Burwood Local Court listening meeting 20 August 2015
Performance Management Framework
Background
The Government Sector Employment (GSE) Act (Section 67) requires all NSW public sector departments and agencies to implement performance management systems.
Your union, the PSA, sees the value in agencies basing performance management systems on the prerequisites of the PSC’s Capability Framework. This would provide members with a common foundation to negotiate performance agreements and engage in performance reviews.
However, as not all agencies have introduced new role descriptors based on the Capability Framework, there is potential for unfair and inequitable performance management systems to be created within and across agencies.
The PSA is consulting with members through ‘listenings’ so that you can identify concerns and have input into addressing them.
Burwood Local Court
Your union, the PSA, conducted a ‘listening’ with PSA members at the Local Court on 20 August 2015.
Thank you to all the participants who considered the following questions:
- How can we ensure learning and development is undertaken in a fair and effective way?
- What does a fair and reasonable performance management system look like?
- To successfully resolve unsatisfactory performance, an employee must have…….(finish this sentence).
Outcomes
In summary, members determined a fair and equitable performance management system must:
- be relevant to the role and transparent
- have regular and consistent review of training requirements with support from management in identifying training needs and ensuring those needs are addressed
- incorporate training and development opportunities which are consistent for everyone with adequate budget funding and ensure baseline training is fundamental
- provide recognised training courses and have on-the-job face-to-face training
- provide training opportunities to enhance advancement
- take the “fear” out of such systems
- be specific in the expectations for the role both from management and the employee
- be developed with transparent consultation with the role holder
- require unsatisfactory performance to be managed as it occurs, with clear indications of what unsatisfactory and satisfactory benchmarks are, well-defined targets for improvement identified, addressed with support and any necessary training/retraining and an independent assessor involved for cases in dispute
- incorporate an appeals mechanism
- provide training for managers/supervisors for their roles and how to implement the system
- feedback should be regular and constructive and acknowledge strengths as well as weaknesses.
The information collected will be used in the development of the PSA’s position paper on the Performance Management Framework. The PSA’s position paper will be provided to all members when it is completed.