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...your
only reward is blisters
“Go
the extra mile and your only reward is blisters.
Who around here can afford new shoes?” That comment, from a
25+ year employee in Communication & Information pretty much sums up
the sentiment expressed in a recent H.R. Performance Appraisal Survey.
Originally
the survey was sent out without any comment area at all. In fact 554
employees took the survey in the seven days it took H.R. to respond to the
screams for a comment area to be added the survey.
One
would almost think that H.R. didn’t want employee comments on the
current Performance/Merit system. Certainly none were included in the
survey summary report given to council. One employee pretty much summed up
the whole survey with this statement, “This
'push poll' is geared to legitimize this system and blame front line
staff.”
H.R.
having problems with survey construction is not anything new. One employee
pointed how flip/flopping the choices, Ans A = Agrees for half the
questions and then changes to Ans A
= disagrees for others, makes for a confusing and inconsistent result.
This practice is bad if you are actually looking for answers, but good if
you are trying to muddle answers and confuse the entire issue. But
perhaps we do not give H.R. enough credit. What if these problems are not
shoddy work on their part, but actually a deliberate, methodical plan to
skew results and bury bad news? That would be genius! Genius, I tell you.
Unethical genius perhaps, but still....
But
while H.R. dislikes comments because they are ‘difficult’ to include
in the results, we did not have the same problem. We
obtained a copy of the survey, and ranked the comments that were present
as Positive, Issues or Negative. Issues was used for when employees had
problems (some quite serious) but did not express them in an overtly
negative manner.
The numbers? 554
employees could not leave a comment due to a lack of a comment block for
the first week the survey was on line. 103
employee had issues, 429
employees left negative comments, some were quite bitter over the whole
process. 23 employees had positive comments and 675 just didn’t leave any at all. The
entire survey is at http://www.cityofdallasemployees.com/codeappraisalsurvey2007.htm
Cultural Affairs -
Supervisory/Managerial -10-14 Years - As a long-time supervisor, I can say
without reservation that the performance appraisal process is broken.
Managers are discouraged by the department director from giving any
rating other than "Fully Successful."
Raises should never be linked to ratings if it means that the
rating an employee earns is influenced by the raise amount. The process
has become demoralizing, demeaning, irrational and unethical.
Library
- Supervisory/Managerial -10-14 Years - When will city have unit
manager performance evaluations, which would be determine by the home
staff unit? Unit staff never
gets to evaluate our manager's yearly performance.
Lots of professional businesses use this type of evaluation system.
It is design to insure both super-visors and those being supervised a way
to generate feedback. Unit managers have their goals set by
administration, but the home staff has more daily dealing with manager
than administration. Staff should have say in manager's performance.
Street
Services - Supervisory/Managerial -10-14 Years - This performance
appraisal put most of the employees at mid point, with no possibility to
get distinguished. As
distinguish-ed appraisal is impossible to achieve, it should not be part
of the rating. Average 3%
merit without cost of living adjustment is not enough incentive for
employees to perform well. It
is not even compensate for the inflation and price increase.
Because of this, overall performance of employees has gone down big
time. Hope management will
come with better compensation and improve the morale of the employees
before City of
Dallas
employees'
Water
Utilities Supervisory/Managerial - 20-24 Years - My supervisor never went
over my work objectives with me. My supervisor did not indicate any effort
to even read my accom-plishments. My supervisor never explained his
rational for the appraisal he gave me.
It is very frustrating because the system allows him to get by with
this while I cannot do the same for my subordinates.
The process would benefit from some form of checks like a third
person from HR to provide oversight for such potential abuses. The
appraisal system is becoming more subjective whereby the supervisors are
being provided more leverage to favor or punish their sub-ordinates
without any specific account-ability. Next year's appraisal is even going
to be worse, without any specific measurable goals. This system needs an
urgent audit and re-evaluation.
Park
and Rec.- Professional/Tech -10-14 Years - Though I understand what this
process is trying to achieve it misses the mark. I received a good
evaluation and am receiving a 5% raise, however, I still believe the forms
are flawed. In
our culture we are indoctrinated from kindergarten that an F is bad, an A
is good and a C is average. On this form the city makes an "A"
impossible. The middle grade is supposed to be good job performance, but
in the American psyche a middle grade is a C.
It does not matter that the city sugar coats it, morale is damaged
because of this system.
In order for this evaluation system to improve it needs to be
possible to get the highest mark for work that is way above average.
If there isn't enough money for good raises, at least by this
method we could see how our supervisors really feel we are doing.
Let everyone get the score they deserve, then divide the available
money by percentage.
The result would be a system that is fair and better morale for the
employees.
Final
thoughts from a Water employee of 20+ years, “The employees end up with virtually no enhancement to
their income or lifestyle because their pay is barely keeping up with
inflation. This makes the performance appraisal system
"unwelcome" to many of the rank and file employees. There would
be far fewer grievances or appeals if employees felt they were duly
compensated for their perform-ance. It
would be beneficial to the perform-ance plan and appraisal system if cost
of living was not involved even if it meant that merits would be less.
A 1 or 2 percent merit above the cost of living would be much more
than the 80% of the employees who are fully successful have received for a
number of years.”
Workforce Strategies Update
City
Manager, Mary Suhm, stated that council had requested her to prepare an
explanation of the various problems the Steelworkers found and objected
to in her recent ninety-six page Workforce Strategies Report.
Additionally, Suhm pledged than when the report was finished she
would allow us to preview it before it was given to council. As of March
22nd no mention of this report has come from the City
Manager’s office and no documents have been received from her.
In
a strange case of history repeating itself, she has stated that a letter
and spread sheet recently presented to council by one of our members,
using information gathered from previously presented city documents, is
incorrect. See below for more details.
Letter to
Council
February 27, 2008
Honorable
Mayor and Council Members:
On
February 6th, the Honorable Mayor Leppert requested
statistics that were raised in my presentation at the podium.
There was concern that the numbers I had presented did not
reflect the same as the City of
Dallas
’ Philosophy on Work
Force Strategies. Please
forgive the tardiness in presenting those values.
I want to present you with a comprehensive spreadsheet that
accurately reflects how bad things have become over the last 10 years
(page 3). Though this spreadsheet history goes back 10 fiscal years, I
request that the Council please reflect upon the last seven fiscal years
starting with 01-02 (page 4). This
is for three reasons. First,
fiscal year 01-02 is when the dramatic decline in take home pay began to
occur and the City started to fail in keeping up with inflation.
Secondly, since the City Manager is philosophically opposed to
Market Adjustments in Employee Pay, I feel that she should not benefit
from former City Manager Ted Benavidez’s philosophy of adjusting
Employee Pay with Market Adjustments.
Ms. Suhm has made it quite clear on many occasions that she will
not adjust pay in this fashion. Lastly,
I wish for you to reflect on how this decline has affected new hires
since fiscal year 01-02. Why
would they want to stay?
These
insurance numbers are compiled from the Employee Enrollment Forms for
1997-2002 and the Annual Enrollment Handbooks for 2003-2008. City of
Dallas Parking Fees
come from my personal
Year to Date Pay Stubs. The
data under the headings ‘Employee Pay Using Average Increases’,
‘Employee Retirement Fund (ERF) Contribution’, ‘Total Increase
Average’, and ‘Annual Increase in Salary Average’ are compiled
from City of
Dallas
’ Philosophy on Work
Force Strategies presented to Council on February 6th.
Please
consider that ‘Employee Pay Using Average Increases’ is just that,
an average. The increase in
insurance premiums has a far more damaging effect to a lower paid
employee’s net income. This
is especially important when you consider that a great many employees
started at the low end of the pay scale and saw no increases in pay
between fiscal years 01-02 and 03-04.
We
hope this illustrates, how the City of
Dallas
’ Philosophy on Work
Force Strategies Briefing presented to the Council on February 6th
does not present the entire picture.
Regretfully, our City has not kept up with the cost of living,
because our benefits have essentially been raided.
We request that the Council resume Market Adjustments to City
Employees Pay, provide a fair merit system by abandoning the Dick Grote
scheme, and restore funding raided from the City’s Health Care
programs. Please do not
hesitate to call if you have any questions or need further materials.
At
your Service,
Christopher
Head
North Texas
Association of Public
Employees (Steelworkers)
(Ed.
Note: Mr. Head also provided a large spreadsheet of information that
he gathered from various city publications and council documents that
had been presented over the years. That document can be found here
http://www.cityofdallasemployees.com/newsletter/BenefitsComparisonRevisionH03042008.pdf
Additional note: During a meeting with City Manager Mary Suhm
shortly after this information was given to council, she told Head that
his numbers were all wrong. When he produced the city documents they came
from and asked her to point out any errors, she declined, stating she was
too busy. So were Head’s
numbers wrong? Were the documents originally presented to council with bad
numbers? You would think that SOMEONE in the City Manager’s office would
not have been too busy to point out error had there actually been any.)
Grievance Evaluation
Update
This
committee is cranking right along, but did not be make its final
recommendation to City Manager Mary Suhm on March 3rd as was
originally scheduled. It was pointed out by several committee members,
that this was too important to the employees to rush a recommendation
just to meet Suhm’s self imposed council deadline. Presently a survey
is being planned, one that is receiving input from both H.R. and
civilian employees. If you have any suggestions on what questions you
think should be asked on a grievance survey send them to us at and we
will forward them to the committee. Fax to 214-760-7423 or email to comments@ntape.com
Reports
say that some claims and side stepping on the legality of making
non-civil service departments, did not make it to the official minutes
despite two separate requests by member C. Head.
Our
sympathy and condolences go out to former Financial Secretary
Christopher
King
who recently lost his wife. We
ask all members to please keep the
Chris
and his family in their thoughts as they endure this time of great
loss.
Snipletts!
Who
is SEIU? –
SEIU is
apparently a group very upset with our local Steelworker Staff Rep Roy
Robinson. Why? After becoming disenchanted with SEIU, employees in San
Antonio/Bexar County left them and asked if they could join the
Steelworkers. This upset the SEIU and they decided to come visit us to
see if they could cause
Roy
and the Steelworkers trouble since
Dallas and its employees are apparently close to hand. Doesn’t it give
you a warm, lovely glow to be turned into a tool for revenge and
manipulation? Where were
these dear SEIU souls when the city was trying to do a 5% pay cut to
balance the budget? Anyhow,
below is a letter from a former SEIU member who is now a Steelworker.
(Ed. Note: Letter has been edited for length and other fun stuff.)
Dear
Local 9479,
In
February of 2005 about 70 Bexar County Adult Probation Officers along with
City Workers in
Bexar
County
joined SEIU. Other county workers also
joined. SEIU is a numbers only
Union
. There is no legal backing and no care
for its members. We are still at the current time thinking of suing SEIU
for failure to represent. SEIU has had little success in
San Antonio
. Some of the city 911 operators had some
successes at the beginning because of how low the salaries were in
San Antonio
. The cost compared to the benefit is
extremely high for SEIU.
San Antonio
has hired city and county management
from
Arizona
. Some of the city workers were forced to
reapply for their jobs and this united the city workers toward SEIU at the
beginning.
After
a year almost all of the county workers have left SEIU. We found the union
to be mismanaged and most workers had ******* **********. We had no
control over funds or what candidate we wanted to back or donate to. We
found that SEIU played with statistics and numbers to manipulate the
members. Politicians were given funds for reasons were could not
understand or not given funds when we wanted the candidate backed.
They
will talk a good game when you start but when your numbers are not close
to 100% they will cut and run. When researched their history and the same
happened in
McAllen
. Some of our workers almost came to fist
fights with the organizers of SEIU. The politicians in town found SEIU to
be aggressive and easier to ignore and place on the backburner than deal
with.
San Antonio
salaries are still under most state
averages and are just getting up to state average. So the numbers they use
are very deceiving. SEIU was day in and day out about building numbers for
them and not the members.
Good
Luck!
Sheri
S.
Twelve
Hour Shift Solution, Recommendation
Due to changes in how over time pay is calculated, employees
are often paid straight time instead of overtime when leave time is also
present in the same week. This means that the twelve hour employees can
often have Regularly Scheduled
Work Hours that are in excess of 80, but not paid at an overtime
rate. Since these extra hours are indeed Regularly
Scheduled Work Hours that did not receive additional compensation
(Overtime pay) they could
possibly
be used as regular hours worked to make up for any W time that might
adversely affect a twelve
hour employee’s yearly pension accrual time.
Molly
McCall of H.R. states that a report was run, and corrections are being
discussed with the Pension Fund. As soon as the report format is
finalized and a form of calculation is agreed upon, a copy
will be send to all affected employees on a yearly basis. Most likely
every February, but any twelve hour employee retiring mid-year will be
able to request that a summary be run for them if they need it.
Also,
McCall has come to understand that the twelve hour employees have to use
more leave time than regular employees, so she will recommend that they have
their leave calculated at 84 hours rather than 80 per pay period. This
would not be a big gain, but it would help a bit.
Additionally,
McCall reminds twelve hour employees who are out sick off for a week or
more to request that they be put on an 80 hour schedule immediately.
This will save four hours of leave per week. Be sure to let your
supervisor know as soon as possible that you might be off for several
weeks. While some supervisors will do this automatically, other might
forget, or not realize that a schedule change is even possible.
(Ed.
Note: Many thanks to Steelworker John
Silvio a recent Retiree for starting the fight for these
changes.)
The Time to Join is Now!
Don’t
forget about the 30 day waiting period on certain services for new
members. We don’t want anyone to miss out on assistance should they
need it. The time to join is now, so you will already be a member before
any problem that you need help with occurs.
Council
Meeting Audio Available
Did
you know that you can download city council meetings? Some interesting
stuff in there. Take a listen. http://www.ci.dallas.tx.us/cso/audio.shtm
End
of year raffle Remember at the last meeting of the year you get one
raffle chance for every meeting or work session you sign in for.
Make six meetings, get six chances. So congratulations to the
members who were present at the December meeting when their names were
drawn for the gift certificates from Target, Best Buy and Chili’s.
