Managing Team
Performance FAQs
Federal employee performance management regulations
include flexibility to design appraisal and awards
programs that support the culture, type of work, and
goals of team-structured organizations as well as those
structured traditionally. A few of the most frequently
asked questions about teams in regards to performance
appraisal and awards include:
| Note: In these questions
and answers, the following terms are used: Individual
Contribution to the Team-An employee's
behaviors, work products, or results that
contribute to successful team performance and
that measures the performance of a single
employee.
Team Performance-The processes,
results, or output of a group of people for which
the entire group can be held responsible.
Performance is measured at an aggregate level.
|
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|
Can
an agency appraise employees entirely and
exclusively on team performance? |
| Usually no. The
regulations require that each employee have at
least one critical element, which must be based
on individual performance. This requirement
ensures that an appraisal program establishes
individual accountability, as the performance
appraisal law intended by providing for the
demotion or removal of an employee on the basis
of unacceptable performance. However, it is
possible to develop a critical element and
standard that holds a supervisor, manager, or
team leader responsible for a team's performance
(taking into account their level of leadership
responsibilities for the team). |
 
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|
When
deriving a rating of record above Unacceptable,
can an agency assign greater weight to
non-critical elements that describe team
performance in order to emphasize their
importance? |
| Yes. An agency can
design procedures for deriving a rating of record
that assign greater weight to non-critical
elements (which may be used to measure team
performance and may affect the rating of record)
than to critical elements. If desired, in
summarizing overall performance at or above the Fully
Successful level, agencies can make
distinctions on the basis of team performance
alone. |
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|
Can
an agency use critical elements that address team
performance? |
| Usually, no, not as
team performance is defined here (see the Note
above). Critical elements are the only basis for
determining that an employee's performance is
unacceptable. The law intends that they be used
to establish individual accountability.
Consequently, critical elements generally are not
appropriate for identifying and measuring team
performance, which by its definition involves
shared accountability.
This restriction is clearest for rank-and-file
employees who may be serving as team members. A
supervisor or manager can and should be held
accountable for seeing that results measured at
the group or team level are achieved. Critical
elements assessing group performance may be
appropriate to include in the performance plan of
a supervisor, manager, or team leader who can
reasonably be expected to command the resources
and authority necessary to achieve the results
(i.e., be held individually accountable).
However, agencies can
use other ways to factor team performance into
ratings of record or other performance-related
decisions such as granting awards. One approach
to bringing team performance into the process of
deriving a rating of record, and certainly to the
process of distributing recognition and rewards,
is to establish team performance goals within the
team members' performance plans as either
non-critical or additional performance elements.
|
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|
Could
the individual critical element that every
employee performance plan must include be simply
to appraise the individual's contribution to the
team? |
| Yes. The individual
critical element required by the regulations must
describe performance that is reasonably measured
and controlled at the individual employee's
level. Such performance includes individual
contributions to the team, but does not include
team performance. This means that agencies have
the option of making individually-oriented
decisions about an employee's job retention as
well as reduction-in-force retention standing,
eligibility for within-grade increases, and
eligibility for individually-based awards
exclusively on the basis of the individual's
contributions to the team, rather than team
performance. |
?
|
Why
doesn't the Office of Personnel Management permit
ratings of record based entirely on team
performance? |
| The principal reason
is that it would violate the intent of the
appraisal statute. Allowing a non-performer to
"ride" the efforts of other team
members and accrue all the entitlements that Fully
Successful performance conveys would violate
the fundamental principle of individual
accountability on which the statute rests. A
second reason is that a fundamental principle of
compensation policy and practice is that
adjustments to basic pay operate at an individual
level. Within the Federal compensation system,
periodic within-grade pay increases are granted
on the basis that the employee, not the
employee's team, is performing at an acceptable
level of competence as reflected in a rating of
record.
Finally, no Federal system can be viewed as
credibly managing performance in the eyes of
Congress or the American public without making it
possible to identify and deal with poor
performers.
As noted in answers to other questions in this
document, however, summary levels (or other
performance distinctions) above Unacceptable
can be based largely on team performance.
Alternatively, a determination that performance
is Fully Successful can still be based
solely on an individual's contribution to the
team.
|
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|
What
options does an agency have for emphasizing the
importance of teams to the organization when it
does not necessarily want to base appraisal
decisions on team performance? |
| One option is to
establish an individual's contributions to the
team as critical or non-critical elements in
employee performance plans and use them in
deriving the rating of record or as awards
eligibility criteria. Another option is to
establish team goals as additional performance
elements in the employees' performance plans and
use them as the basis for team awards. |
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|
How
else might an agency emphasize the importance of
team performance, without necessarily using
critical or non-critical elements? |
| The importance of
team performance can be emphasized through the
creation of appropriate awards. Where goals are
reasonably stable, measurable, and achievable,
agencies may wish to establish incentive awards
that are granted on the basis of achieving team
performance objectives or sharing savings from
gains in team efficiency and productivity among
team members. |
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