PMI – Subject Matter Minute Blog

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #62 – PMI Evaluation Score/Rating

The below post is taken from the Video Blog, the Subject Matter Minute. If it’s a little hard to read, it’s because it’s taken from the spoken word. You can view the episode on YouTube if you would like. Find it here: Episode #62 – Performance Evaluation Score

If YouTube is blocked for you or your agency, you can scroll to the bottom of this post to view it from Google Drive. (I would prefer you view it on YouTube, so I know how many people have watched)

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello and welcome to the Subject Matter Minute! And welcome to summer! I think. It rained all day Sunday and really hasn’t broken 70 here in Laramie, but… maybe that’s keeping the mosquitos away!

So the last episode was on Flexible Work Schedules. I have heard from many of you that this really sparked some conversations. And that is fabulous. It may make some supervisors’ jobs a bit harder, but shouldn’t we all be working towards satisfaction with our jobs? And flexibility is definitely top of the list as far as job satisfaction goes. So keep working on it…

So, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there is a lot of PMI stuff going on right now. Everyone is finishing up last year’s PMI and now we are starting up the next evaluation period… and all in a brand new system. Gotta love it, right? Please try not to hate on HRD… this WILL make things better down the road. We are going to be just like the other big kids with a system that ties all the essentials together.

And now… to top all this PMI stuff off, for the second year in a row, a portion of our raises will be based on our PMI evaluation score. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today… our performance evaluation score. (music)

Before I dive into this, I want to thank Rebecca Kouba for being my subject matter expert for this episode. She has been bustin’ her hump making the new Neogov Performance system work for us. Thanks, Rebecca…

So… understandably, there is some confusion out there about the PMI scoring. We have all been raised with the A through F scoring mentality, right? And that makes it hard to see a score of 2 out of 4 as being good. Seems more like a 50%… or an F, right? Well, trust me, a score of 2 out of 4 in our system is good… quite good.

Ok, first of all, let’s talk about how our scores are calculated. As you have heard, we now are being rated on 7 competencies. Everyone is being rated on the same 7 competencies. Each competency rating carries equal weight. In order to get an average, numeric values are associated with each rating. An Unsatisfactory rating is equivalent to a point value of 0, a Growth Necessary rating is equivalent to a point value of 1, a Meets Expectations rating is equivalent to a point value of 2, a Commendable rating is equivalent to a point value of 3, and a Superior rating is equivalent to the point value 4. Each numeric value is used to compute the average or overall score.

Let’s practice. Let’s say I receive the following ratings:

Communication: Growth Necessary
Customer Service: Meets Expectations
Judgment and Decision Making: Meets Expectations
Team Player: Commendable
Accountability: Meets Expectations
Professionalism: Commendable
Leadership: Meets Expectations

Now let’s put in the numerical equivalents. (add numbers to the above list)

You add up all the numbers and divide by the total number of competencies…. Which is 7.

So, as you can see, I will receive an overall score of 2.14. (1+2+2+3+2+3+2 = 15; 15/7 = 2.14).

Ok, now let’s look at the chart to see what that average means. You can see that I’m safely within the “Meets Expectations” area on the chart.

Ok, so as I mentioned before, to many, the score of 2.14 out of 4 seems like a lousy score, and again, to many, the term “meets expectations” doesn’t seem all that good as well. Well…. Here’s the deal with “meets expectations.” It means that you are a great employee! You are doing what you were hired to do and you are doing it well.

The actual definition of an overall rating of Meets Expectations at the State of Wyoming is this: Employee is a highly valued contributor who performs all essential functions of the job successfully. Employee consistently sustains an effective level of performance. This individual reliably performs position duties. This individual is comfortable with responsibilities and often is described as the “norm” – a solid performer. Employee is doing adequate work within the scope of their classification.

Again…. A valued contributor! Let’s be honest, this is where most people at the state should fall in the ratings. If everyone at the state got meets expectations, and it truly matches their output, then this organization would be running like a finely oiled machine. Not that it’s not…. 🙂 I just don’t know if it is or not. Depends on who you talk to.

While we are here, let’s explore the other overall ratings to see what they mean. As you saw before, meets expectations is a numerical score of 1.5 to 2.4. You can see where the others line up here. Let’s just say that instead of that “growth necessary” for communication, I rocked a “superior.” Superiors are worth 4 points, so that bumps my score up to 2.6. As you can see that gives me an overall score within the commendable area. Someone who scores as commendable, to put it briefly, exceeds the position expectations, and performs exemplary work within the scope of their classification.

If I were to have the most motivated year of my life and score an overall rating of superior, that would mean that I had made “outstanding and remarkable contributions constantly.” And that I had “performed at a level that was astonishing and was often working outside the scope of my classification.”

Ok, let’s go the other direction. If I had scored between .5 and 1.4, I would have a ‘growth necessary’ rating. This means that my work was inconsistent and that I was not quite living up to expectations.

And finally, if I just decided to blow everything off and basically not do my job at all, I would get an ‘unsatisfactory’ rating. Luckily, we have very, very few employees that got this rating last year.

Just so you know, a large majority of us fall into the meets expectations and commendable area.

If you want more details about the different ratings, I have linked the “rater chart” in the show notes.

Ok… that’s it for today. I hope this helps clear up some confusion, and helps some of those that didn’t feel so great about their evaluation ratings. Now go out and finish up last year’s PMI and get next year’s started!

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #32 – Saba TalentSpace Mobile App

If YouTube is blocked for you or your agency, you can scroll to the bottom of this post to view it from Google Drive. (I would prefer you view in YouTube, so I know how many people have watched)

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello Fellow State of Wyoming employees… Matt here. Thanks for joining me here on the wild ride that is the Subject Matter Minute.

Before I get started on the subject matter meat, so to speak, I’m guessing that there may be a few of you out there that have gone on an Alaskan cruise? I’m asking because my parents just surprised us with a trip of our own this coming summer. My grandfather, who was about 2 months shy of his 101st birthday, passed this last summer, and apparently still had a little cash left. Well, my mom wanted to use it for a family vacation. So, my parents are going to take me, my wife, my kids and my sister on an alaskan cruise. This is definitely something that was on my bucket list, and I’ve never been on any sort of cruise, so I’m very excited. If you have been on one and have some pointers for us, please feel free to post them in the comments below the video. Or throw me an email… whatever.

Alright… today is a little show and tell episode. Today I’m going to show you how to use the Saba TalentSpace mobile app. (music)

Before I get started, I want to thank Debbie Russi again for helping me sort out the info for the last episode. That was on Maternity leave if you missed it. Remember fellas, that episode isn’t just for the ladies. Go back and check it out.

This episode’s subject matter expert is Brenda Kelly-Mitchell, who administers the PMI system and recently activated the mobile app. Thanks for doing that, and thanks for helping me out Brenda.

I think more and more people out there are starting to use the features of Saba that make it worthwhile. If not, maybe it’s because you don’t want to take the time to sit at the computer, or maybe you simply forget by the time you get to your computer? Well, the app is perfect for those problems. This is “on-demand” documentation. Memories are so much better at the point of incident, right? Being able to take a journal note, or throw out some feedback while in the field, or at the meeting, is much more reliable than doing it a month later.

The app is slick and easy to use. And I’m going to show you what is available on it. Let’s get going.

In order to start the process and get the app functioning, you need an activation code. To do that go to the Saba talent space website, go over to your name on the far right click on it, go to app activation, and then halogen app. I’m fairly certain in the future that will say talentspace app, but for now it still says halogen.

Sometimes it just brings up this feedback page, other times it will bring up the activation code. But if you only get this page and do not see a code, go ahead and do it again. And there you have your activation code.

So once you’ve gone to the website and got the code, you go to your mobile device, download saba talentspace mobile app, and then open it. This is where you add your activation code. Go ahead and put in the site name, which was wyoming, and then the activation code, and then activate.

Now you’re in the saba talentspace mobile app. This is the front page. They like to give you little tips and tricks here on the front… you can dismiss that. You can see down at the bottom there’s a menu where you have home, feedback, talent view, one-to-one meeting, and learning. First of all, from the very front page you can add feedback to somebody. Up by your picture… you see “hi Matthew L, do you have feedback to share” click on that and you can immediately send feedback to somebody. So you choose great job or whichever one. You find someone… you just search for them… you start typing their name, and it’ll give you the options. I’m gonna go ahead and cancel out of that and discard it.

Hold up! Let’s go back a second. I recorded this and then realized there’s a very cool feature within the mobile app that you cannot do on your desktop. You can attach photos! So when you’re in feedback, you see the little photo or a camera icon… click on that and you can insert a photo or take a photo. So if you are giving feedback on something at the time that is right in front of your face, you can take a photo. Or if you previously had a photo you can go insert photo. Go into your photos on your camera… yeah better not, my wife had some pictures of her being very sick… Or take a photo. Allow it to use your camera, and look that’s me recording my phone.

So that is a very very useful feature for feedback on the mobile app. That’s the quickest way to send feedback to somebody.

Another way is you can see on the home page the “my team” at the bottom. You can scroll through your people, and then either click on their face or click on the little three bars below their face and that’ll bring up icons. You can see the feedback icon is the second from the left if you want to send feedback to that person, or if you click on their face it brings up their face in a larger format and gives you some icons as well. You can send email to them, you can send feedback, and unfortunately you can’t call through the system right now. The telephone icon is grayed out. But that’s another way you can send feedback to your people right away.

You can also click in the upper right hand corner where you see the plus feedback icon. Same deal… you click on that, click send feedback, and you go through the process. So this is really really handy for sending feedback to folks.

You can also look at your feedback that you have received or sent by clicking on the feedback icon in the lower menu. These are the received, and then sent, and then you can also look at ones that you have requested, if you ever requested any.

Okay let’s go back to the home screen. We’ve looked at the feedback on the lower screen, let’s look at Talent view next. Talent view basically shows your crew, shows who you work with. Same deal… you can see the hierarchy… if there was a larger hierarchy there would be several layer layers. You can do what I showed you before… you could either click on the little icon and choose email or feedback, or look at their profile, or you can click on their face… same deal… send some feedback, send an email.

So that’s talent view. Next let’s look at one-to-one meeting. So in one-to-one meeting basically it shows the agenda that you’re setting up. These are the agenda items that are automatically put into your one-to-one meeting… any feedback goes in there automatically. You can add an agenda item by clicking on the plus icon to the right of agenda. You can type in the title, describe the agenda item, and add it to your agenda. I’m going to discard that because I’m not making one right now. So that’s a nice way to keep things up to date for your next one-to-one meeting.

If you were to be enrolled in a learning activities on the main site you could see them here under learning.

So that’s a rundown of all the features of the Saba talent space mobile app. If you have any questions you can always click on the menu in the upper left hand corner, click on help, and that will take you to the talent space mobile app help page online. You can look through any of these things. If you need to go back, in the upper left hand corner you click back on the Saba talent space arrow and you’re back in the app.

The mobile app is a fabulous way to send feedback, real-time feedback in the field, or in the meeting or wherever you’re at at the time so you don’t forget what you need to send.

Ok… so that’s the Saba TalentSpace mobile app. I know that 99 percent of you have your phone with you at all times, so this is probably the easiest, and best, way to interact with our performance management system. As an employee or a supervisor, it makes sense to use the system to its fullest and to have an influence over your performance reviews.

That’s it for today! Remember, if you’ve been on an Alaskan cruise and have any tips or tricks or anything we absolutely must do, please let me know! See ya next time.

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #30 – Unclaimed Property

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello everybody! Welcome to another episode of the Subject Matter Minute, I’m Matt Nagy, thanks for joining me!

If you have been watching the last couple episodes, you’ve seen me, rather pathetically, pleading for a couple fans of the show to contact me. Well, I can now claim success. Unfortunately, these two fabulous people both left state employment, so they didn’t know I was searching for them. Well, here they are… Angela and Brittany. Thanks to both of you for being fans, and I’m sorry you won’t be watching anymore!

This episode is not really about any state benefits or processes. Although it kind of is…. Well, the state Treasurer’s office is in charge of it, so the state is a part of it. But, this can benefit anyone, anywhere. Today I’m going to show you how you can possibly get yourself some cash from Unclaimed Property. (music)

You may have heard about this in the past. And if you are like me, you started to try to get your money, but the system was confusing and just not worth it. I remember giving up. Well, not anymore. It’s simple and quick now. I got a check for $380! A close friend of mine got $200. I’m not saying you all have this kind of “unclaimed property,” but it’s time to check! I’m guessing that some of you will be “finding” your money as you are watching this video.

So what’s this all about? Well, it seems that sometimes companies can’t find us. Or don’t try very hard to find us. It seems I had some rebates from purchased printers, refunds from magazines, and some small investments in a company from way back. It can be any number of things. So, if the company can’t find you, they send the money to unclaimed property. And it sits there until you do the search.

You can go to the Wyoming Treasurer’s webpage, and go to Unclaimed Property, or you can go directly to the search page with this address: https://wyoming.findyourunclaimedproperty.com

If you go to the unclaimed property page on the Treasurer’s site, there is a “how-to” video that shows you exactly what I’m going to show you, but they can take it to the end of the process. I can’t quite finish it because I already claimed my money!

Ok… this is how you find your cash. (Demo)

Here we are on the treasures website. There’s our Treasurer… You can see right here big giant button that says unclaimed property. We’ll go ahead and click on that… it takes you to this page that has that video that I mentioned. Feel free to watch that as well. It takes you all the way to the end.

So you simply click on “search unclaimed property,” and here’s the search page. Go ahead and put your last name in here. I think it’s best to just put your last name in here because it gives you the broadest search.

So go ahead and click “search,” and you’ll see all these Nagy’s. I’m not sure why it says “no exact matches” because actually there’s a lot of Nagy’s… David Nagy, Thyrion Nagy, and interestingly enough, I believe this is my father, Robert Eugene Nagy down there.

I’ll claim his, just for demonstration purposes. You just click “claim,” and if you have multiple ones, just click claim next to each of the ones that are for you. I had several. Then you can go either down here or right here and hover, and then click “review claimed properties.”

So here’s the property. Here’s some instructions you need to read because you have to select an option here. Generally you’ll be the owner so I’m going to go ahead and put that down. Then click file claim. Then you’ll need to fill out this information.

Choose individual or business, and fill out this stuff. Once you get that all filled in click Next. It’ll suggest an address perhaps. Click Next there, and then you’re at the electronic signature page. You’ll check this, you’ll put your first and last name here, just like it says. Once it’s all good to go, all this information is correct, you’ll click Submit and your unclaimed property claim will be submitted. You’ll get an email rather quickly.

Sometimes they may need some more information other times they don’t. It just depends on the amount of the money, where it’s coming from, the information you’ve given them, that sort of thing. You can see here the email that I received when I went through this, and it’s asking for some additional documentation. You can find that in this PDF. You can see that they’re asking for photocopies of current driver’s licenses for all listed owners and a signed form. Since my wife and I were both on one of them, we needed both of our driver’s licenses… but really not a big deal… it was a pretty easy process to get $381.

Alright! If you didn’t actually go through the process while you were watching the video, please do it now. I truly hope we can drain a bit of that “unclaimed property” value out of the Treasurer’s coffers!

That’s it for today! Thanks for joining me for another episode of the Subject Matter Minute… see ya next month!

Subject Matter Minute, Episode #29 – PMI Midyear Coaching Phase

You can also listen to an audio version.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the subject matter minute! Thanks for joining me.

So, last episode I sent out a plea to a couple state employees whom I thought were pretty big fans of the show, but I’ve heard nothing! You ladies are breaking my heart. If I ran into you at the Norah Jones concert, please contact me via email, as I would really (still) like a copy of the photo we took.

I want to tell you guys a little about a trip my wife, a group of friends and I took just a couple weeks ago. First of all, it was the hardest thing Tanna, my wife, and I have ever done. Secondly, it was the most beautiful mountain range we have ever experienced. Eleven of us did a supported mountain bike ride from Telluride to Durango, in the San Juan mountains. It ends up being about 80 miles of riding, and at one point we peaked out at 12,600 foot elevation. Leading up to it, we were like… well, 20-25 miles a day doesn’t seem too bad. We have all day to do it. And we aren’t racing, so it should be cool. Well, those miles took a while. Every day was at least 6 hours of intense, technical riding. I’m not complaining… we felt so accomplished and satisfied each day as we sipped on our ice cold beer. That was the other thing… like I said, the trip was supported. So a guy we paid set up a kitchen and a groover and hauled all our coolers and camping gear to the next spot. We camped 3 nights and rode 4 days. We had perfect weather, the wildflowers were like nothing we have ever seen and for the next week at least, I was in the best shape of my life. That was one for the books.

Ok… now let’s get to something I know you are all pumped about… PMI. For you newbies, this means Performance Management Instrument. A few episodes ago I went over some of the technical stuff. The tools you can use to maximize the effectiveness of the system and possibly help your ratings. This time I want to be timely with the show and hit the current phase…

This episode is about the Midyear Coaching Phase. (music)

Before I get started on the midyear coaching phase, I want to thank this episode’s subject matter expert, Brenda Kelly-Mitchell. She is the master of all things PMI and works her butt off making the system work. Thanks Brenda for getting me the information.

As you should know, there are 3 phases to our PMI. This is the middle phase when managers and employees get together and talk about progress, problems, goals, expectations, and all that. This is a formal and documented get together. Now by formal, I don’t mean it can’t be relaxed, and honestly “informal.” It just means that this meeting is required.

While coaching itself is often perceived as the manager’s responsibility, it is a two-way street – and definitely a time to make sure that we, the employees, are informing our managers of successes, any obstacles that are keeping us from getting stuff done, or maybe resources needed that could overcome those obstacles. Let’s be honest, if your manager doesn’t know what is holding you back, they make assumptions. So this is a great time to let them know.

Naturally, you would be putting those things into the Talentspace software, right? Like I showed you 3 episodes ago? But…. that doesn’t guarantee that your supervisor is even paying attention. So… again… bring it up in the Mid-Year meeting.

Also, we all know that priorities shift from season to season, month to month, and often day to day – so, this is a great time to talk them over and recalibrate if needed.

Midyear is also a time that we reconnect on topics such as Career and Development – like learning new skills and gauging interest in new experiences. So, if you have been eyeing an online course, a conference, or even considering expanding your role in your agency, this is a good time to bring it up.

As a manager, take advantage of this phase to give praise where it is warranted. If goals are being met and everything is progressing as expected, be sure to bring that up!

And finally, this is also a time to try to redirect performance and/or behavior that isn’t inline with the goals and target ranges set up in the planning phase, or with the state in general. This is a nice way of saying that poor behavior should be addressed.

Let’s get into some formalities. Each phase has the “same” 6 steps that need to happen.

Evaluator Writes midyear comments on goals and core competencies
Second-level manager reviews and approves
HR Reviews and approves
Manager meets with employee (conducts the interview)
Employee reviews, comments, acknowledges receipt
Evaluator signs off

Ok! I’ve included links to some materials that can help with this process in the show notes below this video. Please check them out.

Trust me, I know it’s sometimes hard to make time for the PMI process. But…. it’s something we all have to do and we might as well do it well and do it right. Who knows, maybe 10 years down the road there will be some raises tied to it. 🙂

That’s it for this month’s SMM. Check in next month when I do an episode that could make you some money!