Friday, February 22 2019
TO: Campus Community
FR: Cynthia Señeriz, Director, Human Resources
RE: FY 2018-19 Performance Evaluations for Policy-Covered Staff
This is a reminder about the annual performance evaluation cycle for policy-covered staff (non-represented staff). For consecutive years, nearly 99 percent of our merit eligible policy-covered staff have received an annual performance evaluation, and for that I am appreciative of the commitment with which our supervisors and managers have approached this responsibility.
Please keep in mind that the 2017 Staff Engagement Survey of our policy-covered staff also reflected strong positive improvement with respect to perceptions around performance evaluations. Seventy-eight percent of the UCSB staff surveyed reported feeling that their performance on the job was evaluated fairly. This is not only encouraging, these results exceeded our 2015 survey results and also surpassed the results for the UC system and US national norms. Additionally, 71 percent of the UCSB staff surveyed reported feeling that their personal contributions were recognized. This was a 16 percent improvement from our 2015 survey results and again, these results exceeded the results for the UC system and US national norms! The efforts of our supervisors, managers, and our policy-covered staff have produced these strong outcomes and I share this information to encourage our supervisors and managers to continue improving and refining our approach to performance evaluations for our policy-covered staff.
Next Steps for March and April
All individuals with supervisory responsibilities for policy-covered staff should start taking steps now to prepare for the annual performance evaluation process:
• Plan to start the performance evaluation process in March. Begin by reviewing the performance evaluation form as well as the most current job description for each staff member.
• Build in time for your staff to be involved. Inform your staff that you are starting the evaluation process. Provide your staff with the opportunity to submit feedback into the evaluation process, with an established deadline. The Employee Self-Assessment form is available for this purpose (completion is voluntary). Plan to meet with each staff member to discuss their feedback.
• Complete the Performance Evaluation form. Due dates for the completion of the written performance evaluation will be established by the divisional control points. More details will follow.
• Be prepared to submit a copy of the completed performance evaluation form to Human Resources upon request.
Keep in mind the importance of fairness in the evaluation process as a key driver of employee engagement for our policy-covered staff. The perception of fairness is enhanced when:
• performance that needs improvement is addressed as readily as strong performance;
• a process exists to ensure that more than one level of management is reviewing the proposed performance rating, before the performance rating is shared with the employee; and
• a process exists within departments and divisions to affirm that the standards used to rate performance are balanced and the criteria used to determine the top performers are consistent.
Department heads are strongly encouraged to support release time for policy-covered staff and their supervisors for training on this topic. A variety of web-based courses are available.
• Web-based courses are available that cover all of the fundamentals of people management. There are eight specific e-courses in the People Management Certificate Program (PMCP) that provide training on many aspects of the performance evaluation process. The e-courses are open to all UCSB staff and all courses are available in the UC Learning Center. Complete the courses online at https://www.learningcenter.ucsb.edu/. (Tip: Enter "PMCP" in the "Search" field on the Learner dashboard.)
Wondering when the next staff engagement survey will be conducted? Policy-covered staff will have their next opportunity to participate in the UC staff engagement survey this coming April. More information about the 2019 Staff Engagement Survey will be announced soon.