WAPL 2006: Performance Appraisal: Why? What If? What Else?

Patty Dwyer's presentation provided an overview of the pros and cons of traditional performance appraisal methods, and offered alternative methods to provide your employees with valuable feedback.

A really good job description is necessary before a performance appraisal; update job descriptions if necessary.

Performance evaluation is defined as the process of evaluating how someone is functioning.

• an employee's performance is rated
• ratings are for a specified time period
• one system is applied to all employees
• mandatory
• ratings are preserved by the employer, i.e. kept on file
  

Ratings in themselves are not motivational, and can instead be de-motivational.

Why do we do performance appraisals?

• to assess how well the individual is doing their job
• we want to them to have a motiovational impact for the employee
• to award a pay increase
• to justify a layoff
• to develop coaching
• as a basis for discipline
• the board requires it
  

Traditional performance appraisal weaknesses:

• they're time-consuming
• personnel are not trained to provide feedback
• the performance appraisal system isn't integrated well with other company systems
• goals for the performance appraisal system are incompatible
  

Common rater biases & errors:

• categorization and stereotyping
• favoritism
• gender, age and race biases
• leniency
• severity
• halo and horn
• recency (i.e., who can remember what happened 6 months ago)
  

Peer appraisal:

• changes the psychological context
• peers can provide relevant information
• potentially more accurate than traditional performance appraisal
  
• requires acceptance by all on the team
• better for development than traditional performance appraisal systems
• gives employees a voice when being appraised
• raters need to see the value of their efforts
• feedback seen as a valuable tool
• still need to agree upon standards
  

Why do we keep performance appraisals if they don't work?

• they're legally required
• because we want the results
• we think people need feedback
• we need to determine merit raises
  

Reasons why you might want to abolish performance appraisal:

• it erodes performance
• it's damaging to morale and motivation
• it fosters a short-term view
• it fosters fear and lack of trust
• the prcess is expensive and time-consuming
  

What do people value?

• feedback & recognition
• involvement in job design
  

Coaching the poor performer:

• annual performance appraisal isn't the right place to coach the poor performer
• instead use a separate evaluative process with goals and
  

Ways in which you can recognize employees that aren't monetrary or pay-based:

• letter of commendation
• announcement in newsletter
• peer-nominated awards
• passes to local businesses
• best parking spot for a week
• offer creative benefits like "bring your pet to work day"
• consider sabbatical leaves
• pizza party
  

Can give up performance appraisals?

• eliminate ratings if you can; if not use pass/fail if you must; try a 1-5 rating system
• make the process collaborative, giving the employee as much of the responsibility as possible; give employees a feedback source
• provide an alternative annual feedback session
  

Tips for the recovering appraiser:

• don't require appraisals to be placed in the personnel file; perhaps the supervisor and employee could keep it themselves
  
• instead of performance appraisals, use a written feedback system with no reference to pay
• require performance appraisals only for those who need improvement

WAPL 2006: What Are They Doing at the Capitol?

This session was presented by Michael J. Keane, Senior Legislative Analyst, Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau. He gave an informative program about the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, which is a service agency that is the main source of information for legislative business. The LRB has a statutory obligation to serve the public.

For answers to your questions you can call them at 608-266-0341 or find what you need at the LRB web site http://www.legis.state.wi.us/.

On the LRB web site you can find answers to:

• What committee hearings are going on?
• Can I listen to the legislature online? Yes, real-time audio of floor debates, etc. is available.
• What's going on in the legislature right now?
• How did my legislator vote on a bill?
• Who represents me; who are my legislators? You can find his/her name, photo, email address and web site
• What district do I live in? Legislative districts change based on population shifts.
• How can I follow a piece of legislation?

Sign up for the Legislative Notification Service to receive an email message each time there's action on a bill. You can sign up to keep up on the status of a particular bill, the author of a bill, a committee or a topic.

The Wisconsin Legislative Spotlight is a summary of what has recently happened.

The Wisconsin Legislature Infobase is a keyword-searchable database of bills and proposals, from 1995 to today. Prior to 1995 the information is available in hardcopy only; the LRB will make photocopies for just about anyone.

Wisconsin State Statutes are searchable online by keyword; if you're looking for the "lemon law" or "minimum markup law" they're searchable by their popular names.

The Wisconsin Law Archive has scanned copies of acts and statutes back to 1969, and they're continuing to add more.

Every State of Wisconsin Blue Book is available online, back to 1997.

Also available is a glossary of legislative terms.

The Eye on Lobbying shows you who's lobbying, what they're lobbying about and what organizations with which they're associated. Find which bills had the most lobbying effort.

WAPL 2006: Communication... That's the Key! Blogs, Wikis, Email... When to Use What!?

Stef Morrill and Nichole Fromm's enthusiastically-delivered session was all about technologies that can help you communicate with your patrons and with each other.

They said the most important thing to take away from this session is it's really easy to play with all these technologies.

Think about using some of these new technologies and environments to replace methods and techniques to do what you're already doing, but in a more efficient manner.

They talked about...

• email lists
• weblogs or blogs
• wikis
• RSS aggregators
• instant messaging
• web conferencing

Library newsletter format options:

• paper
• email
• pdf - not a webfriendly format
• blog - about as easy as a word processor to use, patrons can leave comments, automatic archiving
• the verdict: if you're already doing a newsletter in paper format, keep that plus think of a doing a blog too (rather than email or pdf versions)
  

Publicizing library events:

• fliers in the library - cheap & colorful, but people go poster-blind quickly
• calendar on the libary web site
• email

Keeping up professionally:

• conferencespaper journals
• email lists
• RSS - it's like "putting your professional development on steroids"
  

Communicating with Co-Workers:

• face-to-face
• telephone
• email
• instant messaging
  

Holding a meeting:

• face-to-face
• telephone conference calls
• videoconferencing
• web conferencing

Collaborating on a project:

• emailing documents
• using wikis - one document with no confusion about which version is the most up-to-date; it's as easy as to edit as using a word processor
• collaborative environments like Basecamp

How to get started with blogs and RSS:

• Setting up a free blog in Blogger is an easy 3-step process; all you need is an email address to set up your free blog. You don't need to know any HTML to create your blog. Nichole set a new blog http://wapl2006.blogspot.com/ on the spot!
• Setting up a free Bloglines account is even easier; all you need is an email address.

How to find blogs to add to your Bloglines account:

• blogsearch.google.com
• technorati.com
• blogwithoutalibrary.net/links

How to get started with wikis:

• Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki
• PBWiki
• StikiPad
• WikiMatrix

How to get started with with instant messaging:

• meebo

How to get started with web conferencing:

• Vyew
• WisLine Web
• OPAL (Online Programming for All Libraries)

Note: no gnomes were injured during this session.

WAPL 2006: Avoiding Sandbars in the Seas of Uncertainty: Who is Charting the Course for Libraries in Times of Change?

Keynote address by J.D. Waggoner, Secretary of the West Virginia Library Commission

If we were going to have the S.S. Librarian, what kind of librarian-ship would it be?

• party barge? nah
• Queen Elizabeth II? - probably not
• a johnboat? - servicable, small, flat-bottomed, not good on the big water; gets you where you're going, gets it done -- this is the impression of librarians outside of the library community
• why not a racing boat?

Part of the perception problem might be us. Quoting Pogo, "We has found the enemy, and they is us". The Librarian Action Figure -- is that right? Don't lets us advertise that's what we are -- it's great within our own community, we make fun of ourselves, but the "action shushing finger" is not the perception we want the public to see. G.I. Jane or G.I. Joe is the action figure we should have -- there's no bun, get rid of the comfortable shoes and put on the combat boots!

We are perhaps in the perfect storm.

We're very good at telling our story to each other, but not so good at communicating to others what it is librarians do.

Many people go into Google rudderless, and librarians are the best people to help navigate the the unfamiliar waters.

Technology won't diminish the importance of libraries. Libraries are not in trouble, perhaps only in our own heads are we in trouble. Studies say build your libraries larger than before; the community is depending on us more and more; the public needs librarians. We are a cruise ship; we need to build libraries bigger, to provide the public with services we need.

Stop looking at the dock.

The world of technology is just another piece of the puzzle that is the library.
The internet is not the problem; "we has found the enemy, and they is us".

Solutions that will help us:

1. Untie the good ship librarian from the dock; get away from the library, get out into the community. Talk to people in your community who don't use the library; find out why they don't use the library. Get out among them, do surveys of non-users.

2. Make the library indispensible in your community. Become the tugboat. The library's role is to educate the public.

3. Get political. If you are not, become so. You can't be apolitical. Your budget money comes from your town, county, state; those budgetmakers make decisions that affect your library. Be the information source for the cultural life of your community; open your library up to the community; have local concerts in the library. during hunting season, put "getting the trophy buck" videos in the front window to pull in non-readers and people who wouldn't think of using the library.

4. Explode the stereotype. Destroy the lollies (Little Old Lady Librarians). Let the public see that the johnboat is not what we are, we are the speedboat. Be a battleship not a dinghie.

In summary: if you give up the helm someone else will chart the course. But if you take the helm and make the decisions, you'll chart the course for change in your library.

MATS Blogging the 2006 WAPL Conference

The 2006 WAPL Conference will be a happenin' place, but we know not everyone can get away to Wisconsin Rapids on May 3rd-5th. Good news -- two WLA Media and Technology Section (MATS) officers (Joy Schwarz and Nichole Fromm) will soon be posting their notes about conference programs & sessions, here on the WLA blog.