Internal team discussion of Performance Evaluations

1. February 27, 2017
Jerry Sheehan, VP and CIO
University Information Technology
Performance Evaluations

2. Discussion Topics for Today
• Performance Evaluation Timeline
• Performance Evaluation/The Why and What
• Professional Development in UIT
• Performance Evaluation Management Debrief

3. Performance Evaluation Timeline
Friday, April 14th
All Performance Evaluation meetings with
managers and employees completed, and the
signed documents are turned into HR Rep
(Cass) for processing and delivery to HR
Employee Self Evaluations
due to Manager
Friday, February 10th
Friday, March 3rd
Manager comments to
be completed on each
employee evaluation
Director reviews all of the Performance Evaluations
in their unit – complete with comments and
discussions with managers. Performance
Evaluations are then returned to managers for
meetings with employees for final review
Friday, March 24th
(3 Weeks) (3 Weeks) (3 Weeks)

4. What is Performance Assessment
• A formal review process used to evaluate and support employee
performance against established goals. Allowing the discussion of goals
and accomplishments.
• A process that allows a leader to determine how the individual employees
are performing their jobs (based on goals and metrics).
• A powerful process/tool that leaders can utilize in providing employee
development to their direct reports.

5. Why Do We Evaluate Performance?
• *Performance is the measure of an employees value to the organization over time.
• *We are always evaluating performance, the performance evaluation gives us an
opportunity to take time to reflect on these assessments.
• It makes our management more transparent.
• *Performance is variant, large empirical sample looking at rankings showed only a 33%
chance of receiving same ranking the next year. At Facebook, the bottom 10% had a
36% chance of being in the top in the next year.
• It prompts us to engage in a discussion about work, to recognize effort, remediate
problems, and identify areas for growth. PE needs to reinforce our values.
*Lori Goler, Janelle Gale, Adam Grant, “Let’s Not Kill Performance Evaluations Yet”, Harvard Business
Review, November 2016

6. ITC Organizational Values

7. Performance Evaluation Do’s
Do’s
• Take time to prepare for the meeting with each individual you will be evaluating.
• Establish clear performance expectations and review annually with each
person. This means identifying specific actionable goals.
• Focus on the employee's conduct and job performance, not the employee.
• Recognize good performance, not just technical, behavioral, living our values.
• Discuss individual instances of problem performance when it arises and how the
problem should be addressed. If these rise to the level of patterns, talk about
the patterns.
• Develop written plan to address and follow-up.

8. Performance Evaluation Don'ts
• Move directly to punishment, this isn’t a “lowering the boom” conversation,
it’s a dialogue about raising the bar for our performance.
• Generalize from an individual problem to a group issue, the performance
evaluation is for the individual, it’s not a team ranking.
• Be general in either your praise or criticism, be specific and use the
performance evaluation to describe how these items create your
judgement of performance.
• Become involved in personal or non-work problems, you are evaluating
performance, not the person.

9. ITC FY16 Performance Evaluations

10. How Do We Level Set as A Unit our Rankings
• Rankings are only useful to the organization if they are applied in a consistent
manner.
• The HR buckets are only generally described on our performance evaluation
forms.
• Unacceptable performance-Performance does not meet expectations and
must be improved.
• Below expectations-Certain aspects of the performance do not meet
expectations and can be improved.
• Acceptable performance-Meets all expectations of the role and is a valued
contributor to the success of the departments mission.
• Strong performance-Performance is strong and contributes significantly to
achieving the department’s mission.
• Exemplary performance-Unequivocally superior performance.

11. Few Items to Consider as We Level Set
• Where would we assume that the performance of most individuals would
fall in UIT?
• If you haven’t ever received any comments about your performance would
you expect an unacceptable performance ranking?
• How important is teamwork to performance?
• Is a single heroic technical solution or overtime effort an immediate ticket
to being a strong or exemplary performance?

12. Listen for What We Need to Develop
• We have a weak culture of professional development, because the
questions haven’t been asked before, it isn’t clear to employees how they
should answer.
• It’s important that managers use active listening during performance
evaluations as a way to identify areas that we need to improve our
technical, team, or leadership skills as a unit.
• I’d like for us to consider a radically different approach to professional
development, not an investment per person, but a pooled approach
focused on areas that advance our organizational mission and values.

13. The Debrief
• For too long, performance evaluations have been once and done. We
need to break that cycle.
• I’d like to have a discussion session with this group after evaluations are
submitted. The goal would be to reflect on what we have heard. This is
much more critical input than another “user engagement” survey.
• Would like to use our debrief to identify our focus areas for skill
investment.

14. Employee Career Development
• The purpose for having regularly scheduled EE career Development discussions –
Help employees match their interests, skills and goals with development opportunities.
It is a 2-way discussion about the employee’s future and what role each of you play in
the process
• Every EE Development discussion offers the opportunity to recognize the employee’s
contributions. Being specific and relaying how important they are to the organization.
• This is an opportunity to validate your assumptions and ask questions like “ What kinds
of work are you most passionate about?” - “What types of rewards do you find most
motivating?” - “What do you like most / least about your job?”
• It is an opportunity to identify any gaps in the employee’s skill set and build plans to
close these gaps by development activities.
• Discuss any opportunities that either you or the employee have identified as roles, talks
or assignments. Discuss options and limitations with the roles they currently occupy.
• Agree on any specific actions you or the employee will take as a result of the
discussion. Set timelines and establish dates.