NEW REVIEWS FOR CITY WORKERS

A new process that evaluates Cape Girardeau city employees based on their performance goes into effect Wednesday.

Dan Ward, the city's human resources director, said the new evaluation procedure is intended to improve worker performance, the delivery of city services and communication between supervisors and workers.

It's a system the city has refined over the past 18 months and finally is ready to implement.

"Through this process, we're making a concerted effort to let people from the top down know what's expected of them," Ward said. "One of the things that typically happens in a lot of businesses is miscommunication between management and labor.

"I think this process can improve those relationships, and improve the team concept of city management."

Ward said the city also hopes eventually to link pay to the performance evaluations.

"We want to start rewarding employees proportionate to what the person does as opposed to an across-the-board scenario," he said.

By distinguishing between a job well done and substandard work, good employees eventually can expect to receive larger raises than they've had under the current system.

"The idea is to take those probably 10 percent who star and reward them at a star level," Ward said. "Then take another group that's above average, and reward them at that level.

"For those below standard, we won't give a raise, which is an incentive to do a better job."

Ward was hired by the city in October after serving as Sikeston's city manager for several years. As human resources director, he is in charge of personnel issues.

At Sikeston, employees each year received an across-the-board cost of living pay increase in addition to merit pay based on performance. The merit pay raises averaged 3 to 7 percent, Ward said. He envisions a similar program in Cape Girardeau eventually.

Ward said the "performance management system" took months to develop. Supervisors were asked to draft descriptions for specific city jobs, identifying major tasks that each employee performs.

The detailed descriptions included expectations and responsibilities to which employees also contributed.

"Every employee had the opportunity to provide input on what was said about his or her position," Ward said. "After that, we took them back and put them into a form, which we're just now getting kicked off."

Annual employee evaluations will include identification by the supervisors and employees of goals that will enable the workers to better do their job. Those goals then will be used for evaluations in subsequent years to determine whether the employee is making progress.

"I think people are better able to accept what they agree to in terms of goals," Ward said. "This does force a communication line to be established and maintained across the organization."

Ward said that although some of the employees subject to the evaluation process have resisted the change, he thinks a majority now support the concept.

"Trying to include employees in management has been touted for quite a few years," he said. "That's what this process tries to do.

"People like to know how they're doing as a general rule so that they have an option of maybe improving. I'm really optimistic about the program."

The system also gives employees documentation of their performance and job goals.

Ward said the records can serve as a safeguard for an employee who believes he or she has been treated unfairly in an evaluation.

"One of the key ideas to making this work is establishing good lines of communication between management and workers," he said. "If we can do that, the person becomes more in control of his destiny."