researched cross-business benchmarks for the area — the typical opportunity available in it. They are not your score, not a forecast, and not a promise. What is actually critical depends on your business, which is what the audit is for.
16.1Roles and responsibilities
Time7/10Financial7/10Automation5/10
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- What this is
- Who is responsible for what, written down and current.
- Why it matters
- Unclear responsibility is the most common cause of work falling through gaps, and of two people doing the same thing. It also makes performance impossible to discuss fairly.
- You have a problem here if
- Tasks are assigned by who is available rather than by whose job it is.
- What to automate
- Low automation potential — this is organisational design. Keep the responsibility map in one accessible place and review it whenever someone joins or leaves; automate only the reminder to do so.
16.2Required skills
Time6/10Financial8/10Automation5/10
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- What this is
- The capabilities the business needs, against the ones it has.
- Why it matters
- Skill gaps show up as slow delivery and quality problems long before anyone calls them skill gaps. Naming them turns a vague frustration into a hiring or training decision.
- You have a problem here if
- Certain work waits for one specific person because nobody else can do it.
- What to automate
- Maintain a simple skills matrix and automate the gap and single-point-of-failure report. Deciding whether to buy, build or outsource a capability is a management call.
16.3Recruitment
Time8/10Financial7/10Automation8/10
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- What this is
- How you find, assess and hire people, and how deliberate that process is.
- Why it matters
- A bad hire in a small business is disproportionately expensive — in salary, in management time, and in the customers affected while it plays out.
- You have a problem here if
- Hiring starts when someone leaves and finishes as fast as possible.
- What to automate
- High automation fit on the mechanics: job posting, application tracking, screening against defined criteria, scheduling and communication with candidates. Keep assessment human and structured — automated screening trained on your past hires will reproduce your past mistakes.
16.4Onboarding
Time9/10Financial7/10Automation9/10
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- What this is
- How a new person gets from first day to fully productive.
- Why it matters
- Nine for time. Onboarding is where the cost of hiring is either recovered quickly or bled slowly, and it is usually improvised.
- You have a problem here if
- New starters spend their first week working out who to ask.
- What to automate
- Very high automation potential: a structured plan with scheduled tasks, access and equipment provisioning triggered on start date, training assignments and check-ins. Build it once and every subsequent hire is faster.
16.5Training/development
Time8/10Financial7/10Automation7/10
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- What this is
- How people build capability after they arrive.
- Why it matters
- Training is what allows delegation, and delegation is what releases owner time. It is also one of the strongest retention factors for good people.
- You have a problem here if
- Development happens only when someone requests it.
- What to automate
- Automate the scheduling, assignment, tracking and reminders; the coaching itself is human. Tie training directly to the skills-matrix gaps so it is targeted rather than generic.
16.6Performance management
Time7/10Financial8/10Automation6/10
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- What this is
- How performance is set, discussed and acted on.
- Why it matters
- Without a rhythm, performance problems are tolerated until they become resignations or dismissals, both expensive. Good performers also go unrecognised.
- You have a problem here if
- Performance conversations happen when there is a problem.
- What to automate
- Automate the cadence, the record and the objective data that feeds the conversation. The conversation is the point and cannot be delegated to software.
16.7Productivity
Time8/10Financial9/10Automation7/10
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- What this is
- What people actually produce relative to the resource they cost.
- Why it matters
- Productivity per person is the number that tells you whether growth is compounding or just getting bigger. It is also where operational improvements show up.
- You have a problem here if
- Revenue per employee has been flat or falling as the business has grown.
- What to automate
- Automate the measurement at team and business level. Be careful: individual productivity metrics applied without judgement damage collaboration and encourage the wrong behaviour.
16.8Compensation/reward
Time5/10Financial7/10Automation5/10
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- What this is
- How people are paid and rewarded relative to the market and to their contribution.
- Why it matters
- Pay is rarely the reason good people join and frequently the reason they leave. Getting it approximately right removes a distraction; getting it wrong is expensive in turnover.
- You have a problem here if
- You do not know how your pay compares to the local market for your key roles.
- What to automate
- Modest. Benchmark data gathering and payroll administration automate well; the reward structure is a judgement about behaviour and fairness that should not be outsourced to a formula.
16.9Retention
Time7/10Financial8/10Automation6/10
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- What this is
- Keeping the people you would be damaged by losing, and knowing who they are.
- Why it matters
- Turnover costs recruitment, lost productivity, and the knowledge that leaves with the person. In a small team, one departure can remove a capability entirely.
- You have a problem here if
- Good people leave and the reason is discovered afterwards, if at all.
- What to automate
- Automate the signals — tenure, engagement responses, absence and workload patterns — into a simple risk view, and run structured exit interviews recorded consistently. Acting on the signal is management work.
16.10Succession
Time4/10Financial7/10Automation3/10
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- What this is
- What happens to each critical role if the person in it leaves.
- Why it matters
- Succession is low-urgency and high-consequence, which is why it is almost universally deferred. It is also directly linked to whether the business can be sold.
- You have a problem here if
- For at least one role, the honest answer to "what if they left tomorrow?" is that things would stop.
- What to automate
- Barely automatable — three out of ten. The one mechanism that helps is systematic documentation and cross-training, which is a deliberate programme rather than a tool. Start with the role whose absence would hurt most.
16.11Workforce planning
Time6/10Financial7/10Automation7/10
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- What this is
- Matching the people you will have to the work you expect.
- Why it matters
- Reactive hiring is expensive and slow; it also means capacity arrives after the demand that needed it. Planning converts panic hiring into scheduled hiring.
- You have a problem here if
- Hiring decisions are made in the month they become urgent.
- What to automate
- Combine pipeline forecast and capacity data into a forward staffing view, refreshed automatically. It will not be exactly right, but it converts a surprise into a lead time.
Category totals
Time 75/110 · Financial 82/110 · Automation 68/110. The sum is the official roll-up; the averages above exist so categories of different sizes can be compared.