Planning starts with understanding the organization's mission, vision, values and departmental objectives or goals, as well as the role a particular position has in accomplishing these. An employee must clearly know the steps, actions, performance and behavior needed to meet these expectations. They should know what success looks like, as well as failure. The communication of expectations starts early, during the hiring process, with an accurate position description and job posting, and continues through onboarding and orientation.

An accurate position description is essential in expressing the expectations of the job. It is the basis for the university's performance management plan and identifies the essential elements of an employee's job. The description is created in the PD Application within the HRMS (PeopleSoft) system by the supervisor when a new classified position is established for the department. It is then updated by the supervisor as duties of that position change. The position description is again reviewed for accuracy during the performance evaluation process. Essential Functions of the position are based on the type of work performed by an employee and remain relatively constant during the performance cycle. Measures are descriptions of what contributor level performance will look like in the execution of the core responsibilities. They are observable performance and behavioral outcomes that define success. The position description also identifies any special assignments as well as the overriding departmental values. The physical, cognitive, and environmental requirements section speaks to baseline mental, physical and sensory demands appropriate for the position.

• JMU's mission, vision and values
• Position description and PD Application

Goal Setting

Developing an employee's knowledge, skills and abilities enhances their qualifications and value to the department, and is also an essential ingredient in improving employee job satisfaction, engagement, performance, productivity, retention, and innovation. Setting specific developmental goals increases the likelihood that growth will occur. Consequently, JMU’s Salary Administration Plan specifies that all full-time classified employees are required to have an annual professional development plan. For classified staff, goal setting is documented through the IPDP, or Individual Professional Development Plan. Supervisors should work with their employees to determine areas of interests, opportunities for growth, and departmental knowledge or skill gaps. This as a great opportunity for supervisors to engage with their employees in asking them about their aspirations and letting them know that they are valued and that their success is important. Professional goals should ultimately support both the organization's objectives and the employee's needs and goals.

• IPDP resources
• Salary Administration Plan
• Talent Development

Another way to develop employees is through coaching. Professional coaching is a process of assisting another’s individual growth and development through listening and asking deliberate questions to build self-awareness and accountability. In practice, this involves providing encouragement and helping employees to formulate options and work through potential consequences. Instead of providing the solutions, supervisors can use their knowledge and skills to help empower their employees to work through situations themselves.

GROW Model
Goal: What do you want?
Reality: Where are you now?
Options: What could you do?
Will: What will you do?

Evaluating is assessing an employee’s performance and sharing that assessment through feedback. The ultimate goal of feedback should be the success of the employee relative to the mission, vision, values and objectives of the unit and the university. Performance feedback often entails communicating to an employee how they meet, exceed or fall short of expectations or standards. Consequently, it is important that employees understand these standards and expectations from day one. Expectations are conveyed to employees in multiple ways including position descriptions, onboarding, policies, departmental orientations and trainings and communications with their supervisor. When providing critical or developmental feedback, it is important that the employee understands that their success is the purpose in providing this feedback.

Key elements of effective feedback:

• Ongoing, timely
• Consistent and fair
• Honest and compassionate
• Focused on performance, not the person
• Detailed with examples provided

As a supervisor providng the feedback:

• Be well-prepared
• Listen
• Establish relationship and trust

Evaluation and feedback is slightly different depending upon whether the classified employee is or non-probationary.

Awards and recognition are helpful in making employees feel appreciated and valued and encourage the continuation of positive performance and behavior. Look for opportunities to catch your employee doing something good!

Informal recognition could include verbal acknowledgement, a note or an email.

There are several formal options:

• Duke 2 Duke is a peer to peer recognition program that uses an online platform for submissions. Recipients are awarded small token gifts.
• Individual Impact and Customer Service Awards are monetary awards made through submittal of the Employee Recognition Nomination form.
• Acknowledgement of Extraordinary Contribution is used to recognize performance for classified employees and used to support an overall rating of Extraordinary Contributor on the annual performance evaluation.
• The President's Purple Star Awards are granted by the President's office and are in support of the Governor's Awards, which is a state-wide program.

Resources

• Awards and Recognition
• Salary Administration Plan