Dale Martin
City Manager
Fernandina Beach
August 25, 2017 1:00 a.m.
The approaching end of the fiscal year brings a wide range of tasks including budget amendments, budget preparation, and plenty of year-end reports. Perhaps the most dreaded year-end requirement, however, is annual evaluations.
The City Clerk, Ms. Caroline Best, provided the evaluation forms for the three Charter Officers (City Clerk, City Attorney, and City manager) to the City Commissioners this week. The formal evaluation by the City Commissioners will be scheduled as part of the September 19 City Commission meeting.
Throughout my career, I have been evaluated using a variety of methods and forms. Some of the evaluations have been relatively informal, with few, if any, written comments provided. Others were very formal and structured with extensive scoring methodologies.
State statutes in the states in which I previously served allowed for personnel evaluations to be conducted in closed session. I believe that most city managers, with that option available, routinely conducted their evaluation in closed session. Those state statutes also provided that, at the request of the personnel to be evaluated, the evaluation must be conducted in an open, public session. I have always requested that my evaluations be conducted in an open session of the governing board.
Many of my peers believe that an evaluation conducted in closed session allows for a more honest and, ironically, open dialogue related to performance. I meet with the City Commissioners individually every week to foster open communication. I don’t want issues to remain below the surface, pent up, to burst forward on Evaluation Day. If a Commissioner an issue to discuss, I expect the Commissioner to share the concern with me.
I find the meetings with the Commissioners to be very helpful. The meetings put me in an interesting place in that after many of the discussions, I am aware of how those issues will likely develop once the entire City Commission convenes (but, in accordance with Florida Sunshine Laws, I am not allowed to share my discussions with one Commissioner with any other Commissioners). Most of the meetings are congenial and productive, providing me with better insight as to the Commissioners’ opinions on a variety of issues. We’ll review upcoming agendas, consider the stated goals, and work out a few differences here and there.
It is during those meetings that I hope a Commissioner would voice concerns about my performance, in general, or perhaps a specific action or response by me. I have had a few meetings with Commissioners during which we disagreed on a certain topic or two, but the meetings were conducted, as usual, with the proper respect and decorum. We then easier segued to the next topic at hand.
If an evaluation is conducted in a closed session, the comments of both the governing board and the city manager are masked. No one outside of that meeting will ever know what was really said behind the closed doors. Secrecy rarely serves a good governmental purpose (especially at the local level). Furthermore, once evaluation forms are completed, those documents become a public record any way- so why not have an open discussion in the first place.
Staff directors and junior supervisors are required to evaluate their subordinates. The evaluations are time consuming, but important not only for the purpose of determining future compensation, but also for professional development. While the City is fortunate in many ways to have long-tenured staff, it is critical to develop junior talent for future transition for when senior staff retires or moves to a different job.
Since I have approximately a dozen directly reporting staff, it does take significant thought and time to prepare each evaluation. I make several notes throughout the year on key developments for each director so that I can refer to those notes as I craft the evaluation. The evaluation form that I use is composed of several categories. One of the challenges is that the categories must be prioritized and then scored for performance. In other words, scoring a perfect ‘5’ in a category deemed less important is not as valuable as scoring a ‘5’ in an important category. For supervisory positions, of the nine categories evaluated, only two can be selected as “Critical.” For different departments, of course, the Critical categories vary: Safety and Security may be a Critical category for Airport personnel, but for Human Resources, it may not be.
For each director, I also work to develop a series of clearly measureable goals that can be subsequently reviewed during the following evaluation. Developing those specific metrics to determine success or failure can be difficult, but I work with each director to design goals that are attainable, but not easy, and some even include a little bit of “out-of-the-box” effort to broaden the director’s focus. I enjoy that aspect of evaluations.
I wish you well on your next annual evaluation. Would you like to conduct it at a City Commission meeting?
Great discussion about an event that is very awkward for all parties concerned. After all, which one of us would like to have our efforts evaluated in public where often any negative or constructive criticism comments are seized upon with nary or little mention of the positive comments that generally are much more abundant. It is a difficult process but a vital one.
Every employee has a right to understand how their work performance is judged by their manager. It is the only way for them to understand where there might be room for improvement so a plan can be developed to achieve that improvement. It is human nature to avoid conflict and want to gloss over deficiencies in performance in hopes it will be self-correcting, but to do so is a disservice to the employee and the department/organization for which they work.
The City is blessed with having such a large group of dedicated employees who care about their job and satisfying the needs of residents and visitors. The evaluation process is a great way to recognize those efforts as well as work together to improve overall performance any more.