Running Head: EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS

Employee Performance Evaluations: Jackson College

Kelly Chambers
Siena Heights University
LDR 621
Organizational Behavior and Psychology
Professor Loughran
July 1, 2016

EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS

Abstract
Great research has been done to establish the importance that quality employee
evaluation plans have to an organization like Jackson College. It is critical that the organization
examine their current practices to identify areas in which they can improve and reduce errors to
increase the overall benefit of their employee evaluations. Through analysis of the current
process, review of expert opinion, and examining the quality efforts of a peer organization like
Saint Clair Community College, they can devise a process improvement plan that ensures their
methods meet their vision of world class practices.

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Employee Performance Evaluations: Jackson College

There are a variety of reasons within any organization for having a strong employee
performance evaluation process. These reasons range from helping employees self-assess
strengths and weaknesses to providing a framework for developing personal training plans for
members within a team. Additionally, these evaluations serve as a critical yearly communication
tool for establishing and evaluating performance and new goals and expectations. When solid
evaluation plans are in place, they can also provide the employer with documented history that
can help in employment decisions such as promotions, terminations, reward incentives and
compensation adjustments.
Every position from the entry-level associate to the chief executive officer has a critical
job that they are expected to perform admirably and must have the appropriate skills and abilities
for success within their position. Their work helps with the overall mission and vision of the
organization therefore, individuals understanding their role and reviewing their contributions is
highly important. Evaluating employee performance is the best method to help position
employees for success.
Organizational Overview
Jackson College is a community college in south-central Michigan that offers degrees,
certificates and transfer programs to approximately 8,000 students each year. The college
operates 5 physical campus locations across Jackson, Hillsdale, and Lenawee counties plus a
virtual campus to meet the needs of their distance learners. The college mission is to assist
learners in identifying and achieving their educational goals (About Jackson College, 2016,

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para. 1). The organizational vision is to be a world-class institution of higher education where
learners succeed and community needs are met (About Jackson College, 2016, para. 2).
Jackson College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) under
the Academic Quality Improvement Program (AQIP) pathway. The college was originally
granted accreditation in 1933 by the HLC. As of 2013 when the college changed their name from
Jackson Community College to Jackson College the institutional portfolio included 39 associate
degrees, 1 bachelor degree, and 38 certificate programs. (Statement of Accreditation Status, n.d.)
The AQIP pathway focuses on quality assurance, institutional improvement and
continuous quality improvement over an eight-year review cycle. The continuous accreditation
process includes regular monitoring, annual action projects, participation in strategy forums, and
completion of a systems portfolio and appraisal process at various intervals, in addition to
undergoing a comprehensive quality review at the end of the eight-year cycle (AQIP Pathway
Overview, n.d.). This process is the standard that is used within the organization to evaluate and
improve all administrative processes such as employee evaluations.
Additionally Jackson College is one out of 28 public community colleges who
participates in the Michigan Community College Association (MCCA). The MCCA is a networkcentric association that promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing amongst its members
(Strategic Direction, 2015, p. 2). The college benefits from the transparency of its peer
organizations by learning about institutional best practices, innovative opportunities, and
discovery of potential problems and challenges that may arise. Given the total number of college
employees is growing this group serves as a wonderful sounding broad and benchmark for what
a community college employee evaluation process should entail. Presently, the college employs

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over 700 individuals; of which roughly 20 percent receive a formalized written yearly evaluation
(About Jackson College, 2016, para. 6). Based on the enrollment size and general fund revenues,
Jackson College is grouped with six other similar schools; Kellogg, Lake Michigan, Monroe,
Muskegon, Northwestern and Saint Clair (Activities Classification Structure, 2016, p. 21). These
schools have an enrollment size between 6,000 and 13,000 students and a general fund revenue
between 25 and 50 million; since these peer organizations are similar in size and funding, they
serve well as a basis of comparison for the generation of ideas for process improvements. Since
they also grapple with the same legal and union related issue relevant to public colleges and
universities they serve as a better source than organizations in the private sector.
Analysis of Jackson Colleges Current Employee Evaluation Process
At present, Jackson Colleges employee evaluation process is outlined within the
Educational Support Personnel Association Labor Agreement that was finalized in 2013.
Currently the process is a supervisor to subordinate evaluation method where the immediate
supervisor meets and provides each bargaining unit member with a written evaluation annually
on the employment anniversary date (Master Agreement, 2013, pp. 27-28). The expectation is
that at this meeting the supervisor will provide a draft copy of the standardized written
evaluation to the employee for review and discussion. Within thirty days of this meeting, once
the employee has added comments and signed off on the evaluation, the supervisor is to file the
completed form with the Human Resources office so the document can be added to the
employees personnel file. This evaluation is the critical component used to determine if unit
members receive yearly performance pay increases to their salary.
The current standard evaluation form used within the organization utilizes all four
appraisal dimensions; competency, task, goal and trait. Supervisors then rate each employees

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performance on these dimensions using a graphic rating scale with three ranking possibilities;
below expectations, meets expectations and exceed expectations. Additionally, supervisors are
given space to provide written summary comments for each appraisal dimension and about the
employee overall. For example, there is a section for KSAs in which supervisors are asked to rate
whether an employee has the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to perform the essential
functions of the position held (Evaluation Form, p. 2). There are many questions that fall into
the traits dimension asking supervisors to look at items such as judgement and initiative. For
goals supervisors are asked to determine how well employees accomplished goals that were set
in the previous year. In addition there are questions that relate to how well employees complete
daily tasks and work with internal and external customers.
As Aamodt (2013, p. 259) outlines, there are many errors and inconsistencies that can
occur within any evaluation process and Jackson College falls victim to many. For example
within the technology department it is well known that the supervisors have very different
opinions of the purpose and use of the yearly evaluation. One supervisor has leniency tendencies,
always ranking employees fairly high, feeling that this increases employee morale. Contrarily
another supervisor within the same department typically uses central and strictness tendencies
feeling that employees need to understand the areas that they are expected to improve and grow
in as employees. This discrepancy results in distribution errors within the department evaluations
and often a feeling of animosity amongst the two teams when one team frequently receives
performance pay increases as a result of their evaluation and the other does not. This problem is
due to an overall lack of training and standardization for how supervisors are to evaluate
members of their teams. This type of behavior takes places throughout the organization and is
more prevalent when there are multiple mid-level managers within one large department.

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Additionally, another area that creates issues within the process is that the evaluations
only take place once per year on the anniversary of the employee. Often times this means that the
supervisors focus for ranking the employee is only what has occurred within their current
memory and recent interactions versus evaluation of the employees overall year of tasks and
accomplishments. As Aamodt (2013, p. 263) describes, this is an example of a sampling problem
called the recency effect. This could either work in that employees favor or against that
employee depending on what has occurred within their performance recently. For example, a
worker could have had great customer service for ten months out of the year with no complaints;
however within a week of the evaluation that employee upsets the college president who calls the
supervisor thereby creating great havoc and work for that supervisor. When ranking that
employee that supervisor then gives them a low ranking for customer service because their recent
memories about this employee in this area are incredible negative. If the supervisor were
required to rank that employee in this area more frequently, the overall score for the year would
be more representative of their customer service capabilities versus only this recent undesirable
memory.
Additionally, evaluating employee behavior is often biased across the organization
because the current evaluation form has a high number of trait-focused dimensions. Supervisors
have a tendency to value particular traits more than others or do not understand the definition of
the trait in order to properly evaluate it. Furthermore, they are more likely to recognize positive
and negative traits that are consistent with the preconceived opinions and impressions of an
employee. For example, within the technology department, the director sees little value in
emotional traits and tends to have biases towards employees that speak about people and
situations using emotions; therefore in these areas and in the area of judgement he rates

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employees low not based on their actual history of making decisions, but based on the opinion
that someone that is highly emotional cannot by nature have good judgement.
Overall, the current process within the organization meets some of the basic purposes of
the evaluation process such as employee training and feedback, however there are many areas
that could be improved upon. When focusing on what areas should be amended and what
methods can be used to make these improvements, it is important to look to experts and our peer
organizations for insight.
Analysis of Saint Clair Community Colleges Employee Evaluation Process
Review of Saint Clair Community Colleges Educational Support Personnel Agreement
reveals that much like Jackson College, they complete employee evaluations annually within the
months of April and June (Agreement, 2014). They also meet with the employee to discuss the
evaluation prior to submission to the personnel record. Unlike Jackson College, Saint Clair
Community College does not participate in any form of performance based pay incentives as a
result of their evaluation process.
The evaluation form that is used at Saint Clair Community College utilizes three
appraisal dimensions; competency, task, and trait, however has far fewer trait-focused areas than
Jackson College; instead they have a high task-focused evaluation. Supervisors are asked to rate
employees performance on these dimensions using a graphic rating scale. The Jackson College
scale only has three ranking levels where Saint Clair has five to provide supervisors with more
flexibility for providing feedback; excellent, very good, satisfactory, needs improvement, and
unsatisfactory (Agreement, 2014, pp. 48-53).

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Saint Clair Community Colleges evaluation form and process outline is far more
extensive than that currently in place at Jackson College. Within the standard form, supervisors
are given detailed instructions on what to consider as part of the ranking for the dimensions and
examples are provided to guide them through the evaluation process.
Unlike Jackson College they do not set yearly goals or have goal-focused dimensions as
part of the evaluation process, however they do outline overall strengths and areas of concern. If
an employee receives a needs improvement or unsatisfactory ranking the supervisor must
immediately complete and provide to the employee an improvement plan that will address these
areas of concern. This plan is then reevaluated within six months to determine if improvement is
being made or if disciplinary action needs to be taken. This process varies greatly from Jackson
College as they create employee improvement plans after the evaluation has been completed
which have no set timelines for reevaluation of progress or completion. Additionally, the Jackson
College contract does not allow for any disciplinary action to occur as a result of an employees
unsatisfactory evaluation; discipline can only take place through the progressive discipline steps
outlined within the staff contract (Master Agreement, 2013, p. 29).
From review of the Saint Clair Community College process Jackson College can glean
improvements to their current standards. While there are many similarities with the
methodologies being used with these peer organizations, there are many areas that each are
excelling at. For Jackson College, they could model their form directions after Saint Clair which
is doing far superior in this area. Additionally, incorporating the improvement plan and
establishing set improvement timelines for low ranking employees is another item Jackson
College could take away and incorporate into their current process.

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Recommendations for Improvements

The major areas of improvement that analysis of Jackson Colleges current process and
that of a peer institution revealed should focus on; reduction in distribution errors, sampling
problems, setting timelines and improvement goals, and bias toward employee traits. As Aamodt
(2013, p. 259) has explained, these are common issues within employee evaluations, however
there are steps that Jackson College can take in order to reduce their frequency and step toward
their world-class vision.
One area that analysis of Saint Clair Community College revealed which could be
improved and incorporated into the Jackson College process is improvement planning for low
preforming employees. The current process at Jackson College has no established timelines and
is done outside the evaluation which can create time lags and anxiety for the employee that
received the low rating. By adding the improvement plan and timeline requirement to the
evaluation, both parties will leave with a clear understanding of the plan and will prevent the
process from dragging on into the coming months. It will also be critical as Society for Human
Resources Management (2015, para. 3) indicates that the focus of this improvement plan be
SMART goals or those that are, specific and measurable objectives that are accurate, relevant
and time-bound.
While the majority of organizations only conduct evaluations annually, one thing that can
be done to reduce sampling problems is to increase recording of employee performance
throughout the year. As Frost (2014, para. 5) states, Organizations that survey their employees
more frequently report higher levels of satisfaction those with a system for continuous
feedback, alongside those conducting an employee survey more than once a year, are most
satisfied with their engagement efforts. While the organization does not have the resources to

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preform full evaluations more frequently, Jackson College could work to improve their process
by developing a standard system that requires all supervisors to meet briefly with employees
monthly so documentation of accomplishments and any areas of concern could be captured.
Then when the annual evaluation occurs, this log of information about the employee can be
referenced by the supervisor to create a more holistic sampling of their work efforts. The effort
and resources to accomplish this would be minimal given that most supervisors already conduct
these types of meetings, however the critical piece missing currently is consistently creating
documentation of what was discussed. Providing a simple tool for gathering this data monthly
would result in great process improvement and reductions in sampling errors caused by the
recency effect.
Another items that was identified as an area of concern in the current Jackson College
employee evaluation process was the level of distributions errors such as leniency and strict
tendencies amongst supervisors. Examination of this area revealed that this issue is in large part
due to a variation is understanding of the evaluation purpose as well as a lack of consistent
directions and training for supervisors completing the form. Jackson College should follow the
lead of their peer Saint Clair Community College and increase the directions within their
evaluation form which helps to ensure standards are met. In addition, training for supervisors on
the evaluation process and purpose needs to be developed and conducted as currently no training
is provided. As Kalyanasundaram (2014, para. 8) explained, Managers, who are well aware of
the performance rating issues, will tend to approach it more objectively and ensure that bias does
not creep in their rating. Like so many issues, awareness and training can result in vast
improvements to organizational processes such as employee evaluations.

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Additionally, looking into the current process at Jackson College showed that a heavy
reliance on trait-based dimensions resulted in supervisors evaluating employees performance
with their personal standards and emotions toward these traits resulting in increased bias errors.
This could be reduced and avoided if the organization reduced the number of trait-based
dimensions in their current evaluation form and, like Saint Clair, increased their task and
competency based dimensions. As Aamodt (2013, p. 242) explains, these dimensions are more
objective to evaluate and provide goals for improvement; furthermore it is easier for the
supervisor to recall employees past efforts in these areas and make daily observations that can be
used when completing evaluations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Jackson College, like all organizations, struggles with overcoming the
variety of errors and issues that can occur within an employee evaluation process. However with
review of industry standards and practices of peer institutions, Jackson College can make
improvements within these areas by setting an AQIP annual action project which focuses on this
organizational process. This area would be a great opportunity for and would fit well into both
the institutional improvement and continuous quality improvement AQIP categories.
By developing a team to review and implement improvements such as those suggested
within this document, the organization could maximize the benefits that are received by
evaluating employees such as career advancement, employee recognition and development plans
for those struggling to meet expectations. There is a great amount of research that shows the both
employers and employees benefit from an evaluation process, but only if it is done effectively.
Jackson College has a solid starting point to begin from and investing in refining this process
would help them work toward their mission and vision of being world class in every way.

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References
Aamodt, M. G. (2013). Industrial/organizational psychology: An applied approach. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
About Jackson College. (2016, January 01). Retrieved June 28, 2016, from
https://www.jccmi.edu/about/
Activities Classification Structure 2014-15 Data Book & Companion. (2016, March 1).
Retrieved June 29, 2016, from http://michigancc.net/acs/ACS 2014-15 final.pdf
Agreement | Educational Support Personnel. (2014, July 1). Retrieved June 30, 2016, from
http://www.sc4.edu/uploadedFiles/Website/Website_Assets/Files/Budget_and_Performan
ce_Docs/Employee-group_agreements/ESP Contract 2014-2016 Final.pdf
AQIP Pathway Overview. (n.d.). Retrieved June 28, 2016, from
https://www.hlcommission.org/Pathways/aqip-overview.html
Evaluation Form - Staff Performance [DOCX]. (2013, September 13). Jackson: Jackson College.
Frost, S. (2014, May 16). How often should you conduct an employee survey? Retrieved June
30, 2016, from http://www.hrzone.com/engage/employees/how-often-should-youconduct-an-employee-survey
Kalyanasundaram, K. (2014, November 10). How to avoid common rating errors during
performance appraisal? Retrieved June 30, 2016, from
http://blog.synergita.com/2014/11/how-to-avoid-common-rating-errors-duringperformance-appraisal/

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Master Agreement | Staff. (2013, September 16). Retrieved June 30, 2016, from
https://www.jccmi.edu/wp-content/uploads/Labor-Agreement-Staff.pdf
SHRM. (2016, September 16). How to Establish a Performance Improvement Plan. Retrieved
June 30, 2016, from
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spx
Statement of Accreditation Status. (n.d.). Retrieved June 29, 2016, from
https://www.hlcommission.org/component/directory/?Action=ShowBasic
Strategic Direction 2015-2017. (2015, January 01). Retrieved June 29, 2016, from
http://www.mcca.org/uploads/ckeditor/files/Strategic Direction 2015-2017.pdf