Collective Member Review Policy

Purpose

The HR committee realizes that feedback is an integral part of making sure individuals in the collective are working in line with the mission and principles of Free Geek and therefore doing useful work. Many collective members have said that they would greatly appreciate such feedback. The committee therefore has decided to implement collective member reviews. The purpose of collective member reviews is to:

Help collective members align themselves with the expectations that are placed on them,
Assist collective members to acheive the self- and group-given goals for their positions,
Give a forum for feedback on individual collective members, and
Where appropriate, assist the collective in deciding whether to accept a probationary worker into the group.

If a member of the collective has difficulties with another, he or she should speak to the individual in person first if at all possible. The review should not, in most cases, serve as the first notification of problems.

The review should be a forum in which the person being reviewed is recognized for his or her successes as well as offered guidance from the rest of the collective on how to do things differently for the betterment of the organization. It's the responsibility of the reviewer to take into account time constraints, skill level, interests, etc. when suggesting improvements. The reviewer should work together with the reviewee to create a practical, reachable set of goals for him or her. These goals should be as specific as possible and should include the reviewee's own goals as well as those from the rest of the collective.

Procedure

Timeline

In order to provide timely and relevant feedback, the HR committee conducts a review of a different staff member roughly every other week. The schedule can be found here. Also check out the Regular Review Form and the Review Process.

In order for HR to get folks reviewed once a year, it has become necessary for HR to stick to a tighter review schedule. To this end, we've created some guidelines to help get us all on the same page about efficient timelines. HR will start a new review every Wednesday and allow feedback to be submitted for 10 days. After the reviewee receives the feedback, he/she has one week to meet with the reviewer and respond to questions/issues.

General

All collective/probationary members must fill out review forms for each probationary review.
All collective/probationary members should fill out regular reviews.
Anyone on the Collective may suggest that HR conduct a review of any collective member (even for themselves).
If an HR committee member has a review called for them by another collective member, he or she may not participate in choosing the reviewer
Generally, only one HR committee member conducts a review.
After each review has been completed, the reviewer will first report to the HR Committee and then to the staff at the next staff collective meeting. If the reviewee is a probationary member, the staff will then decide whether to accept them into the collective or ask them to leave.

Probationary Members of the Collective

When we hire someone into the collective, they are a 'Probationary Collective Member' first. A 'Full Member' is a collective member that has passed through the 6 month probationary period and the collective has agreed to grant full member status. The probationary member's initial 3 months will help the collective get to know them a little better. At 3 months an informal review will occur to check in with the probationary member, convey staff's feeling about their performance, and set goals for the probationary review at 6 months. All collective members must participate in this 3 month check in. The probationary member will also have a 'Buddy', someone to do check-ins with, ask questions of, and generally help them through the acculturation process (see Orienting New Staff Members for more info on the steps we take to acculturate new collective members). Then, at 6 months, they'll receive a review. When the reviewer reports on the review at the next staff meeting, the staff collective will decide whether to:

Let the probationary member into the collective,
Terminate the probationary member, or
Give the probationary member a 3-month extension to work out issues that arose in the review.
- If the probationary member is given a 3-month extension, the HR committee will assign a Resolution Committee to the probationary member.

If the collective decides to extend the probationary period, another review will be given 3 months later, or approximately 9 months from the original date of hire. The reviewer will again report to the collective, which will decide whether to:

Let the probationary member into the collective or
Terminate them.

Note that if, after their 6- or 9-month review, we terminate a probationary member, we don't expect that we'd want them to stay on for a transitional period (we also wouldn't expect that they'd want to!). In the end, though, we'll deal with this situation on a case-by-case basis.

When an individual enters the collective, they will be added to the Staff Review Schedule.

Confirmation Process

At the staff meeting following the 6- or 9- month review of a probationary collective member, we'll do the following:

The entire collective listens to the report from the reviewer
The reviewee then leaves the room so the collective can speak unhindered about how to proceed
When granting a probationary member full status, the collective must come to consensus in order to move forward. If the collective cannot come to consensus the probationary member is not granted full status and his/her employment must be terminated.