Performance management is typically seen as that once-a-year event that staff and their direct superiors participate in to gauge employee productivity for compliance purposes. This webinar aims to reframe performance management as a means to optimize employee performance and foster a positive work environment for the benefit of both the individual and the organization.
Leading the discussion is Dr. Jeff Fox, a criminal justice veteran with almost three decades of experience having served as a military policeman in the Army and served as a town police officer, trooper, sergeant, first sergeant, lieutenant, and assistant training director for the Virginia State Police, as well as statewide incident management program manager for the Virginia Department of Transportation.
Specifics of the presentation are as follows:
- What performance management is and the importance of documentation in the process legally and practically.
- How setting clear and measurable goals is essential through the management by objectives approach.
- The stages of performance planning, management, and evaluation, and what is involved in each of these.
- The value of setting SMART metrics to help set effective goals for performance evaluation purposes.
- How establishing clear performance expectations is crucial for employee performance and satisfaction as well as fulfilling the agency’s mission.
- Leveraging counseling sessions to manage expectations, monitor performance, and address work issues.
- Utilizing disciplinary action to correct violations of established standards of conduct, and the importance of proper investigation and hearing the employee’s side of the story before taking disciplinary action.
- A rundown of the reasons for marginal/unsatisfactory work which can either be based on managerial/organizational shortcomings or individual/personal shortcomings.
- How supervisors should serve as role models to their staff.
- The elements of effective discipline in terms of timeliness and consistency and is action-focused, based on policy, relationship-based, and progressive.
- The supervisor’s role in the disciplinary process.
- The principle of delegation – how to do it and what is required to be successful with delegation.
- The motivation theories that explain the impetus behind employee’s work performance.
- Circumstances to give interim evaluations to employees.
- Documentation: Guidelines for documenting, examples of performance documentation, the characteristics of good documentation, and when these can be used.
- Tips on providing effective evaluation and feedback and pointers when giving and eliciting feedback as part of performance management.
Questions from webinar attendees are about:
- Providing realistic employee evaluations and achieving consistency in the process?
- Effective documentation systems and approaches.
- Overcoming the challenge of insufficient documentation of a problem employee’s history from a previous manager.
- Discerning between a normal learning curve or a lack of attention to detail.
- Getting supervisors to assist employees in identifying goals and milestones without risking overinvolvement.
Other Webinars with This Speaker:
- Dec 6, 2022: After Incident Analysis: Best Practices and Recommendations
- Jan 31, 2023: Understanding Police Professionalism
- April 18, 2023: Playing Nice in the Sandbox: The Human Elements of Disaster, Emergency Management and Incident Command
- Sept 19: The Performance Management Process: lessons for Criminal Justice Professionals (this webinar)
- Dec 12: Achieving Excellence in Criminal Justice Agencies
- Jan 25, 2024: In Defense of the Police
Audience Comments
- “I believe the best thing I learned is to know the mission goal, know your team, help in the process of learning/corrective action, accountability, & document.” — Victoria
- “The Presenter was extremely thorough, and the content covered was necessary.” — Vivian
- “Very detailed and clear explanation of the topic. Great examples.” — Amy
- “I appreciated the part when he said that it should not wait until the end of the year for it to be a problem. It should have been addressed way before that happened.” — Tracie
- “Document, Document Document. This was well-presented and very informative.” — Rafael
- “I learned that we need to set expectations and set an example to our peers.” — Lary
- “Good methods for managing employees.” — Alejandro
- “The information given was on topic.” — Michelle
- “As a new supervisor, it was great to have reinforcement of some of the things I already do, but also information on things that I did not know. I feel like I’ve had little coaching in the “technical” aspects (documentation/ HR) of supervision, so this was helpful.” — Amanda
- “Why documenting is so important in the moving forward progress of organizational development. Documenting all performance management and encouraging our teams to grow on a daily basis.” — Charles
