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 review panel to take into account time constraints, skill level, interests, etc. when suggesting improvements. The review panel 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

All regular collective members receive reviews every year-and-a-half. All reviews which are slated to happen during a given quarter of the year will happen in quick succession, so that we can get them done with quickly. This way, the HR committee won't be constantly plagued with the oversight of reviews. This gives us a review schedule such that we'll perform reviews in:

January (Winter)

April (Spring)

July (Summer) and

October (Fall)

In a given quarter, each review should occur within about a week of the other reviews. So, if there are three reviews scheduled for July, they should be given once a week for three weeks. Also, since the reviews happen so closely together, one Review Panel will be chosen to conduct all the reviews for that quarter.

General

All collective/probationary members must fill out review forms for each other collective/probationary member.
The HR committee can call for a review at any time.
Anyone can come to the HR committee and suggest 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 review panel.
HR committee nominates 2-3 people to comprise the Review Panel for the quarter and the staff collective OKs it. The Panel will generally be made of those who work closely with the reviewees. The HR committee may need to shuffle some reviews around a little so that no one is on the review panel for his or her own review.
After the review panel has been chosen, it conducts the rest of the reviews for the quarter, incuding handing out forms, tallying them, performing the sit-down review with the reviewee, recording new goals that have been set, and other exciting and intriguing tasks. To see the full breakdown of the responsibilities of the review panel, see the page on that subject.
After each review has been completed, the review panel will report to 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, ask them to leave, or keep them as a probationary member.
2 to 3 month after a review HR will meet with the reviewee and go over the progress in achieving the goals set during the review

Probationary Members of the Collective

When we hire someone into the collective, they are a 'Probationary Collective Member' for a little while. A 'Full Member' is a collective member that has passed through the 3 (or 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. 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 Collective Members for more info on the steps we take to acculturate new collective members). Then, at 3 months, they'll receive a review. When the review panel 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 collective decides to extend the probationary period, another review will be given 3 months later, or approximately 6 months from the original date of hire. The review panel 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 3- or 6-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 receive a review every year-and-a-half starting from their initial hire date.

Confirmation Process

At the staff meeting following the 3- or 6-month review of a probationary collective member, we'll do the following:

The entire collective listens to the report from the review panel
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.