General
Circular No. 001304
To: Heads of State Agencies and Human
Resource Directors
Subject: Performance Planning And Review Notes
Issue
Date: November 24, 1997
This
General Circular is intended to address a number of questions and issues
concerning the
Performance
Planning and Review System as the first ratings - for anniversary dates in
January,
1998 -
will need to be completed beginning November 17, 1997.
REPORTING
REQUIREMENTS
Rule
10.12 ( c) requires an annual report of ratings to Civil Service from each
Appointing
Authority. (The actual reporting units are described
below.) As a transitional measure,
Civil
Service
plans to collect a limited amount of information on a periodic reporting
basis. The
reporting
form is attached to this circular and will be available on the web site at
www.dscs.state.la.us. Reports will be due on the following
schedule:
For
anniversary dates in the month of January, 1998
the report is due by February 15, 1998
For
anniversary dates in the months of February and March, 1998
the report is due by April 15, 1998
For
anniversary dates in the months of April, May, and June, 1998
the report is due by July 15, 1998
For
anniversary dates in the months of July, August, and September, 1998
the report is due by October 15, 1998
The
quarterly reports will ask for a breakdown of official ratings (as defined in
Rule 10.8.) Civil
Service
will ask how many overall ratings were given in each category of: OUTSTANDING,
VERY
GOOD, SATISFACTORY, NEEDS IMPROVEMENT, POOR, OR SATISFACTORY
BY
DEFAULT. Beginning with the April 15
report, Civil Service will begin to ask for
comparisons
to the previous report. There will also
be a section to track the numbers of
grievances
and one for comments on problems or benefits with the system.
In
addition to the periodic reports, Civil Service Rule 10.12 (b) requires that
for any person
receiving
a rating of POOR or NEEDS IMPROVEMENT, a prompt report shall be made to the
Director. By means of this General Circular, the
Director has defined this report as a copy of the
top
page of the evaluation form. These
copies will be sent to the Personnel Management Division
just as
was done in the past with ratings of UNSATISFACTORY.
Reporting
Units within each department will be established by the Appointing Authority
for that
department. Civil Service will provide the department
with a list of organizational ID numbers that
can be
designated and grouped into logical reporting units. A master list will be maintained by
Civil
Service to ensure that each org ID is assigned to only one reporting unit.
RECORD
KEEPING
Civil
Service will not establish record keeping guidelines for agencies. It is anticipated that Civil
Service
will conduct on-site visits at agencies to gather statistical data and assist
agencies with
implementation
of the system. These visits will be
announced to the agency in advance.
Typical
questions
that will be asked during such visits might be: how many ratings did you give
in the ____
category? Who supervises these people? How do these people break down along lines
of sex,
age,
race, etc. How do you track planning
and rating sessions to ensure they are being done?
How
many have not been to a training session?
PLANNING
SESSIONS
Civil
Service is not tracking planning sessions.
It is strongly recommended that each agency
develop
a tickler and tracking system to ensure that these sessions are taking
place. Examples of
both
manual and computerized tracking systems are on file in Personnel Management at
Civil
Service. Contact Vikki Riggle at (504) 342-8274 for
more information.
DOCUMENTATION
There
are no specific requirements for keeping the back-up documentation in a
particular spot.
Agencies
may set their own policies so long as back-up documentation is kept for three
years.
Documentation
is NOT a public record, therefore, it should not be kept in a publicly
accessible file.
AGENCY
ASSISTANCE
Any
state agency in need of assistance or having questions or problems with the new
PPR System
may
contact Vikki Riggle in the Personnel Management Division of Civil
Service. Ms. Riggle was
recently
hired to coordinate the implementation of the PPR system statewide. She can be
contacted
at (504) 342-8274 or by e-mail at vriggle@dscs.state.la.us. Training manuals, video
tapes,
examples of both good and bad systems, and other such materials are
available. Ms. Riggle
will
also teach classes through the CPTP and conduct visits at agencies around the
state. In early
1998, a
new section of the Civil Service home page on the world wide web will be
devoted to the
Performance
Planning and Review system. Included on
this sight will be a list of Frequently Asked
Questions,
sample expectations, and possibly a chat room for HR directors to communicate
with
each
other directly. More information will
be provided as the Web site develops.
PROPOSED
RULE CHANGES
A new
rule, 10.17 will be proposed at an upcoming Civil Service Commission Hearing. This new
rule is
proposed to read as follows:
10.17
Exceptions
For
compelling reasons, the Director may approve exceptions to these Rules.
TRAINING
CLASSES FOR SUPERVISORS AND TRAINERS
A
schedule of PPR training classes for supervisors is available from CPTP at
(504) 342-4739. The
schedule
will be available on the World Wide Web, probably after the first of the
year. All
supervisors
are urged to attend PPR training as soon as possible. Newly promoted supervisors
should
sign up promptly as classes tend to fill up quickly.
An
additional class has been added to the schedule. This class will be taught in Baton Rouge on
December
9. If your CPTP coordinator is not
aware of this class, please check the OPEN system
for
more information or call the CPTP office at (504) 342-4739.
Some
agencies are still asking for Train the Trainer sessions. If your agency is interested in this
type of
training, please contact Vikki Riggle at Personnel Management.
All
employees, including supervisors, should see the employee training video. The information on
that
video is pertinent to everyone and is quite different from the supervisory
training video.
GOVERNOR
FOSTER
The
Governor has been very supportive of this new program and has appeared in both
the
employee
and supervisory training tapes. He
continues to be interested in the progress of the
program
and has asked to be informed about who is or isn't using the system. Agencies may
anticipate
that Civil Service will be asked to provide participation reports to both the Governor
and the
Legislature.
INTERNAL
AGENCY POLICIES
Agencies
who are developing internal policies for administering PPR may wish to submit
those
policies
to Civil Service for review. Agencies
will be apprised where any part of their policy
requires
the approval of the Director OR where a policy may be in conflict with the
Rules.
EXPECTATIONS
AND CPTP CLASSES
When
writing expectations during the planning session, please DO NOT require
employees to take
a specific
CPTP class by a certain date. Because
CPTP classes are limited in size, it may not be
possible
for the employee to meet this expectation within a certain time frame. If you want or need
to
include a CPTP class as part of an expectation, please discuss this with your
CPTP coordinator
to
ensure that the class is available within the time frame you have in mind.
ATTACHMENTS
TO THIS CIRCULAR
1. Departmental Agency Report form. A copy of the periodic reporting form is
attached. Due
dates for
returning this form to Civil Service are noted on the form. Please feel free to copy this
form
and distribute to your reporting units as needed. Instructions for using the form are found
on the
back of the form.
2. FAQs for PPRS. This list contains a number of Frequently Asked Questions. We will continue
to
track and compile questions as they are asked and update this list
periodically.
SAMPLE
TIME FRAMES.
This
chart is provided as an example of how to calculate the time frames for the
various parts of
the
Performance Planning and Review system.
Sample
time frames for rating and planning periods
Anniversary Rating Period is Planning Period is ReRating Period is
Date 45 days prior to 30 days after 3-6 months after
Anniv. Date Anniv. Date Anniv. Date
EARLIEST LATEST EARLIEST LATEST
EARLIEST LATEST
Jan
1 Nov 17 Dec 30 Jan 1 Jan 30
April 1 June 30
Jan
10 Nov 26 Jan 9 Jan 11
Feb 9 April 10 July 10
Jan
30 Dec 16 Jan 29 Jan 30 March 2
Jan 30 July 30
All
dates are calculated from the ANNIVERSARY DATE.
Sincerely,
Allen
H. Reynolds
Director
Attachments (The attachments will not be shown on the
OPEN system, but will be mailed out
through
the regular circular distribution.)