NONCLASSIFIED PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT

Marshall University and Marshall Community & Technical College nonclassified employees and their supervisors are invited to test a new nonclassified performance assessment policy and form that might be implemented at the institutions.  Effective immediately the new annual assessment form may be used alongside of or in place of the present Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) exempt performance evaluation form.  Individuals are encouraged to use the new form, but usage is optional at this particular time.

There are several web-based resources listed below that interested persons should review before getting started.  Use the "back" button on the web browser as necessary to return to this page.

A DRAFT policy on performance assessment for nonclassified employees may be viewed by clicking HERE.  This policy is not yet approved and is not in effect.  It is provided only as a source of information.  It might be proposed for future adoption depending on feedback and reaction from clients.

The new DRAFT performance assessment form is available on the HR Services forms page by clicking HERE.  Once on the forms page, scroll down to click the desired version of the Nonclassified Annual Assessment - DRAFT.  It is available as a Word® document and as an Adobe (PDF)® document.  The Adobe® version has all the fields set so the user can enter information on the desktop.  (The usual warning is issued, however, in that there are potential problems with loss of data if the Adobe® form is saved, closed, and re-opened later.  It is critically important to test the form by filling in information on one field only and then saving it to the PC under a new filename.  If the information does not appear when the form is re-opened, the user will not be able to save the information he/she has entered but will be required to complete the form is one desktop session and then print it. Alternatively, the Word® version can be saved, user-entered information and all, on the PC.)

Also available on the forms page is the Nonclassified Assessment Supplemental Form (located by scrolling down the forms top page).  Only a Word® version is presently available.  This form is a very tentative idea and may not even be adopted at all.  Its purpose is to record something related to performance assessment that occurs at a time other than the annual assessment date.  It creates a paper "memory" of things that should be discussed or evaluated at the annual assessment.  Nonclassified employees are not asked to use this at this time but just to be aware of its existence.

The present nonclassified performance assessments are conducted based on the anniversary month of employment.  Therefore, there are always some assessments going on in any given month.  The DRAFT revised policy establishes that these will be done at the same time for everyone - a so-called "synchronous" system.  For any present experimental use of the new assessment form, ignore that requirement.  We will for the time being continue our present assessment schedule.  The new form can optionally be used at the point in time that the other form would ordinarily be used.

Also, it needs to be pointed out that the DRAFT assessment form contains several questions related to supervision.  Not all of the nonclassified employees have supervisory responsibilities.   One of the questions on the assessment form asks if the individual supervises or not.  We will need to "norm" the assessment form for both groups.  That means to collect scores from both groups (supervisors and non-supervisors) and compare the averages.  A small adjustment factor may be established and added to the scores of non-supervisory nonclassified employees in order to make their scores comparable to those who are supervisors and who could answer the supervisory questions.

Questions, comments, etc., about the forms, the policy, and this proposal are welcome.  It will be necessary that at some point we have a quantitative measure of merit to use for salary adjustment purposes.  To some this suggests the need for a numerical score of some sort.  The present nonclassified assessment form is qualitative - it does not yield a numerical score.  The new form will.  The question is how comfortable would nonclassified employees be with participating in a process such as this?

If your supervisor is not a nonclassified employee and, therefore, may not have received information about this proposal, would you please either copy this page for them or give them the link to this page?

You may contact me at 304.696.3983, jstephen@marshall.edu, or visit me in 207 Old Main.  Thanks.

Jim Stephens
Director, Human Resource Services

GO TO THE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT TOP PAGE

Problems with this page?  Contact human-resources@marshall.edu