# Presentation: 158476

## Performance Management Update

- Barbara Colchao
- Team Leader, Program and Policy Development
- Performance Management and Incentive Awards

## Topics to be Covered

- New Administration -- Where do we go from here?
- Focusing on results management -- Why results; why now?
- Balanced Measures -- What are we looking at?
- Stats and Facts -- What’s been going on lately?

## New Administration -- Where Do We Go From Here?

- Early indicators from *A Blueprint for New Beginnings*
- Citizen-Centered
- Results-Oriented
- Market-Based
- Reward achievement and encourage excellence
- Compete successfully for talent
- Incorporate successful private sector reforms
- Return pride to public service

## Role for Strategic Rewards

- Money matters, but it’s not the only thing
- Exit interviews relate employees leave due to
- Lack of recognition
- Inequities in salary
- Long-term sense of purpose/mission missing
- Insufficient opportunities for growth
- Employees appear to be moving up the hierarchy of needs pyramid

## Strategic Rewards

**Compensation**

**Benefits**

**Development & Learning**

**Work Environment**

-  Base Salary
-  Variable Pay
-  Job Evaluation
-  Performance Management
-  Paid Time Off

-  Health Care
-  Retirement
-  Savings
-  Other Insurance

-  Training
-  Career Development
-  Learning Experiences
-  Succession Planning

-  Work/Life Balance
-  Leadership
-  Performance Support
-  Organizational Climate

## Why Results -- Why Now?

- Make Government Results-Oriented (*Blueprint)*
- Guide by performance, not process
- Reward success and make it the standard
- Actions that fail must be reformed or ended
- Telecommuting
- Delayering
- Performance-Oriented Pay

## Telecommuting

- New emphasis via DOT appropriations bill for FY 2001
- Supports participation of eligible employees “without diminished employee performance”
- Adds impetus to results-oriented management
- Supervisors need to focus on results by
- Planning the work
- Setting expectations
- Monitoring performance
- Recognizing performance

## Delayering

- Flatten the Federal Hierarchy (*Blueprint for New Beginnings)*
- Shrink the distance between citizens and decision-makers
- Redistribute employees to positions that interact with citizens
- Workforce Planning & Restructuring *(OMB Bulletin No. 01-07)*
- Reduce no. of managers, organizational layers, & time for decisions
- Increase span of control
- Redirect to direct service delivery
- Process measures require more observation

## Performance-Oriented Pay

- Demonstration Projects and independent personnel authorities allow greater impact for performance on base pay adjustments
- Traditionally and intuitively base pay is determined on an individual basis
- More latitude requires ability to make distinctions among levels of performance
- Puts demands on performance measurement systems

## Balanced MeasuresWhat Are We Looking At?

- Results-orientation is not going away
- Government Performance and Results Act
- Chief Financial Officers Act
- Three key SES measures
- Results
- Customer satisfaction
- Employee perspectives
- Measurement and accountability will continue to be key

## What Gets Measured Gets Done

- Work unit performance is key to measuring managerial/supervisory success
- Leadership competencies are critical
- Championing human diversity
- Supporting EEO
- Demonstrating effective performance management
- Communicating effectively
- Creating a positive work environment
- Providing resources and opportunities

## OPM Study on Supervisors

*Supervisors in the Federal Government: A Wake-up Call*
- Special Study conducted by OPM’ s Office of Merit Systems Oversight & Effectiveness
- Released March 2001

## Identification and Selection

- Leadership potential is critical **BUT**
- Most supervisors selected based on technical expertise
- People skills often neglected in selection rating process
- Some agencies starting to include leadership competencies in selection procedures

## Training and Development

- Most agencies have training policies in place
- Vary widely on requirements
- Communication of policies often weak
- Funding still causes concerns
- Focusing on leadership competencies via standardized courses
- Supervisors feel need for more tailored training (specially in softer, people skills)
- Few agencies use distance learning technologies and PC-based training

## Evaluating Performance

- Leadership competencies are not primary measures
- Evaluations focus on technical work or employee complaints
- Little informal feedback, and it rarely addresses leadership competencies
- Probationary period not well used
- Few agencies have special awards to recognize good supervisory skills

## Conclusions

- Things have not changed
- There is reason for concern
- Leadership competencies must be emphasized
- Supervisors are dissatisfied

## OPM Study on Pass/Fail Appraisals

*Rating Pass/Fail:  A Report on Two-Level Performance Rating Systems at Six Federal Agencies*
- Special Study conducted by OPM’ s Office of Merit Systems Oversight & Effectiveness
- Report in final clearance stages

## Undertaking the Study

- Study Goals
- Determine how effective the systems are
- Identify the characteristics of an effective system
- Examine the impact on other HR programs
- Good response rate: 34% - 67%
- Survey asked better or worse under pass/fail

## Survey Questions

- My performance standards accurately measure my performance.
- There appear to be more opportunities for awards since the institution of the pass/fail system.
- Since the inception of pass/fail, communication with my supervisor has increased.
- Since the inception of pass/fail, the manner in which I perform my job is

## Survey Questions (continued)

- The pass/fail system encourages supervisors and employees to focus more on performance and developmental opportunities.
- The feedback from the performance appraisal process has been valuable in helping me improve or maintain my performance.
- The feedback I receive is useful in identifying the training I need to improve my performance.

## Agency Survey Responses

## Some Observations

- Many variations of pass/fail
- No two programs studies were exactly the same
- More difficult to draw comparisons
- Employees want system to be “fair”
- What is “fair”
- Comparison of individual and organizational fairness

## Findings

- No magic bullet
- Any program is only as good as its users
- Good managers make the difference
- Revamping rewards can be challenging

## Facts and Stats

- Awards Trends
- Rating Pattern Distributions
- Referral Bonuses
- PILLAR Award Recipients

## Cash Awards Data

- Other Awards include Special Act or Service, Suggestion, Gainsharing, and other Awards
- Source:  *Workforce Compensation and Performance Service, Incentive Awards Program databases and Annual Reports..*

## Time Off Awards Data

- Source: W*orkforce Compensation and Performance Service, Incentive Awards Program databases and Annual Reports..*

*Time Off Awards Data*

## Rating Pattern Distributions

- Source:  Central Personnel Data File status files for September 2000

## Referral Bonuses

- Not a violation of 18 U.S.C. 211
- Additional guidance coming, but agencies will need to establish the specific criteria
- Who can receive a referral bonus
- What form the award should take
- When the bonus is payable
- Why it is being given (the conditions that have to be met to get one)
- Where you keep track of the details
- New NOAC for cash, 848; use 846 for time off

## PILLAR Award Recipients(Performance, Incentives, and Leadership Linked to Achieve Results)

- Recognizes employee performance programs, policies, or practices
- 40 Nominations
- 2 Recipients
- Los Angeles Regional Office, Veterans Benefits Administration, DVA
- Division of Compliance Management, Office of Surface Mining, Interior