Employers need to figure out how to do performance appraisals without demoralizing staff. Worse, tying layoffs to an ineffective performance management system raises the stakes and creates an opportunity for political appointees to purge staff based on party affiliation. https://twitter.com/govexec/status/1341371167186190341

As currently designed, Fed performance appraisals for staff-level employees can achieve only 2 things: (1) demoralize an employee or (2) lay groundwork for firing an employee. The system for executives, who are held accountable for outcomes of their offices efforts works better.

Too many federal managers are afraid to give poor appraisals to low performers, and then they wonder why they run into obstacles when they get fed up and want to fire an employee. At the other end, the system forces them to give mediocre ratings to solid performers.

Imagine you have a couple superstars and a lot of solid performers. On a 5-tier rating system, a solid performer getting a rating of 3 year after year will become demoralized. You’ll lose them or their performance will drop. That’s not a recipe for a high performing organization.

And the ones who get ratings of 5 won’t feel you’ve done anything but acknowledged the truth. It doesn’t motivate an already motivated employee to turn in even better performance.

What matters is continuous feedback. Find the best ways to use & develop staff members’ skills. One reward for high performers is meaningful work. Public recognition is good too. Removing the rare unredeemable bad performer helps too, so others don’t have to pick up the slack.

Respect and loyalty has to be a two-way street in a healthy government office. And, above all else, there must be a shared commitment to the mission of serving the public. Foster that shared commitment as a core value and build everything else on it.

If your’re a federal manager, you can take this advice or leave it. But I would urge you to look at both your FEVS ratings and your outcomes (outcomes, not outputs). We did well at OGE.