ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT
Employee Performance Evaluation System
2012
A. Describe the past year’s accomplishments and the current status of this
Action Project.
During this year, all supervisors/managers received training on coaching skills and how to
use the new online performance management system to help develop employees on an ongoing basis. Additionally, employees were trained in how to do a self-evaluation using the
new system, with this self-evaluation serving as a starting point for the performance
evaluation discussion between the supervisor and employee. The use of the system for
employee evaluation in late spring/early summer went smoothly overall, and the new
system appears to a welcome improvement over the previous method of evaluation.
B. Describe how the institution involved people in work on this Action Project.
The AQIP Performance Management team is comprised of employees who represent all
employee category groups, i.e., faculty, administrators, support staff and professional
staff. The team is divided into sub-committees and charged with specific assignments.
These assignments included developing a training plan, developing a marketing strategy to
announce the new system and an implementation strategy.
C. Describe your planned next steps for this Action Project.
The online system selected for employee performance evaluation has capabilities for data
collection, analysis and reporting, and the committee and HR staff will develop
recommendations regarding what data Sinclair will regularly review. Some possibilities
include the following: trends in employee performance, opportunities for training, reports of
trends/issues by unit or employee category, and automatic population of the system as job
descriptions are revised/developed.
An additional action will be to respond to employee suggestions that arose during the launch
of the new system. A frequent question/suggestion had to do with whether the results of
performance appraisal should be tied to compensation or weighted by item. These
questions will be considered this year by the Salary and Benefits Committee, a crossfunctional team of professional staff, support staff and administrators, as well as the
college’s compensation consultant. This practice also will be benchmarked with peer
institutions.
D. Describe any “effective practice(s)” that resulted from your work on this
Action Project.
The adoption of an online, well-tested tool for employee performance evaluation has been
well received by employees and supervisors. There is a higher level of confidence that our
evaluation practices are consistent, and the increased efficiency the tool provides has been
especially welcomed by supervisors and Human Resources staff. Perhaps most noteworthy
is that the college’s use of this tool has created a process for employees and supervisors to
have meaningful tracking and discussion of performance throughout the year.
E. What challenges, if any, are you still facing in regards to this Action Project?
A process for the orientation and training of new supervisors in performance review needs to be
developed. This training must include not only the use of the system the college adopted but also
fundamental considerations in effective personnel management. While the new system has been
adopted for full-time staff, it now needs to be considered for part-time staff. Ensuring the continuing
professional development of part-time employees is an on-going challenge for the college, and this tool
could help inform meaningful plans for such development. Employee feedback about whether
performance and compensation should be linked is mixed; some feel strongly this should occur, while
others are skeptical that fair, consistent decisions could be made across employees. While the new
performance evaluation system has been well received initially, linking evaluation and compensation
would make supervision and evaluation more challenging for the college’s managers.