February 2000
INTERAGENCY WORK GROUP ON PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT REPORT TO THE PRESIDENT'S
MANAGEMENT COUNCIL ON MANAGING PERFORMANCE IN THE GOVERNMENT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Message to the President's Management Council
Premises and Principles Themes
Theme 1: Expect Excellence Communicate
Expectations Recommendations
Create a Climate for Excellence
Recommendations
Theme 2: Establish Accountability Hold
Supervisors Accountable for Managing Performance Recommendations
Include Performance Management
Outcomes in HR Accountability Systems Recommendations
Theme 3: Take Timely Action Intervene
Early Recommendations
Support Supervisors Taking Performance-Based
Actions Recommendations
Appendices
A.
Summary of Recommendations Theme
1: Expect Excellence Theme
2: Establish Accountability Theme
3: Take Timely Action
B.
Agency Innovations and Resources Theme
1: Expect Excellence Communicate
Expectations Create
a Climate for Excellence Theme
2: Establish Accountability Hold
Supervisors Accountable for Managing Performance Include
Performance Management Outcomes in HR Accountability Systems Theme
3: Take Timely Action Intervene
Early Support
Supervisors Taking Performance-Based Actions Additional
Web Sites
This report is available for downloading as
a PDF document [146 KB].
MESSAGE TO THE PRESIDENT'S MANAGEMENT COUNCIL:
We are pleased to present this Report to the President's Management Council
on Managing Performance in the Government. This is in response to your
mandate for actions and recommendations to address the issue of employee
performance management.
Our work group of human resources management executives concluded that
a report that could be shared with all Federal agencies would demonstrate
top-level commitment to excellent performance. The inclusion of concrete
recommendations and information on best practices provides practical assistance
for achieving excellence throughout the Federal Government.
Paul D. Barnes
Social Security Administration |
Vicki A. Novak
National Aeronautics and Space Administration |
Carolyn Cohen
Department of the Interior |
Evelyn M. White
Department of Health and Human Services |
Tim Dirks
Department of Energy |
Henry Romero
Office of Personnel Management |
Kay Frances Dolan
Department of the Treasury |
Steve Cohen
Office of Personnel Management |
Sharlyn A. Grigsby
Department of State |
Joyce Edwards
Office of Personnel Management |
Carol Harvey
National Partnership for Reinventing Government |
Premises and Principles
- The Federal workforce is comprised of dedicated, hardworking public
servants who strive to deliver value to Americans.
- As a result, Americans can expect performance excellence when the
workforce is engaged and involved in designing a results-oriented, performance-based,
and customer-focused system that delivers that value.
- Federal leaders and managers create a climate for excellence by communicating
their vision, values, and expectations clearly, and by:
- creating an environment for continual learning;
- working in partnership with employees to ensure they reach their
full potential;
- recognizing and rewarding excellence with financial incentives
and non-financial incentives, such as increased flexibility to do
jobs, more meaningful work, and achieving a sense of accomplishment;
and
- taking timely action to both reward and correct performance appropriately,
ensuring that excellence is the standard for all.
- Feedback from customers and employees, along with operations results,
will be the basis for credible and useful performance evaluations. Employees
are personally responsible for being results-oriented, performance-based,
and customer-focused, and for providing feedback that holds their leaders,
managers, and colleagues accountable for achieving excellence.
- Leaders and managers will work in partnership with unions to promote
constructive discussion about all aspects of performance management,
including improving employee performance.
- Leaders, managers, and employees have a mutual obligation to provide
value and excellence to America. This requires each individual to be
continually challenged to perform their best. Taking action to improve
the performance of each individual is imperative to achieving agencies'
missions.
- The President's Management Council - indeed the entire Administration
- is committed to pursuing effective performance management throughout
Government.
These premises and principles are reflected in three major themes.
For each theme, this report identifies opportunities and challenges, offers
substantiating evidence where appropriate, and makes recommendations for
action.
Appendices summarize the report's recommendations and offer examples
of agency innovations and resources for immediate application to improving
performance management in agencies throughout the Government.
Theme 1: Expect Excellence
Communicate Expectations
- Employees need a clear picture of what's expected of them, both as
individuals and as members of a team, if appropriate.
- Communicating clear expectations is an ongoing responsibility
for senior management as well as supervisors and team leaders.
- Employees should understand how their contributions - and their
colleagues' contributions - link to the organization's mission and
program goals.
- Performance plans for Senior Executive Service and General Schedule
employees should correlate directly to the agency's Annual Performance
Plan and other Departmental and component strategic and operating
plans.
- Agencies should monitor performance to ensure that progress is being
made and expectations will be met, making mid-course corrections as
things change. For example, under the Social Security Administration's
two-level performance assessment program, employees have noted that
mandatory informal discussions between managers and employees are the
best part of the process.
- Agencies that use balanced measures of results - operations results,
customer satisfaction, and employees' perceptions of their workplace
- are achieving real breakthroughs in how they plan and communicate
expectations.
- Shared performance expectations, established jointly through supervisors
and employees and management and unions working in partnership, lead
to greater understanding and ownership of the work to be done and improve
the chances for success.
What employees tell us: In the 1999 NPR Employee Survey,
only one out of four respondents reported that they had a clear
understanding of how "good performance" is defined in their agency. |
Recommendations
- Agencies should update their employee performance plans, using
balanced measures extensively and working with their labor partners
in a constructive discussion about effective, credible measurement.
- Employee plans should be linked to the goals of their respective
offices (e.g., as expressed in agency strategic plans and the Annual
Performance Plan under the Government Performance and Results Act).
- Agencies should emphasize monitoring performance and giving employees
ongoing, timely, and honest feedback (beyond a required progress
review) to help sustain and reinforce what's expected.
- The Administration should pursue changes to the performance management
statute that will emphasize improving performance and results through
setting goals and objectives for organizational, group, and individual
performance, as well as increasing flexibility for agencies to provide
rewards to employees to recognize and encourage improved performance
and results.
Create a Climate for Excellence
- Federal leaders and managers create a climate for excellence by communicating
their vision, values, and expectations clearly.
- Expecting excellence sets the direction.
- But getting there and staying there requires a climate - led from
the top - that sustains excellence.
- In an organization with a climate for excellence, high standards and
continuous improvement become the "norm."
- Those high standards keep everyone's gaze upward toward the horizon
and away from a bureaucratic minimum.
- By emphasizing excellence and improvement, performance management's
focus shifts away from simply labeling employees in a meaningless
ritual.
- Management plays an important role by recognizing excellence - quickly
and repeatedly - because recognition affects two sets of employees:
- The employees who receive the recognition, and
- The employees who observe the recognition and learn what is valued.
What employees tell us: In the 1999 NPR Employee Survey,
only two out of five respondents were satisfied with the recognition
they receive for doing a good job. |
Recommendations
- Senior management should provide visible support to their agency's
performance culture and climate for excellence (e.g., with a top-level
"performance counts" statement, as well as day-to-day support).
- Agencies must establish and communicate clear goals and develop
effective performance measures that are consistent and balanced.
- Agencies should make sure that the resources (technology, learning,
information) employees and their leaders need to do an excellent
job are available.
- Formal and informal recognition programs should be linked to desired
performance outcomes.
- Agencies should recognize that individuals differ in reaction
to performance management techniques and should permit supervisors
flexibility in meeting individual needs.
- Agencies should be committed to developing the tools and competencies
(i.e., knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes) that will let
employees excel; for example, by offering comprehensive training
and continuing professional development in essential employee and
leadership skills, as well as by maintaining a library of readily
accessible employee development tools.
- Agencies should consider establishing comprehensive leadership
development programs that assure a continuous supply of highly qualified
managers.
- Agencies should be committed to helping each other by sharing
their formal and informal performance management practices and experiences
through a clearinghouse at the Performance Management Technical
Assistance Center on the OPM Web site.
Theme 2: Establish Accountability
Hold Supervisors Accountable for Managing Performance
- Employees are accountable for being results-oriented and customer-focused;
in turn, they hold their leaders, managers, and colleagues accountable
for achieving excellence.
- Supervisors and team leaders must see performance management as
a central role, not a collateral duty.
- By "walking the talk," executives can model effective performance
management for managers and supervisors, for example, by starting
with an overall assessment of organizational performance.
- Supervisors' and team leaders' "excellence" in performance management
needs to be expected, developed, assessed, and recognized at least as
much as their technical excellence.
- Using balanced measures offers an opportunity to provide employee
feedback about how well their performance is managed.
- Managers should commend supervisors and team leaders for managing
performance well.
What employees tell us: In the 1999 NPR Employee Survey,
only half of the respondents reported that their immediate supervisor
or team leader was doing a good or very good job. |
Recommendations
- Agencies should share their successful practices and resources
that keep supervisors managing performance effectively.
- Agencies should emphasize training in basic performance management
skills; for example, by conducting intensive training for all new
managers, supervisors, and team leaders on giving performance feedback
and ensuring that all leaders receive updated training on performance
feedback at least bi-annually.
- Agencies should make managing performance effectively a central
factor in evaluating managerial and supervisory performance.
Include Performance Management Outcomes in HR Accountability
Systems
- The Government's Merit Systems Principles include the following performance
management principles that each agency is accountable for using its
human resources management systems to support:
- Excellence in performance should be rewarded.
- Employees whose performance does not improve to meet established
standards should be separated.
- The HR accountability systems that agencies are developing under the
leadership of the Office of Personnel Management should examine how
well the agency is achieving outcomes such as:
- Positive linkages between performance and rewards, especially
financial incentives;
- Positive improvements in systems that proactively prevent performance
deficiencies from developing in the first place; and
- Customer and employee perceptions that poor performance is addressed
and dealt with effectively.
Recommendations
- Agencies should establish tracking systems for performance management
data and interventions and use this information to improve the effectiveness
of their performance management programs.
- Agencies should examine how effectively performance management
practices are integrated and aligned in support of mission accomplishment
by examining and correlating agency information on Annual Performance
Plan results, SES performance bonuses, performance ratings of record,
and budget.
- Agencies should evaluate the effectiveness of their awards programs
and, as appropriate, re-engineer them to focus on rewarding and
publicizing tangible accomplishments at the individual or organizational
level that improve products or customer service or otherwise directly
contribute to achieving strategic goals and objectives.
- Agencies should share their success stories at reinvigorating
their performance management programs and practices, both formal
and informal.
Theme 3: Take Timely Action
Intervene Early
- Experience, particularly at the executive levels, indicates that resolving
a "performance problem" may be a matter of creating a better fit between
the employee and the role she or he is expected to perform.
- Some employees who fail to perform well may be underutilized,
and
- Some may be performing functions that grew out of job restructuring,
reassignments, downsizing or automation that the employees are not
prepared to perform due to lack of training, skills, etc.
- The old adage that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"
applies particularly well to anticipating the productivity impact of
introducing new technologies and to dealing with performance problems.
- When significant new responsibilities or technological skills
are added, training that precedes implementation can help keep performance
from slipping.
- It takes far fewer resources to identify and correct performance
that is starting to slip, than to intervene after a downward spiral
has continued over months or even years.
- Employees are often relieved and much more responsive to counseling
and support when it is offered early.
- Timely and concerted action gets the best results.
- Putting together a set of resources (e.g., from the training,
employee relations, and employee assistance programs, as well as
other staff offices and the line organization) can help the supervisor
identify, accurately diagnose, and address a performance problem
quickly.
What employees tell us: In the 1999 NPR Employee Survey,
only 28 percent of respondents reported that corrective actions
were taken with poor performers. |
Recommendations
- Agencies should share successful techniques for designing and
supplying proactive performance support, particularly in situations
where new technologies and job duties are being introduced.
- Agencies should share successful early intervention practices.
- Agencies should make the modest investment to provide supervisors
with more tools for at-the-desk, just-in-time help, such as the
interactive CD-ROM on resolving performance problems that is available
from the Office of Personnel Management.
- Agencies should work with unions to develop simplified, effective,
and fair alternative dispute resolution (ADR) alternatives to the
current statutory process for dealing with poor performers
- Agencies should share their resources, especially specific training
for managers to use ADR techniques and to overcome their natural
resistance to confrontation.
Support Supervisors Taking Performance-Based Actions
- Because performance problems are relatively uncommon, most supervisors
are not "practiced hands" at dealing with the full set of procedures
and require support from several perspectives:
- Many supervisors are convinced that they should be acting on the
problem, but are equally convinced that senior management will fail
to support them.
- A performance-based action is a legal process that has specific
requirements.
- Many supervisors have concerns about their personal liability.
- Most supervisors need some moral and emotional support to get
through what will never be a pleasant part of their job.
- Top management should commit the necessary resources and support;
any failure to do so will have a chilling effect on the agency's managers
and supervisors.
- The Human Resources Office must be ready and able to help; in some
instances this may require getting support from other agencies.
- Some agencies have streamlined their own internally-imposed agency
processes.
- Every effort should be made to improve the governmentwide process
for taking performance-based actions where possible, while maintaining
employee protections.
What managers tell us: In the 1999 SES Survey, nearly
one out of three respondents cited lack of upper management support
as the reason they had not terminated a poor performer. |
Recommendations
- The Administration should pursue changes to the performance management
laws that will simplify the process for removing poor performers
while preserving due process protections.
- Agencies should share successful practices for giving managers
and supervisors the support that leads to successful resolutions.
- Agencies should pilot multi-party (i.e., "SWAT" or "Rapid Response"
team) approaches to dealing with poor performers.
This report carries a simple message about performance management - in
the Federal Government, leaders, managers, and employees have a mutual
obligation to provide value and excellence to America.
The answers are within our grasp:
- Review and re-review your expectations so both manager and employee
will clearly understand what it takes to deliver that value and excellence.
- Establish a contract with your employee laying out those expectations
clearly.
- Develop the necessary performance management skills for coaching,
assisting, measuring, recognizing, etc.
- Provide appropriate ongoing feedback and follow-up, both positive
and negative.
- Reward the great performers, and move or otherwise deal with the poor
performers.
Leadership is the key!
APPENDIX A - SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
Theme 1: Expect Excellence
- Agencies should update their employee performance plans, using balanced
measures extensively and working with their labor partners in a constructive
discussion about effective, credible measurement.
- Employee plans should be linked to the goals of their respective offices
(e.g., as expressed in agency strategic plans and the Annual Performance
Plan under the Government Performance and Results Act).
- Agencies should emphasize monitoring performance and giving employees
ongoing, timely, and honest feedback (beyond a required progress review)
to help sustain and reinforce what's expected.
- The Administration should pursue changes to the performance management
statute that will emphasize improving performance and results through
setting goals and objectives for organizational, group, and individual
performance, as well as increasing flexibility for agencies to provide
rewards to employees to recognize and encourage improved performance
and results.
- Senior management should provide visible support to their agency's
performance culture and climate for excellence (e.g., with a top-level
"performance counts" statement, as well as day-to-day support).
- Agencies must establish and communicate clear goals and develop effective
performance measures that are consistent and balanced.
- Agencies should make sure that the resources (technology, learning,
information) employees and their leaders need to do an excellent job
are available.
- Formal and informal recognition programs should be linked to desired
performance outcomes.
- Agencies should recognize that individuals differ in reaction to performance
management techniques and should permit supervisors flexibility in meeting
individual needs.
- Agencies should be committed to developing the tools and competencies
(i.e., knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes) that will let employees
excel; for example, by offering comprehensive training and continuing
professional development in essential employee and leadership skills,
as well as by maintaining a library of readily accessible employee development
tools.
- Agencies should consider establishing comprehensive leadership development
programs that assure a continuous supply of highly qualified managers.
- Agencies should be committed to helping each other by sharing their
formal and informal performance management practices and experiences
through a clearinghouse at the Performance Management Technical Assistance
Center on the OPM Web site.
Theme 2: Establish Accountability
- Agencies should share their successful practices and resources that
keep supervisors managing performance effectively.
- Agencies should emphasize training in basic performance management
skills; for example, by conducting intensive training for all new managers,
supervisors, and team leaders on giving performance feedback and ensuring
that all leaders receive updated training on performance feedback at
least bi-annually.
- Agencies should make managing performance effectively a central factor
in evaluating managerial and supervisory performance.
- Agencies should establish tracking systems for performance management
data and interventions and use this information to improve the effectiveness
of their performance management programs.
- Agencies should examine how effectively performance management practices
are integrated and aligned in support of mission accomplishment by examining
and correlating agency information on Annual Performance Plan results,
SES performance bonuses, performance ratings of record, and budget.
- Agencies should evaluate the effectiveness of their awards programs
and, as appropriate, re-engineer them to focus on rewarding and publicizing
tangible accomplishments at the individual or organizational level that
improve products or customer service or otherwise directly contribute
to achieving strategic goals and objectives.
- Agencies should share their success stories at reinvigorating their
performance management programs and practices, both formal and informal.
Theme 3: Take Timely Action
- Agencies should share successful techniques for designing and supplying
proactive performance support, particularly in situations where new
technologies and job duties are being introduced.
- Agencies should share successful early intervention practices.
- Agencies should make the modest investment to provide supervisors
with more tools for at-the-desk, just-in-time help, such as the interactive
CD-ROM on resolving performance problems that is available from the
Office of Personnel Management.
- Agencies should work with unions to develop simplified, effective,
and fair alternative dispute resolution (ADR) alternatives to the current
statutory process for dealing with poor performers
- Agencies should share their resources, especially specific training
for managers to use ADR techniques and to overcome their natural resistance
to confrontation.
- The Administration should pursue changes to the performance management
laws that will simplify the process for removing poor performers while
preserving due process protections.
- Agencies should share successful practices for giving managers and
supervisors the support that leads to successful resolutions.
- Agencies should pilot multi-party (i.e., "SWAT" or "Rapid Response"
team) approaches to dealing with poor performers.
APPENDIX B - AGENCY INNOVATIONS AND
RESOURCES
Theme 1: Expect Excellence
Communicate Expectations
- At the Department of Education, Senior Officers' performance plans
are tied to the strategic goals of the agency and subordinate managers'
and supervisors' performance plans are being revised to support those
goals.
- The Department of Commerce will soon launch a standardized set of
performance measures for SES managers. Each senior executive will have
three standard elements consistent across the Department in areas such
as Leadership and Diversity, and two elements that relate directly to
the Department's or bureau's Strategic Plans. This will promote greater
linkages with more direct results being realized as well as provide
a method to assess and compare executive performance across the Department.
In addition, the relationship between financial recognition/bonuses
will be greatly enhanced.
- In 1998, the Department of Commerce conducted a review of linkages
between the Department's Strategic Plan, bureau operating plans, and
SES performance plans. This review concluded that a more consistent
approach, including balanced measures and direct Strategic Plan linkages,
was necessary. The result was SES 2000, an innovative program designed
to revitalize the SES within the Department of Commerce as well as strengthen
the corporate utilization of SES resources. SES 2000 emphasizes increased
executive development, improved succession planning and SES candidate
development, more robust SES performance management policies and practices,
and greater communications with the SES corps.
- Before completing SES performance reviews, senior officials at the
Department of Commerce convey to bureau leadership how well the bureau,
overall, has performed for the previous year. This information is then
factored into SES performance evaluations.
- The National Treasury Employees Union and the Office of the Secretary
and Administration on Aging (Department of Health and Human Services)
have just signed a memorandum of understanding for a pilot of a two-tier
performance evaluation program. Recognizing how critical feedback skills
are for successful performance management, the agreement calls for training
both supervisors AND employees in how to give and request constructive
feedback.
- At the Department of Transportation, a Balanced Scorecard is used
for measuring performance in many of the support offices including acquisition
and procurement, human resources, and real and property management.
- The Department of Transportation has adopted seven recommendations
from an Accountability Workgroup to improve individual accountability
throughout the Department including cascading the performance agreements
to all SES members in the department. The Department has a performance
management framework that links employee performance at all levels to
the DOT strategic plan.
- The Department of Transportation uses Performance Agreements linked
to the goals in the DOT Performance Plan between the Secretary and senior
officials and has regular monthly meetings between the Deputy Secretary
and Administrators to track progress against the goals in the agreements.
- At the Social Security Administration, senior executives' and higher
level management officials' performance plans are linked to key SSA
initiatives which are related to GPRA. Lower level employees' performance
plans are linked to the goals of their respective offices.
- The Department of the Interior has established a Performance Management
Council to guide the development of Interior's strategic planning process.
This group is composed of senior planning officials from each bureau,
as well as representatives from the Departmental management offices.
- The Bureau of Land Management (Department of the Interior) has redesigned
its budget development and execution process to be the main communication
tool with employees and managers of the organizational expectations.
By providing budget targets one year in advance, the field units are
able to negotiate their level of performance based on the available
human and fiscal resources and realign, if necessary, their priorities
and skill mix to meet the organizational needs.
- At the Bureau of Land Management (Department of the Interior), Senior
Executive Service personnel performance evaluations are based on the
agency's strategic goal areas, and lower-level managers' evaluations
are based on the SES criteria.
- At the Department of the Interior, Superintendents of the National
Park Service are evaluated, in part, on their performance against their
park-specific GPRA annual performance plan.
- At the Department of the Interior, the development of employee performance
plans has been streamlined. One goal was to restrict the construction
of detailed written performance standards to the small percentage of
employees who are having performance problems. [NOTE: OPM's legislative
proposals are specifically designed to facilitate this approach.]
- Performance contracts or performance agreements are negotiated between
the manager and the employee at NASA.
- NASA also uses an automated assessment tool that links an individual's
performance plan and accomplishments to the strategic plan and GPRA.
- Performance management seminars (3-day courses) are held at the Department
of State's Foreign Service Institute four times a year. Participants
learn to write and communicate clear performance plans, provide coaching
and feedback to improve performance; and conduct effective performance
appraisals.
- The NPR Report on Balancing Measures: Best Practices in Performance
Management, available on the NPR Web site, offers practical advice
about how to develop and implement balanced measures of results. In
addition, it provides extensive examples and contacts from the public
and private sector.
- A series of articles on Improved Performance Starts with Planning,
originally published in OPM's bi-monthly newsletter Workforce Performance,
are available at the Performance Management Technical Assistance Center
on the OPM Web site.
- OPM's "Measuring Employee Performance: Aligning Employee Performance
Plans with Organizational Goals" Workshop/Handbook covers an eight-step
process for developing employee performance plans that are aligned with
and support organizational goals from Results Act Strategic and Annual
Performance Plans. The Handbook, which is available at the Performance
Management Technical Assistance Center on the OPM Web site, provides
guidelines for writing performance elements and standards along with
hands-on exercises to give users a chance to practice their new skills.
Agencies such as the U.S. Mint and the National Institute for Standards
and Technology ensure that all their managers are trained in this method.
- Checklists for good performance plans are available on the OPM Web
site.
Create a Climate for Excellence
- At the Treasury Department, agency leadership identifies priority
areas and communicates them to the Department's Bureaus for action.
- The Department of Transportation provides Partnering for Excellence
training.
- The Department of Transportation flagship initiative for Learning
and Development encourages increased training opportunities and incentives,
including a budgeted employee training pool for 2001 equaling 2 percent
of employee salaries.
- The Department of Transportation has created "Team Excell," an employee
team committed to encouraging excellence throughout the Department using
the Baldrige/Presidential Quality Award criteria as a foundation.
- In 1999, the Department of Education began a program of 40 hours of
core curriculum training each year for supervisors, managers, and executives
in core competencies and management issues of importance to the Department
and its Principal Offices. In addition, all new managers are provided
training on the basics of supervision and provided extensive resource
materials.
- Based on employee surveys, the Bureau of Land Management (Department
of the Interior) has established a series of leadership management and
employee development courses, including a year-long Leadership Academy.
The "Leadership Excellence" spectrum of employee, management, and leadership
training is designed to provide complete and comprehensive training
centered around the 27 Senior Executive competencies established by
OPM.
- The Bureau of Land Management (Department of the Interior) has established
a workforce-planning framework identifying critical skill needs and
providing maximum workforce flexibility. The framework calls for each
state to analyze its current and future workforce needs and develop
a strategy - including alternative delivery mechanisms, such as contracting,
term appointments, and sharing scarce skills between different agencies
- to address work demands without increasing current permanent staff.
- The "Service First" collaborative partnership between the Bureau of
Land Management (Department of the Interior) and the Forest Service
(Department of Agriculture) formalizes the agencies' ability to share
scarce skills and leverage constrained operations dollars to meet the
public's needs and expectations. In the HRM Concept of Operations (www.fs.fed.us/servicefirst),
the BLM and the Forest Service have laid out the operational procedures
of how the two agencies in two different departments will share employees,
accept classifications, and jointly advertise positions.
- Numerous examples of agency practices and programs for successful
formal and informal incentive and recognition programs and other effective
performance management practices are described in OPM's bi-monthly newsletter
Workforce Performance. An extensive archive of current and back issues
and articles from this newsletter is available at the Performance Management
Technical Assistance Center on the OPM Web site.
- "Label-less" Performance Management Program - In an effort
to dispense with performance "labels" such as "Outstanding" and "Marginal"
which tend to attach themselves to employees themselves rather than
their performance, the Department of Energy Headquarters now uses a
performance evaluation program that summarizes employees' performance
as a numerical value. The value is derived by the rating official's
comparing an employee's performance of tasks identified for each element
(streamlined into very simple "action" statements) against four generic
"levels of accomplishment." The elements are weighted according to their
critical or non-critical status. The employee's score in each element
is multiplied by the assigned level of accomplishment; resulting scores
are added and then divided by the weighted number of elements. The resulting
value is the employee's rating of record. Both management and the union,
the National Treasury Employees Union, have found the new program allows
for equitable calculation of performance awards and allows the employees
to see the direct effects of their performance on individual elements.
- Multiple Progress Reviews Requirements - Department of Energy
Headquarters and its bargaining unit representative, the National Treasury
Employees Union (NTEU), are not only encouraging employees and managers
to discuss employees' day-to-day tasks and requirements, but also the
employees' role in the success of the larger organization. This will
necessarily require more communications-more instruction and feedback-than
under the previous program. Accordingly, the Headquarters performance
management program now requires that employee expectations be clarified
at the beginning of the performance period, and there must be at least
two progress reviews during the period. Progress reviews must be more
structured. At each progress review, the rating official must now discuss
how the employee's "tasks" (each element has a list of associated tasks)
have been performed over the past few months, what documentation supports
that performance, and what resources the employee will need in the coming
months to support and enhance the employee's and the organization's
performance. At the end of each progress review, the employee will be
given a non-binding feedback score on each element performed during
the progress review period.
Theme 2: Establish Accountability
Hold Supervisors Accountable for Managing Performance
- NASA conducts small team reviews of performance plans and assessments
to ensure that management responsibilities are addressed.
- The Department of Education has an automated 360-degree performance
evaluation system that includes all employees and supervisors, including
members of the Senior Executive Service.
- The Indian Health Service (Department of Health and Human Services),
as a way to strengthen supervisory skills, is retraining all current
supervisors (as well as new ones) in the core interpersonal skills so
necessary for good supervision. One large component of the Indian Health
Service has gone even further to offer interpersonal skills training
to the rest of their employees as well.
- In 2000, the Bureau of Land Management (Department of the Interior)
will have all SES and manager appraisals based on its strategic goals
and supplemented by a "360-degree review" for developmental purposes.
- The Social Security Administration is planning a competency self-assessment
that will include those skills and attributes associated with effective
performance management.
- 360-Degree (Upward) Feedback - Several agencies are using multi-rater
assessment techniques to bring their managers, supervisors, and team
leaders richer information about their performance. In some cases, the
information is used for developmental, rather than evaluative, purposes.
- The Organizational Assessment Survey, available through OPM's
Personnel Resources and Development Center, measures organizational
climate and effectiveness, including the kinds of performance management
support that managers provide.
Include Performance Management Outcomes in HR Accountability
Systems
- Performance management has been incorporated into the NASA's self-assessment
program.
- The Department of the Interior's new human resources accountability
system uses a suite of indicators from a wide variety of sources to
monitor program performance in the areas covered by the Department's
HR Strategic Plan. The system is simple and inexpensive, but effective
in producing real-time measures of progress. The system includes performance
management outcomes and utilizes a "balanced measures approach."
- OPM's HRM Accountability System Development Guide, which covers the
performance management- related Merit System Principles is available
on the OPM Web site.
- OPM maintains a clearinghouse of successful and promising applications
of HRM accountability systems or their components within Federal agencies
and other organizations; it is available through OPM's Web site.
Theme 3: Take Timely Action
Intervene Early
- "Rapid Response Teams" - The Treasury Department has a Rapid
Response Team consisting of several high level staff from the Department's
personnel and legal headquarters offices. They may be contacted directly
by bureau officials to discuss sensitive personnel matters. The team
member contacted can work individually, or with another team member,
calling on whatever resources are necessary to provide immediate advice
and guidance, including options for handling the matter at issue.
- The Department of Health and Human Services reports having success
using an informal, multi-party approach to address what they call "underutilization."
- The Department of Education has instituted a mobility assignment program
that opens up detail opportunities on a competitive basis (for up to
1 year) to employees throughout the agency. Employees can develop new
skills and gain experience that may help qualify them for new positions.
- The Department of Education provides mediation services through its
Informal Dispute Resolution Center.
- In 2000, the Department of Education will launch an automated Individual
Development Plan system.
- The Department of Transportation secretarial award "Find the Good
and Praise It" recognizes employee contributions in support of DOT goals.
The award is given on a monthly basis.
- NASA uses mandated coaching sessions.
- The Department of the Interior is implementing an early intervention
alternative dispute resolution procedure called CORE, which is designed
to enable a well-trained dispute resolution specialist to intervene
in a dispute at an early stage to assist the parties in resolving the
current misunderstanding and to help them develop conflict resolution
skills to facilitate their future dealings. While this process will
be open to any dispute an employee brings forward, experience suggests
that a great many of these disputes involve performance expectations
and performance appraisal issues.
- Performance Development Resources (PDR) - a Navy demonstration
project includes a process in which a pool of people, including union
representatives, act as a support system for employees and managers
throughout the performance process. Should performance problems arise,
PDR can be particularly useful in diagnosing issues impacting performance
and identifying options for addressing these issues, for example, development
opportunities, tools to support improved performance, and reassignment
of the employee to a position that better matches his/her capabilities
and interests. PDR may also identify systemic or organizationwide issues
that may be affecting performance. Supervisors are expected to use PDR
for assistance in preventing and alleviating performance problems. Employees
may also use PDR to assist them in correcting self-identified performance
problems, in development planning, and to facilitate communication and
feedback with their supervisors. [NOTE: Although PDR is part of a demonstration
project, it can be implemented without obtaining waivers of law or regulation.]
- The Social Security Administration has invested in training for managers
to overcome resistance to confrontation.
- Training in subjects like performance counseling and dealing with
difficult people is available from a variety of private vendors.
- Several agencies use a checklist for successful interventions.
- The comprehensive Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Resource
Guide is available on OPM's Web site. ADR consists of a variety
of approaches to early intervention and dispute resolution. Many of
these approaches include the use of a neutral individual such as a mediator
who can assist disputing parties in resolving their disagreements. ADR
increases the parties' opportunities to resolve disputes prior to or
during the use of formal administrative procedures and litigation (which
can be very costly and time-consuming). The Guide provides an overall
picture of how the most common forms of ADR are being implemented in
Federal agencies. It summarizes a number of current ADR programs (including
alternative discipline programs), and it includes descriptions of shared
neutrals programs where agencies have collaborated to reduce the costs
of ADR. It provides a listing of training and resources available from
Federal and non-Federal sources. It also provides selected ADR-related
Web sites. The information in the Guide will be helpful in exploring
the feasibility and appropriateness of implementing alternative dispute
resolution programs in an organization or enhancing existing programs.
Support Supervisors Taking Performance-Based Actions
- The various multi-party approaches described above provide continuous
support in the event that a performance-based action is pursued.
- "Just in time" training is available for supervisors in the form of
OPM's interactive CD-ROM and Handbook on Addressing and Resolving
Poor Performance, which provides direct assistance and advice to
supervisors for every stage of the process.
- The Department of Education uses a system of mentoring to provide
managers tools and follow-up, as well as a system of executive coaches
to work with managers on performance issues.
- At NASA, an agency expert provides performance seminars to field Centers;
human resources staff and managers attend.
- The Department of Transportation has a new "Shared Neutrals Program"
for timely resolution of conflicts throughout DOT.
- The Department of Commerce prepared, issued, and has posted on its
Web site The Manager's Handbook on Human Resources. Three chapters
in the Handbook pertain to this topic: "How Do I Evaluate An Employee's
Performance?," "How Do I Reward an Employee?," and "How Do I Deal with
an Employee's Unacceptable Performance." Each chapter provides typical
scenarios, principles, where to start, rules and flexibilities, basic
steps, needed forms, time frames, good management practices, checklists,
and a note on how the SES is different from the GS.
- The Department of State produced a handbook "Supervisor's Guide -
Dealing with Employee Unacceptable Performance and Conduct."
- The Department of State held workshops for all supervisors and managers
on how to address unacceptable performance.
- Distance learning approaches can be used to provide management and
skills training to address poor performance.
- Sample proposal and decision letters used in pursuing performance
actions are available on OPM's Web site.
These additional web sites contain related material
on the following topics: