Non-Instructional Staff Performance Management Policy

Instructional Academic Staff Information and Resources

For Faculty: Reference department or college handbook resources.

This section provides general performance management best practices. For the resources specific to the ePerformance process, see the ePerformance for Employees and ePerformance for Leadership sections on this page.

Use the resources in this section to support effective performance management.

Performance Management Slides

Performance Management Toolkit for Employees

Performance Management Toolkit for Leadership

Leadership Quick Guide: The quick guide supports you to get started, understand resources, and stay organized.

• Employee Mid-Year Discussion Planner
• Leadership Discussion Planner

  Manage your Reactions during Difficult CommunicationNon-Judgmental Language for FeedbackQuick Tips on How to Receive Feedback BetterEverything You Need to Know About Giving Negative Feedback

The ePerformance system will show the performance period as the calendar year. January 1,[Year] - December 31, [Year]. However, an employee's performance period may not match the system.

The performance review period may be based on a(n) calendar year cycle, academic year cycle, or fiscal year cycle.

Considerations to determine performance review period:

• Around the employee's employment anniversary date
• Near the end of the academic year when an employee works primarily or only during the academic year
• Choose a "slower" timeframe (1 or 2 month period) to do the department's reviews

A standard guideline for staff who are on an academic contract/schedule is to conduct the performance review around May 1^st every year. Reviews may be conducted anytime as long as they are on an annual basis and in accordance with the employee appointment period (9-month, 12-month, etc.).​

Employees hired prior to 2023 need to have a completed performance review sometime during 2023. Reference the Performance Periods section to identify and follow your department or division's performance period.

The ePerformance system has deadlines within the system. These are "soft" and set only to keep everyone generally on task/flowing through the process. Completing the steps should be based on your performance period. Use the timelines listed below as more formal guidelines for submissions. Again, understand that your timelines may be different based on your performance period.

The most important deadline, especially if the performance period is based on the calendar year: The latest deadline to completely finalize a current year's performance documents is January 31st.

ePerformance Submission and Performance Review Timelines:

Define Criteria Step Deadline:

For 2023: The deadline for the Define Criteria step to be completely finalized is the end of March 2023. Depending on the performance period, the criteria could have been created during the fall or earlier in 2022. The criteria chosen/entered should be the criteria that will be evaluated during the staff member's next performance review.

Checkpoint 1 Step Deadline:

The recommended deadline for the Checkpoint 1 step is anytime between May 1st and September 1st. If your department uses a performance period that is not between January through December, you may want to complete this step earlier.

Finalize Criteria Step Deadline:

The recommended deadline to Finalize Criteria is at least 3 months prior to the end of the individual's performance period. The deadline noted in ePerformance is Sept 30th.

Manager: Schedule Performance Review Conversation(s):

The best practice is to schedule performance review conversations on a reoccurring annual basis in Outlook for you and your staff.

If you are unable or not interested in scheduling performance reviews on a reoccurring schedule, schedule the performance review conversations to occur about one month prior to when the performance review period ends. This will provide enough time to have the employee do their self-evaluation, for the two of you to meet, for you to finalize the manager evaluation, and for your employee to make comments, if interested, and acknowledge and finalize the performance review.

Self-Evaluation Step Deadline:

If completing the performance review on a calendar year basis, the staff member should complete their self-evaluation by December 31st.

If the performance review period is not aligned with the calendar year, the staff member should submit their self-evaluation about two weeks prior to the performance review meeting.

Have the Performance Management Conversation:

Employees and managers should meet to discuss the performance review. A manager may choose to share their evaluation with an employee prior to the performance review discussion. However, it is not recommended to do so in case there are changes needed after the meeting.

Manager Evaluation Deadline:

If completing the performance review on a calendar year basis, the staff member should complete the manager evaluation by January 15th. Although the system says January 31st, this date includes the timeline for staff to do their additional comments and acknowledgment.

If the performance review period is not aligned with the calendar year, complete the manager evaluation within 2 weeks after the performance review discussion. Give your staff an additional 2 weeks to review, provide additional comments, and acknowledge this step to finalize the performance review.

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (EDIB) should be an integral part of the performance planning and review. The Competency Model explicitly includes a competency for this topic. When using the Goals model, at least one goal should include some element of EDIB performance. The goal can be in the form of professional development. Reference the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (EDIB) Activity Ideas to support performance management and professional development.

For a complete list of activities, actions, and resources, visit the UWSP HR EDIB website.

Use the below resources and the Performance Periods, Performance Timelines, ePerformance Employee Resources, and the UWSP Specific ePerformance Tips and Troubleshooting sections of this page to support ePerformance administration.

UWS Tipsheets and Videos for Managers

Access ePerformance documents via My UW.

All non-instructional staff have a 2022 ePerformance "document". You are encouraged to define criteria and complete the checkpoint 1 steps for new staff to support clear expectations and guidance. Depending on your performance period, you may choose to have an individual complete the entire 2022 review document/process.

For staff hired in late 2022, please disregard notices to complete the 2022 documents, and no action is needed for ePerformance 2022.

Within the UWS materials, there is a reference to Peer evaluations. This is not available for UWSP as it is not similar to the supplemental reviews.

General Tips:

• If the most current step you are trying to complete is not editable in HRS, ensure the prior step is 100% completed. If it is not, complete the prior step fully.
• If an employee informs you that they are "locked" out of a step and you want them to be able to edit the step, click the Release to Employee button on the top right side of the page.
• See theUWS Tipsheets and Videos for Managers as needed to complete the steps generally.

Define Criteria Step:

• Decide which model (Goals or Competencies) your staff member(s) should use for the performance review.
  
• Have your staff complete this step. While it may seem helpful to complete it on their behalf, you will find that you create an extra step for yourself as once they have reviewed it, you will need to approve the step. Therefore, instead of one step for yourself, you have created two steps.
• If you choose to complete the Define Criteria step for your staff, see the ePerformance for Employees Resources section to complete this step.

Check-In Point Step:

• Meeting to do an informal performance discussion is the best practice. However, it is not required. If you and your staff member discuss performance informally, make notes in the system to document the discussion(s).
• If an informal discussion did/does not occur, you may still update the criteria or make other notes and then submit the step.
• If no informal discussion occurs and no updates to the criteria are needed, you may choose the Skip Checkpoint button on the right top of the page to skip this step completely.

Finalize Criteria Step:

Completing the Manager Evaluation:

• Do not submit the manager evaluation until the employee has submitted their self-evaluation. If you submit it before their self-evaluation is complete, the system will remove and/or lock the staff member's self-evaluation.
• Draft and save your evaluation ratings and comments in Word or through some other method. Copy your comments into the system when you are ready to submit them.
• Save the draft/document until the review is fully completed.
• If your staff submitted their self-evaluation to you, then have updates, there are a few options to have your staff member make changes:
• If you have not shared the manager evaluation with the employee yet, email hr@uwsp.edu to have the self-evaluation step re-opened.
• If the manager evaluation step is completed, the staff member can add their changes/additions within their acknowledgment step.
  

• After doing the manager evaluation for the model you use (goals or competencies), to "finalize ratings" and avoid system errors:
  
• If you use Goals: Rate each competency to Fully Successful/Developing. In the comment section, you may type N/A or something such as "See goals". The system will ignore the competency ratings since the competency tab is set to 0% weight.
• If you use Competencies: Rate the "null" goal as Fully Successful/Developing. In the comment section, you may type N/A or something such as "See competencies".

​Foundational Resources:

Performance Management Help for Employees page

Video: Performance Management - Employee

Access ePerformance documents via My UW.

General Tips/Notes:

• The ePerformance will send Automated Emails to remind you and your manager to complete each step. The reminders are based on the ePerformance due dates for each step in the system. The system sends reminders to both the employee and manager for incomplete steps. This occurs even if you as the employee have completed your portion of a particular step. Finally, the system will send an email for the next step even if the previous step is not complete.
• You can only complete the "next" step within the process once the previous step is fully complete. If you need to complete a new/the next step and are unable to access it, speak with your manager as they most likely need to approve the previous step.
• At any step, if the system says you are "locked" out to make edits and the step does not show as completed, it means the step is "waiting" for your manager to do an action. Your manager can "release" the step back to you. Speak with them to request this. In some situations, your supervisor may prefer to make the edits themselves.
• For staff hired in late 2022, please disregard notices to complete the 2022 documents, and no action is needed for ePerformance 2022.
  

Annual Performance Review Steps in ePerformance:

There are 5 staff member steps within the annual review process.

1. Define Criteria: This step is where you set your goals or set a weight for each competency.

Tips for this step:

• The summary weight for either goals or competencies should be set to 100%. If your supervisor prefers other total weightings they may choose to do so.
• If you need to make edits to your criteria after your manager approves, edits can be made in a later step(s).
  

• The default weight for each competency is set. The best practice is to leave it as is.
  
• Goals may be used to support outcomes and/or professional development. However, they do not have to be weighted towards performance.
  
• Use the Competency Model Weighting Guide to weigh your competencies and have the system "ignore" the goals model/tab for your performance rating.

3. Finalize Criteria: This step allows you and your supervisor to make any final edits or additions to your goals or competencies and change any weighting.

4. Complete Self-Evaluation: This is the step which allows you to document your assessment of your performance for the performance period.

Tip:

• Draft and save your evaluation ratings and comments in Word or through some other method. Copy your comments into the system when you are ready to submit them.
• Save the draft/document until the review is fully completed.

Tip for this step: Complete and share this step [with your supervisor] prior to meeting with your supervisor for the performance review discussion.

5. Review Manager Evaluation: This step should be completed after the performance review discussion with your supervisor has occurred. Once your supervisor has shared their assessment of your performance formally, this step allows you to review, provide additional comments, and acknowledge that the performance review occurred.

Troubleshooting: 

• When doing Competencies: If 0% is listed for the null goal weight and 100% for the goal summary weight, there will be a system error since both the goals and competency tabs are set to 100% weight.

• How to correct if you encounter this: The null goal should be 100% and the goal summary weight should be 0%.

• When doing Goals: When doing the self-eval or manager eval, the system provides an "error" notice if not all of the competencies are rated.

• How to correct if you encounter this: Rate the competencies all as Fully Successful/Developing. The system will count the ratings at long as the summary weight for competencies is set to 0%
  

Strengths-Based Model

• Employee's Guide to Strengths-Based Performance Management
• Leadership's Guide to Strengths-Based Performance Management
  

Competency Model

•  Competency Guide
•  Competency Model - Employee Self-Evaluation
•  Competency Model - Supervisor Evaluation of Employee

Note: If this model is chosen, 1-2 growth/development goals are best practice.

Goals Model

The goals template allows the leader and employee to document, track, and evaluate employee goals. Performance Review - Goals Template

A Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) gives an employee the opportunity to improve while being held accountable for performance. The PIP is meant to be pre-emptive to disciplinary action. However, in some cases, informal or formal disciplinary action may occur at the onset of a PIP. If performance does not improve during a PIP or the performance declines after the PIP, disciplinary action may be necessary.

Before implementing a PIP, contact Human Resources.

PIP Template