Exceeds = Discretionary Effort
Jean R. Magee, CPM, SPHR
Human Resources Manager/Employee Relations Division
Pinellas County Human Resources Department
Phone: 727/464-3329
DEFINITIONS
From the U.P.S. Performance
Management Program Manual:
Exceeds (“2”) – The employee’s job
performance far exceeds standards
and/or makes a very significant
contribution to the success of the
department and the division.
From the April 2011 Management
& Supervisory Notes article:
“Exceeds” does not mean perfect. It means that
the employee consistently delivers quality
discretionary (higher levels of) effort on the job
which produces valuable results for the
organization. They may even have some areas of
their performance which needs strengthening
(we all do); however, their overall efforts
significantly surpass the requirements for
successful job performance.
From Susan M. Heathfield, HR expert,
writer, management consultant, and
trainer:
“There is a concept called discretionary energy
or discretionary effort. This is the effort /
energy that an employee chooses to exert in
service to coworkers or customers at work - or
not. An employer pays for the fundamental
tasks that he hires an employee to perform. The
employee's willingness to perform above and
beyond the basic requirements of the job is a
reflection of the employee's willingness to
engage his or her discretionary effort / energy.”
Susan M. Heathfield – cont.
From an employer's point of view, the
more employee discretionary effort or
energy that you can tap, the better your
potential for well-served customers. You
also increase your potential for happy
employees.
A happy employee is
positively interacting with customers and
coworkers and experiencing all of the
work benefits that accrue as a result of
these positive interactions.”
From Love at Work: Why Passion Drives Performance
by Brady G. Wilson
“There is a profound lesson here, backed up by research
conducted by the Corporate Leadership Council: Leaders
who trigger emotional engagement release 400 percent
more discretionary effort than those who trigger rational
engagement. Jean Martin, executive director of the CLC,
states:
“Emotional commitment is the ever-elusive love of your
job and love of your manager or organization… Our
data [have] proven, year after year, that the emotional
side of engagement is actually four times more powerful
than the rational side when it comes to driving the
business impacts we care about … One specific finding is
that when employees move from being engaged to being
highly engaged, their productivity improves 20
percentage points in performance levels.”
From Aubrey Daniels, author of Bringing Out
the Best in People: How to Apply the
Astonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement
“Discretionary effort is defined as that
level of effort people could give if they
wanted to, but which is beyond what is
required.
In other words, since
discretionary effort is above and beyond
what is expected, demanded, paid for,
there would be no punishment to the
performers if they didn’t do it.
Discretionary effort is what is possible.”
Aubrey Daniels – continued:
“People do what they do because of what
happens to them when they do it.”
“At the end of every working day people
leave either more motivated to come back
and do their jobs again tomorrow or less
motivated as a result of what happens to
them that day. Performance is about what
happens every day.”
Aubrey Daniels – continued:
“The only way business can capture
discretionary effort is through the effective
use of positive reinforcement. As Russell
Justice has said:
‘Discretionary effort is like loose
change in a person’s pocket. It is
management’s job to get them to spend
it all every day.’”
Joe Judge, President of Clear Possibilities