Brown Bag Training Plan

Best Practices for Performance Evaluations

Presented to
Michael Rosales
Monterey County Learning and Organizational Development

By
Cassandra Humphrey, Deanne Dominguez, Maren Sibai, Terry Mincey
CSU Monterey Bay
July 10, 2018
Project Summary

As long-term Monterey County employees approach retirement, needs for employee

promotions have risen. To aid this, Mr. Rosales and colleagues have begun to develop
new procedures for evaluating and promoting current employees.

This instructional design team will be creating a 35- to 45-minute training session aimed
at introducing managers and supervisors to new evaluation criteria and procedures. The
first training will be delivered in person on the employees’ lunch hour, but the eventual
goal is to transfer the training to a fully online, synchronous webinar. The proposed
training solution is a PowerPoint guided presentation. Participants will be able to
practice applying the information by responding to workplace scenarios and real-world
examples, and they will receive job aids to reference the new information after the
training session is over. To have a training be successful across platforms, materials
including facilitator guides, presentations, and employee handouts will be made
available both on and offline.

Long-term transfer will be displayed when and if a higher number of employees are
promoted into open positions than outside hires. However, due to time constraints,
learner comprehension of best practices for performance evaluations will be determined
by their ability to apply the new concepts in the practice scenarios and activities.

Intended Business Results and Goals

As long-term employees approach retirement and higher-level positions become

available, Monterey County would like to fill positions with qualified existing employees
whenever possible. Keeping accurate and consistent evaluation records will assist
supervisors and managers in searching for current employees that may be good
candidates for promotion. This model will allow mobility for outstanding employees, and
it will make the hiring process easier for the county, as entry-level positions left vacant
by promoted employees will be easier to fill by outside hires than higher-level positions.

Audience Analysis
The Target Audience
The target audience for this training include managers and supervisors of civil services
departments of Monterey County. The organization is seeking to equip managers and
supervisors with the skills needed to properly conduct evaluation with their direct
reports. Due to shift scheduling, about 30-50 staff members are expected to attend the
face-to-face training, and around 100 are expected to participate in future webinars. All
the participants will have managerial or supervisory positions, and many will be at or
near retirement age.

Performance Management Information about the Audience

Prior Knowledge and Experience

The main components of the revised evaluation will be familiar to the learners, but they
have had no formal training on the new evaluation or on best practices for completing,
scheduling, and conducting evaluations with their employees.

Primary Concerns and Attitudes

● Given that the information is new and therefore may seem unrelatable, and
because the training is to be scheduled during lunch hours, it is important for the
designing team to consider how potential disinterest, lack of motivation, and
participant attitudes may inhibit learning.
● The nature and the venue of the training make it challenging to collect feedback
and to conduct evaluation.
● There will be a new performance evaluation procedure with new criteria. Senior
employees usually have the tendency to resist change and to refuse adopting
new concepts and forms and cooperating.
● Training venue is still under construction, so internet connection may not be
available at the time of the training delivery.
● Since some participants are approaching retirement, the training method must be
user-friendly to cater for those who are not so used to technology.
● There is a lot of information to cover in a limited timeframe, which imposes
another challenge.
● Currently, there are no means to calculate payoff/ROI because of the training.

Context Notes

For this training, there are two modes of delivery. First, the training will be conducted in-
person in a new training room, with about 35 participants anticipated to attend. In the
future, the client hopes to also offer this session as a webinar, which will be available to
up to 100 participants at a time.

Content Analysis

It is anticipated that with this training, participants will be able to determine what
evaluations should and should not look like, and how to properly conduct evaluation
while meeting Monterey County’s standards of performance. The training will cover five
topics through various teaching methods to assist learners in meeting these goals. The
topics include:

1. Introduction to new Changes & workplace requirements (streamlined evaluation)

2. Common Mistakes with Evaluations
3. The dos and don’ts of evaluation notes
4. Steps of conducting meetings with the employees
5. Dealing with sharing difficult/negative feedback.

According to our point of contact, the participants have little to no previous knowledge
on how to conduct proper evaluation. Therefore, the topics stated are the ideal talking
points. Because the topics covered may be new for most, and because the training will
be conducted during lunch hours, our teaching approaches will include minimal active
participation and brief evaluation. Throughout the presentation and brief evaluation
phase, the appropriate teaching methods will be applied: attitudes, concepts, cognitive
strategies, procedural, problem-solving, and declarative knowledge.

To ensure the covered content agrees with the objectives, the module will be developed
using materials and resources provided by the client. This includes items such as an
article by Alison Green titled, “The Ways Managers Mess Up Performance Evaluations”
(See Appendix A) and other handouts used by Monterey County to conduct evaluations.

By use of a slideshow presentation the above items one to five will be covered. There
will also be accompanied job aids for two of the five topics, which include a printout of
the common pitfalls of doing evaluations and a print checklist to accompany how to
schedule and execute an evaluation. Lastly, there will be two two-minute practice
activities by the end of the training which will include identifying appropriate and
inappropriate ways to address poor performance and identifying appropriate and
inappropriate evaluation notes.

Although the module is designed to be simple yet effective, because of the type of
evaluations that will be conducted, it is appropriate for the learners to use a job aid to
assist them in conducting future evaluations.

Learning Objectives

For this training, we have two sets of learning objectives; Declarative Objectives and
Procedural Objectives.
Declarative Objectives:
● With a job aid, managers and supervisors will be able to:
○ List the steps of conducting an employee evaluation with 100% accuracy.
○ Identify procedures related to the new evaluation form with 100%
accuracy.
○ Explain the importance of providing consistent feedback throughout the
evaluation period in accordance with the new employee handbook.
● From memory, managers and supervisors will be able to tell where to find
resources on conducting evaluations with 100% accuracy.
● With a list of common evaluation pitfalls, managers and supervisors will explain
how to avoid each one of them with 100% accuracy.

Procedural Objectives:
● Given a set of statements, managers and supervisors will be able to identify
objective statements and isolate subjective ones with 100% accuracy.
● Given a scenario where an employee has performed poorly, managers and
supervisors will formulate and provide constructive feedback, professionally
addressing these issues as per the new employee performance procedure.

Evaluation Strategies
Level I—Participant Reaction
Participants will provide feedback on the session by completing a short reactionnaire,
where they will rate topics such as facilitator knowledge and delivery, presentation
materials, the usefulness of content, and overall satisfaction.

Level II—Performance
The facilitator will gauge participants’ comprehension by observing their responses to
practice activities and sample scenarios.

Level III—Transfer to the Workplace

Training staff will follow up with trainees after the session to ensure that training is
transferred and to provide support and further guidance.

Levels IV & V—Payoff and Return on Investment

Currently, there are no plans to calculate payoff or return on investment as a result of
this training.
Design
Agenda and Teaching/Learning Activity Descriptions

Total Time: 40-45 minutes

Introductions (3 minutes)
● Facilitator introduction
● Rationale
○ How this training and revised materials will streamline the evaluation
process
○ How tips/best practices will streamline the evaluation process
● Review agenda and outcomes

Instruction (30 minutes)

● Highlight changes to the evaluation section of the new employee handbook
● Preview the new evaluation form
● Address common pitfalls of doing evaluations and how to avoid them (see
Appendix A)
● How to write evaluation statements about employee performance
● Examples of acceptable and unacceptable employee evaluation statements
● How to schedule and execute an evaluation
○ Timeline
○ Recommendations for scheduling, setting locations for, and conducting
employee evaluations
○ How to talk to an employee about poor performance
○ When an evaluation must be reviewed by a supervisor before delivery
● Where job aids such as common evaluation pitfalls sheet, evaluation checklist,
and other helpful information can be found on the county website

Practice Activities (4 minutes)

● Learners practice identifying examples of appropriate and inappropriate ways to
address poor performance
● Learners practice identifying examples of appropriate and inappropriate
evaluation notes

Learner Reactions (3 minutes)

● Learners complete and submit their reaction sheets. For in-person sessions,
participants will be given a physical survey. For the webinar, participants will
 submit their thoughts an online survey since they will be tuning in from different
locations. The questions and rating scales will be the same for both formats.

Q&A (5 minutes, optional)

● Because the facilitator will be familiar with the subject matter and content, they
can answer follow-up questions if needed.

Development
To ensure our client receives a polished product by the time of the training, our team
has developed a basic plan for a successful delivery. We will be utilizing a project
schedule to ensure we complete the project on time, staying in active communication
with our client to ensure we are in agreement for his vision for the module, and keeping
our project as we’ve decided for a cost-effective approach to training.

Currently, several aspects of the training are still in development. The training room that
will be used for the first session is still under construction and therefore, internet access
is not for certain. However, there will be a projector, computer, notepads, and markers
available for learners regardless of internet connection. The employee handbook, which
outlines organization-specific protocol for completing evaluations is still in a draft stage,
and changes to the draft may affect the information included in the session or future
sessions. When it becomes available, the new handbook will be added to the appendix.
Furthermore, the evaluation materials are also in a draft stage, although it is close to
completion, with no major changes anticipated.

Implementation Notes
Materials
● Facilitator Guide (for in-person session)
● Facilitator Guide (for webinar)
● Presentation Slides File
● Supplemental Materials for Trainees
○ New evaluation (Appendix A)
○ Employee self-evaluation (Appendix B)
○ Evaluation checklist (Appendix C)
○ Common evaluation mistakes (Appendix D)
○ Reaction sheet (in-person) (Appendix E)
○ Online reaction survey (webinar)
Project Schedule
● Week 2 (By 6/26): Project Definition
● Week 3 (By 7/3): Clarification/Follow-Up Questions (if any)
● Week 4 (By 7/10): Design Document
● Week 5 (By 7/17): Storyboards*
● Week 6 (By 7/24): Project Development
● Week 7 (By 7/31): Share Project Draft/Tweaks*
● Week 8 (By 8/7): Final Deliverables*

* Emails will be sent regularly to keep the client up to date on development of the
product. Zoom check-ins with the client will occur at critical points (*) during
development. Additional Zoom meetings may be scheduled if needed, and the project
will culminate with a live demo of the materials.
Appendices

Appendix A
New Evaluation
Appendix B
Employee Self-Evaluation
Appendix C
Evaluation Checklist

Performance Interview Planning Checklist

Preparation

Interview Planning Checklist Not

Items Yes No Required Comments

Has an agenda for the interview

been developed?

Have the objectives and goals been

identified for the meeting?

Has past performance interview

information been obtained?

Has performance information for

the employee been collected from
all applicable sources?

Have the agenda, objective, goals,

etc., for the performance interview
been communicated to the
employee?

Does the structure of the interview

focus on job performance, not
personal characteristics?

Does the structure of the interview

take into consideration the
employee’s job description and/or
the employee’s service description?

Have the interview time and place

been communicated to all parties
involved?

Is the location of the interview a

positive environment to help the
employee feel at ease?

Is the time of the interview

convenient for all parties involved?
Is there ample time allotted for the
interview to ensure that all agenda
items can be sufficiently
discussed?

Execution

Interview Planning Checklist Not

Items Yes No Required Comments

Is the employee at ease and

comfortable within the interview
setting?

Have the agenda, objective, goals,

etc., for the performance interview
been restated?

Has the employee been given the

opportunity to appraise his or her
own performance?

Have organizational changes that

will affect the employee been
communicated to the employee?

Have possibilities or opportunities

for advancement been discussed
with the employee?

When addressing aspects of the

employee’s performance, were
methods for improvement
discussed where applicable?

Has a preliminary list of future

performance evaluation criteria
been communicated?

Has the employee been provided

with an opportunity to ask
questions and to give feedback?

Has a verbal summary of the

employee’s performance been
communicated with the employee?

Has performance feedback been

given, both positive and negative
(start with the positive)?
Has the employee acknowledged
the information discussed during
the interview by signing a
performance document?

Conclusion

Interview Planning Checklist Not

Items Yes No Required Comments

Have the employee’s contributions,

identified during the interview, been
recognized?

Has confidence in the employee’s

performance been adequately
communicated?

Has the performance review been

measured and quantified against
organizational performance
criteria?

Was the interview conducted

without bias and were professional
ethics/guidelines followed?

Has an overview of action steps

been communicated (including a
time frame for completion)?

Has a written summary of the

employee’s performance been
delivered to appropriate personnel?

Has a follow-up meeting been set

up to discuss open items from the
interview?

Has a support and monitoring

mechanism been established to
assist the employee?
Appendix D
Common Evaluation Mistakes
Appendix E
Reaction Questions

Participants will rate statements on a 1 to 5 scale, where 1 is disagree completely and 5

is agree completely. Statements will include:

● The facilitator was prepared.

● The topics discussed were helpful.
● The topics discussed were relevant.
● The presentation was easy to understand.
● I will be applying what I learned today on the job.
● I would recommend that other managers attend this brown-bag session.
● Any other comments? (Free response)