Hi folks,
I'm lucky enough to work at a company that rewards innovation and independant thought. For my annual performance evaluation, I was handed a six-page "self-evaluation" form. It was actually a Word 2003 document intended to be printed out and thrown in a file cabinet, but that's so... twentieth century, don't you think? I couldn't help myself. I took the form and converted it to an InfoPath 2007 form and submitted it via email to my boss. He was impressed.
Some of the improvements I made:
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Each question is its own "section", which can be added or removed from the form to create customized evaluations. For example, I am a developer, but for non-developers, you could omit the "Adheres to company coding standards" section.
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I assigned a point-value to each response. There are three possible "scores" per question:
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Depending on the response, I used conditional formatting to adjust the shading of each section based on the numeric value of each response:
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The evaluation form was split up into three groups: Company-Wide issues, Job-Specific Tasks, and Self-Improvement.
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The first two sections are where the scoring is done. Each of these sections tallies up their subtotals and compares it to the Low, Average, and High scores possible.
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The last section adds up the aggregate score. Managers can use these scores to determine how the employee's strengths and weaknesses balance out.
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I was going to try to implement a graph to give a visual representation of all this, but there is no built-in charting functionality in InfoPath. I thought I might experiment by dropping in an Excel charting object, but I didn't have time to figure it out. I wanted to finish this within a day.
The cool thing about InfoPath is that, when you post it to a SharePoint document library, your data fields can be "promoted" to appear in the list, and views can be created based on these values. So now the managers can organize employees by their various scores and drill down into the details.
Anyway, each of the questions has a field for "comments", for which I used a rich-text field. As a lark, for one question I put the answer below, more to test the formatting functionality than anything else. Although wordy, I felt it answered the question, so I left it.
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Voluntary outside learning
Definition of this benchmark: Takes time outside of work to keep up on developments in the IT business. Magazine subscriptions, reading, web sites etc are sources for this learning.
Employee Performance Level: Above Satisfactory
Comment:
Jonas Salk, who invented the cure for polio, once said "the greatest reward for a job well done is the opportunity to do more work." It speaks volumes about the man, not to mention his work ethic. When I was younger, I never really identified with that sentiment. Work was simply something to be endured and gotten over with, so you could spend your energy on something fun. It wasn't until I began working with computers that these words suddenly rang true to me. With computers, each problem becomes a riddle to be solved, but it is a problem that allows you to take it apart and analyze by pure deductive reasoning. Computers reward insight and attention to detail; it makes those who excel in this field truly mystical and mysterious to the rest of the computing public. I suppose the key to finding satisfaction in your work is never feeling like you are "done". Each morning I get up and actually look forward to the day. I study and research and evaluate technology on my own time, not for the mundane pursuit of certification or accolade. I study it to know it better. Even now, after all these years of working in IT, I don't feel "done". I feel frankly unqualified, behind the curve, inadequate… but people do seem to be happy with my work. Very early in my career I had the mistaken notion that my employer and coworkers expected me to know everything. When asked a question or handed a task, I felt I was supposed to already know the answer, simply by merit of being "the computer guy". I was irrationally hard on myself, and this didn't serve me well because these raised expectations went unfulfilled and lost me a job. It was a painful lesson, but I lost my fear of saying "I don't know" when asked a question. I learned to give my answers in percentages and estimates. I use the word "might" a lot. And I never stop studying.
Jonas Salk had it right. Doing what you enjoy isn't work. It is a labor of love.
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It was a pretty good performance review. They gave me a raise.