5-701: Employee Evaluation and Development

Purpose

This document contains the County’s policy relating to the employee evaluation process for probationary and permanent County employees.

Evaluations are not required for intermittent or temporary employees, however, they may be used at the discretion of the department for provisional employees in permanent positions. 

 The objectives of employee evaluation and development are to: 

• Recognize employee accomplishments 
• Evaluate job performance (the probationary period is a continuation of the testing and hiring process) 
• Reinforce job performance standards and expectations 
• Provide the employee and supervisor opportunity to discuss strengths and weaknesses 
• Train the employee 
• Afford supervisors the opportunity to communicate and document areas needing improvement and plans for performance improvement

Authority

Sacramento County Policy

Scope

This policy is applicable to all regular employees (as defined in the Personnel Ordinance) who are in probationary or permanent status.

Policy

All employees shall be provided an employee evaluation by their immediate supervisor. Probationary employees will receive evaluations and development plans at three equal intervals for probationary employees. Permanent employees will receive an evaluation once a year. 

Responsibilities

Department Head

• Establish a departmental employee performance and evaluation system. 
• Require all managers and supervisors provide timely evaluations to probationary employees set forth in this policy regarding content, use, and periodicity. 
• Ensure all managers and supervisors receive Introduction to Supervision training. 
• Establish job standards for managers. 
• Perform timely evaluations for probationary managers. 
• Review evaluations competed by managers. 
• Submit a status report to the advisory group annually by May 1. Report shall contain the number of performance evaluations that were completed for probationary employees hired during the last twelve months and the percentage of probationary employees who have been evaluated.

Manager/Second Level Supervisor

Each manager/second level supervisor is responsible for: 

Direct Supervisor: 

• Establish job duties and standards for subordinate supervisors. 
• Outline the subordinate supervisor’s job duties and standards. 
• Perform timely evaluations to subordinate supervisors.

Indirect Supervisor: 

• Collaborate with subordinate supervisors to jointly establish job duties and standards for supervisors’ subordinates. 
• Ensure that all supervisors provide timely evaluations. 
• Review and approve all evaluations completed by supervisors. 

Supervisor

• Meet with managers to identify job duties and standards for subordinate staff. 
• Communicate duties, job expectations, and standards for probationary employees. 
• Perform timely evaluations to probationary employees. 
• Submit completed performance evaluation to departmental personnel specialist.

Departmental Personnel Specialist: 

• Annotate the completion of the evaluation in COMPASS. 
• Prepare annual report illustrating all completed performance evaluation.

Signatures Required

The supervisor and manager/second level supervisor must sign the completed evaluation form. Both the employee and the supervisor must receive the signed original copy of the evaluation document to acknowledge that the meeting was conducted and that the employee was provided a copy of the document. The employee’s signature acknowledges receipt of the evaluation and does not necessarily signify agreement. If the employee refuses to sign the document, then the supervisor will indicate the refusal on both copies of the document. The employee may retain one original of the evaluation. The second signed document will be maintained in the employee’s personnel file. A duplicate copy may be retained in the supervisor’s desk file. 

Contested Evaluation/Assessment:

An evaluation cannot be appealed to the Civil Service Commission. If an employee is dissatisfied with an evaluation, it should first be discussed with the supervisor who prepared the evaluation. If the difference is not resolved, the matter should be discussed with the next level of supervision/management. 

Within 30 days of receipt of the evaluation, the employee may request that a written response statement be placed in the employee’s personnel file with the contested evaluation. 

A review of the applicable labor agreement should be conducted to determine if any special procedure is identified for contested evaluations. ​