01-08-1990 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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manageivient ii '•s pay-for-pWi o/irtance sys tem for Jts 1.500 em- plovees three years ago, it failed. The city's su pervisors weren t trained in making the evalu ations, weren t sure what the standards were and didn’t know how to dis cuss it all with the peo ple they were evaluat ing. “We hadn ’t made the investment in our supervisors that was nec essary to give them the tools to do this as well as they were capable, says City Manager Jim Griesemer. The result was an uneven and un acceptable rating system that made people nerv ous. Now Aurora is trying again, with a hybrid sys tem of broader pay ranges for each job and a bonus arrangement for employees who have •'maxed out. ” who al ready earn the top salary available for their par ticular job. Supervisors now can decide whether to give an individual a one-step, two-step or three-step salary in crease each year, based The*'cTy iTworking hard to make the criteria as clw « ^s,,ble and to make sure the employees are mvolved m '''Evra'^Uh the best is checked by additional justification or a change in the rating. To ensure consistency, one person in Timmer man ’s office is responsi ble for reviewing all ques tionable assessments. •'Most designs are fine, ” says Timmerman, "but unless you monitor and assure that it’s being done as designed, they’ll all fall apart. Safeguards are necessary to be sure that the system is being used as it was designed to be.” But pay for perform ance needs more than fairness. It needs manag ers with the courage to send mediocre employ ees horn-.* every year with the bureaucratic equivalent of a lump of coal at Christmas. “It requires a lot of cour age. ” says Mary Cronin, deputy personnel commis sioner in Mas.achusetts. "for a manager to *ay 'Not only do I think you ’re a better employee than this other guy. I’m going to show the world that because I’m going Pay-for-performance money can ’t subetitute for f,Iy,M«-chu.«tt. Deputy Personnel Commisemner Mary Cronm. ^ give one S4.000 bonus and two other S500 bonuses. But 10 S500 bonuses may be a way to evade the enbre^ Thev mav be too many to reward true ment and yet too small to make people work harder in hopes of getting one. 1 iloxi has moved the furthest toward authoriang pi reallv tough management decisions. In its pay^or- JJ performance system, a supervisor can not o^y deny'peii’ormanire system, a supervisor can not o^y deny b choked by section leaders and then *PP'”’'“ ;^la'r^t“'rmurL'3an“n Je Jear".^tt« department head. And before the evaluatton a Mt^le« ^aiy^ ^ it u reviewed by the manager ^ wea^n, showing just how difficult such a decrsion is for a The manager to make even in a niace where he i.as clear system may not be absolutely crony-proof, but it makes liMiC WIUI W system mav not be absolutely crony-proof, but “rnv«TF^ "rilr^Jn charge of implementing that citv s massive new pay-for-i^ nance system, is well aware of employees ’ fear of ‘ m that each evaluation be documents ] • to - office. If the written docua doecn k support the ..ting, the evaluation is reti.«e viperv.sor for 12 r.OVFRNING December a place where he has clear ‘“t"au “u^'’,^d deem^s arc rnadc in Some are made at the very too. where a " Llership h .a ra consider the politir^ i„\^bfv ing the public cmvVs r unions, which oppose a pav-for-performance system. It a no accide cm« tharmoving ahead in this arc. «c m states with relativelv weak public employee unions. Stti fUstm* OtmgrfV *