Appraisal
Program Requirements/Flexibilities FAQs
Federal employee appraisal regulations are designed
to give agencies the flexibility they need to design
appraisal programs that meet their needs. Some frequently
asked questions about program design requirements
include:
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Does
an agency have to have written performance
appraisals for its employees? |
| The regulations read
"written, or otherwise recorded." This
language was chosen very deliberately to allow
for use of the newer electronic formats available
today. Although agencies do not have to write
performance appraisals on paper, the appraisals
must be recorded in some way and agencies must be
able to produce a paper copy, if needed. Purely
oral appraisals would not meet the regulatory
requirement. |
 
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|
Can
an agency assume that most employees are
performing at an acceptable level (i.e., rate by
exception)? |
| No. The statute
requires that each employee be appraised against
his or her performance standard(s). It does not
allow for appraising an employee by
"presuming" that an employee is meeting
performance standards. For the same reason, the
process for appraising employees described by the
regulations at part 430 of title 5, Code of
Federal Regulations, does not provide for any
"assumed" levels of performance.
However, this requirement to rate should not be
interpreted as a requirement to generate lengthy
written justification of element appraisals and
summary level assignment. Agencies may choose to
make recording the determination that performance
meets the Fully Successful standard a very
simple procedure. |
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|
What
is the maximum length allowable for appraisal
periods? |
| Technically, there
is no maximum length. The regulations specify
that appraisal periods shall generally be
designated so that employees are provided a
rating of record annually. Also, the legislative
history of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978,
the statute that prescribes the current
performance appraisal system, indicates that
Congress expected appraisals to be done annually.
In addition, an important consideration when
choosing the length of the appraisal period is
its relation to the annual rating of record
required for reduction in force purposes.
Agencies must look at the nature of the work done
by various organizations and determine what
length of time is appropriate as the basis for
measuring employee performance. Agencies are
encouraged to designate a single appraisal period
(i.e., 1 year) as the standard appraisal period
throughout the agency, with the built-in
flexibility to accommodate individual or mass
transitions between programs. Otherwise, an
agency system must define any limits (maximum
length, minimum length, or acceptable range)
within which it will permit appraisal programs to
select their appraisal periods. Furthermore,
agencies may establish different appraisal cycles
(starting and ending dates) for different
employees under the same appraisal period. |
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|
Are
there any length requirements or limitations for
the program's minimum period (i.e., the length of
time before a performance rating can be
prepared)? |
| No. An agency
program must specify the length of its minimum
period and that minimum must fall within any
limits established by the agency appraisal
system. However, the outcomes of performance
appraisals are applied in other personnel areas,
and these applications create some practical
limits for minimum periods. For example, the
regulations and statutory waiting periods for
granting the within-grade pay increase for
General Schedule and Prevailing Rate System
employees rely on a determination that the
employee's performance merits the pay adjustment.
Prevailing Rate System employees with a work
performance rating of satisfactory or better are
advanced from step 1 to step 2 after 26
weeks, which implies that their performance must
be ratable before that. Consequently, and without
taking into consideration the nature of the work
itself, the practical outside limit for the
minimum period for prevailing rate employees is
roughly 180 days.
In addition, the minimum period is one of the
program features that may be subject to
third-party review. Agencies are advised to be
careful in determining the time limits to be used
and avoid setting minimum periods that might be
judged unreasonably short.
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|
Does
an agency have to establish a performance plan
and prepare a summary rating for an employee who
goes on detail for 120 days or more? |
| Regulations do not
require that performance plans be established or
performance ratings be provided for employees on
detail. Agencies must determine how they will
capture information about employee performance
while on detail and how they will consider it in
producing the rating of record. |
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|
The
1995 regulations removed many of the procedural
requirements that were there before; does that
mean that an agency can no longer follow such
practices or that the Office of Personnel
Management no longer supports them as tools to
help administer performance management? |
| No. The Office of
Personnel Management removed many of the
procedural requirements from the regulations
because in the spirit of decentralization they no
longer need to be presented as Governmentwide
requirements. These practices can be just as
valid to some organizations as they always have
been. Their removal from the regulations in no
way implies that the Office of Personnel
Management no longer considers them good
practice. However, their removal does free
agencies to try other alternatives in their
appraisal programs to find those that work best
for them. |
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|
Can
an agency program require higher-level review of
all employee performance plans? |
| Yes. Pre-1995
regulations required higher-level review of
employee performance plans but the 1995
regulations no longer require this review
Governmentwide. However, many agencies have
retained the higher-level review process in their
programs because this level of review has worked
well for them in the past and there is no reason
or requirement to discontinue it. |
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