Readers' Comments
Total Comments: 40
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Appraisals, Objectivity, and the Little Black Book
Total Comments: 40
Page 2 of 4
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Budget Cuts Affect Workload
Another Government Agency
Thu Apr 26, 2007 11:03 AM
Post Reply
Another important point affecting this is the world of flat budgets year after year. With reorganization,
"rightsizing", and centralizing in order to make the dollars stretch, the workload of the federal employee is becoming heavier and impossible to manage. We have no control over this yet it effects the job we are able to do. We strive to do our best, but are now restricted to put out the biggest fires more than ever. If we are graded on our performance than we need to be provided with the tools and resources needed to do an excellent job.
Pay Banding in General
DoD
Thu Apr 26, 2007 11:28 AM
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The "word" here in the trenches is that there is only one pot of money to be used for all the salries. If someone gets an "Outstanding" then someone will have to get an "Unsatisfactory" as there is no extra allocated for superior performance. Can you see the situation when one individual "gets it" and another doesn't, especially when they are in the same job and have essentially the same performance? I forsee most supervisors taking the middle road:($$ divided by # employees= the safest route.) NOTHING disrupts an organization like a lengthly EEO challenge, with a lawyer for the employee paid on commission throwing his whole effort into the fight. And the worst case scenerio would be like happened at NASA last week. Nothing will weigh on an already troubled employee like the threat of having their livelyhood erased. For most jobs, there is no counseling or retraining, it is just "sit there until we decide to fire you". Seen it happen MANY times. Black Book? Better keep it secretly.
Re: Pay Banding in General
A Government Agency
Thu Apr 26, 2007 9:50 PM
Pay for performance is not working
Legislative – can’t say for fear or reprisal
Thu Apr 26, 2007 11:53 AM
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I am on a pay for performance system and it's something that looks great on paper but does not work in real life (IMO). How can you objectively rate "writing" or "briefing" or for that matter collaboration? The concept of pay for performance is sound but when pay for performance started, most of the people I work with are being short changed. The ones that did better are those who spent more time kissing up to the rater. However, we still use seniority to determine who gets what office. We have one section whose employees aren't allowed to submit the paperwork for promotion, regardless of whether or not they are qualified, without a consensus vote from management.
Additionally, regardless of how much you align the ratings to a mission, one can shortcut the mission in the name of the rating.This will yield a high performing worker who never learned the core skills. In sum, pay for performance will result in a group of "yes men/women” thereby distorting the results over the long term
Appraisals
VAMC
Thu Apr 26, 2007 12:32 PM
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I agree with DoD Specialist. I have worked here for over 13 years, trained 34 people and watched as EVERY person I trained get promoted before me (even though I applied for the jobs) and some have even become my bosses at one time or another. I stopped training people after seven years of it. Now that I refuse to train my current bosses, (two of whom have been tranferred to my division due to inability to do their jobs in their old divisions, and one is a new hire that hasn't been here a year yet), my appraisals have all of a sudden been lackluster and every five minutes they are questioning my job performance and what I do, in attempts to"trick" me into training them. Funny, nothing was wrong before 6 years ago, & I always passed. Now I'm not exceptional anymore, though my work perfomance hasn't changed. And when I went on leave to have surgery, they couldn't do my job even with the instruction manuals, so they left it until my return. Government just doesn't hire good bosses.
Re: Appraisals
DoD
Thu Apr 26, 2007 3:11 PM
high school
DOD
Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:30 PM
Post Reply
This is a very good article. I hope NSPS supervisors will read it.
The part about high school or college grades for that matter being a form of an appraisal is a good illustration.
It also illustrates how impossible it will be to be objective and fair with the appraisals in the pfp systems.
In high school or college everyone takes nearly the same tests to get their grades, but in the real world of civil service few employees are assigned identical tasks or face the same challenges. Consistency and objectivity are not possible when you compare apples to oranges.
Recently I received an email from my supervisor asking me to submit an assessment of myself including my negative impressions of me.
I almost had to laugh. It reminded me of a question I once had on a job application: "are there any crimes you have committed for which you were never charged or convicted?"
I didn't answer that question either. I have driven more than 55 mph many times.
I did graduate from high school. : )
SMART Objectives - Not
AF
Thu Apr 26, 2007 10:43 PM
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This is one of the better articles I've seen on the real problem with so called PFP systems. How do you measure performance? In many jobs today, it just can't be done in a truely objective manner. I've sat down with the AF instructions on SMART (Specific, measureable, etc) Objectives to write them for my job. I couldn't. The examples are meaningless in the real world -- using the example from the article, my objective would be to develop an undetermined random number of budget projections covering a varied range of needs within random time limits upon request of anyone at any time. When 50% of your time fits in "other duties as assigned" how do you have objective criteria for that? But I'm sure there's some HR consultant out there who knows nothing about the job, who will make a fortune telling the Air Force how to do it.
ILLEGAL EVALUATIONS
U.S. DOL \(Employee Benefits Security Administration\)
Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:41 AM
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A complete cite for Chap 43 mentioned above is 5USC4302(b)(1).
My agency purposely violates this section of the United States Law. I have submitted written complaints to no avail. I have even offered to write objective criteria for critical elements. Until FY 2006, some critical elements were objective. The agency "got rid" of those. Our Agency's performance is all reported objectively to Congress via graphs, charts, and tables, all numerical. For employee evaluations, our boss TELLS us about our performance in numbers and compares us to other employees without using names. THESE NUMBERS DO NOT APPEAR IN THE WRITTEN EVALUATION. My boss admitted that the evaluation is basically just her opinion.
This is not only illegal by violating Title 5 of the USC, but is grossly unjust. An employee can be a great performer but if you don't kiss you know what, or disagree with the boss, or just upset her, she will show you that SHE IS THE BOSS!!!