Individual Contribution to the Team -An employee's behaviors, work products, or results that contribute to successful team performance and that measures the performance of a single employee. Team Performance -The processes, results, or output of a group of people for which the entire group can be held responsible. Performance is measured at an aggregate level. The regulations require that each employee have at least one critical element, which must be based on individual performance. This requirement ensures that an appraisal program establishes individual accountability, as the performance appraisal law intended by providing for the demotion or removal of an employee on the basis of unacceptable performance.
Critical elements are the only basis for determining that an employee's performance is unacceptable.
The law intends that they be used to establish individual accountability. Consequently, critical elements generally are not appropriate for identifying and measuring team performance, which by its definition involves shared accountability. A supervisor or manager can and should be held accountable for seeing that results measured at the group or team level are achieved. However, agencies can use other ways to factor team performance into ratings of record or other performance-related decisions such as granting awards. The individual critical element required by the regulations must describe performance that is reasonably measured and controlled at the individual employee's level.