Work Stream 2 – Recommendations to Improve Staff Accountability

The ICANN organization should improve visibility and transparency of the organization's existing accountability mechanisms, by posting on icann.org in one dedicated area the following:

7.1.1.1 Description of the organization's performance management system and process.

7.1.1.2 Description of how departmental goals map to ICANN's strategic goals and objectives.

7.1.1.3 Description of the Complaints Office and how it relates to the Ombuds Office.

7.1.1.4 Organization policies shared with the CCWG-Accountability during the course of the WS2 work.

7.1.1.5 ICANN Organization Delegations document.

7.1.1.6 The roles descriptions included in this overall report.

7.1.1.7 Expectations and guidelines regarding the development of staff reports for Public Comments, or staff response to Community correspondence.

Complete. Completed in Q2 2022. See implementation documentation.

The ICANN organization should also evaluate what other communication mechanisms should be utilized to further increase awareness and understanding of these existing and new accountability mechanisms.

Complete. Completed in Q4 2022. See implementation documentation.

The ICANN organization should enhance existing accountability mechanisms to include:

7.2.1.1 A regular information acquisition mechanism (which might include surveys, focus groups, reports from the Complaints Office) to allow the ICANN organization to better ascertain its overall performance and accountability to relevant stakeholders.

7.2.1.1.1 The group notes that several new mechanisms are now established, but have not yet been exercised enough to determine effectiveness or potential adjustments. The evaluation mechanism proposed here would be helpful in determining effectiveness of these recent mechanisms before creating yet more mechanisms that may turn out to be duplicative or confusing for the organization and community.

7.2.1.2 Results of these evaluations should be made available to the Community.

Complete. Completed in Q3 2022. See implementation documentation.

Consistent with common best practices in services organizations, standardize and publish guidelines for appropriate timeframes for acknowledging requests made by the community, and for responding with a resolution or updated timeframe for when a full response can be delivered. The ICANN organization should include language in the performance management guidelines for managers that recommends people managers of community-facing staff seek input from the appropriate community members during the organization's performance reviews. Identification of appropriate community members, frequency of outreach to solicit input, and how to incorporate positive and constructive feedback into the overall performance review should be at the discretion and judgement of the personnel manager, with appropriate guidance from HR as necessary. Such a feedback mechanism should be supplemental to the existing mechanisms available to the community to provide input on ICANN staff performance, including direct communication to specific staff member, their personnel managers, senior executive staff, Board Directors, and the Complaints Officer.

Complete. Completed in Q4 2022. See implementation documentation.

The ICANN Organization should work with the community to develop and publish service level targets and guidelines (similar to the Service Level Agreement for the IANA Numbering Services) that clearly define the services provided by ICANN to the community as well as the service level target for each service. In this context:

7.3.1 ICANN should work with the community to identify and prioritize the classes of services for which service level targets and guidelines will be implemented, and to define how service level targets and guidelines will be defined.

7.3.2 Develop clear and reasonable guidelines for expected behavior between the ICANN organization and the community for those newly identified activities.

7.3.3 Develop and publish the resulting service levels, targets, and guidelines in a single area on icann.org. These targets and guidelines should also inform any regular information acquisition mechanism described in Recommendation 2 of this report.

Complete. Completed in Q4 2022. See implementation documentation.