Collective Member Review Policy

The Free Geek Collective ceased to exist on February 28, 2013. For information on current staff, please go to Staff. For detailed information about the re-organization of Free Geek's management structure, please go to 2013_Restructuring_Documents.

This policy was last updated at a Staff Collective meeting on Friday, June 29, 2012.

Purpose

Regular performance reviews of staff is a best practice for organizations of all sizes and missions. They should not replace informal communication or serve as a formal complaint process; instead, they are opportunities to help staff align themselves with the expectations that are placed on them and to assist them in achieving their stated goals in their positions. Where appropriate, Free Geek also uses the review process to help the Collective make a decision about the status of a member within the Collective.

Performance evaluation is a core supervisory function. Supervisory relationships must be characterized by open and honest communication in order to be both effective and ethical. At Free Geek, we have chosen to have collective supervision of Collective members. It is therefore inappropriate and counterproductive to have anonymous commenting by Collective members during the Collective performance review process. It is also inappropriate and ineffective for a supervisor to refuse to conduct performance evaluations. Timely participation in all Collective reviews is a performance expectation of each Collective member, and anonymous commenting is not allowed.

Free Geek aspires to a democratic and, where possible, non-hierarchical organizational culture. Bargaining unit employees are therefore invited to provide feedback as part of Collective member reviews. This participation is never mandatory, and it will always be anonymous unless an individual employee requests to be identified in connection with their feedback.

Collective members currently are reviewed around 3 months after hire, around 6 months after hire, and annually around their dates of hire.

The HR Administrator is currently the review coordinator for all Collective members except for him- or herself. Another member of the HR Committee should be chosen in a timely manner to coordinate the HR Administrator's review.

Procedure and Timeline

1. HR should maintain a list of current job descriptions on the wiki.
2. HR should create or update a separate instance of an online review survey for each staff member to be reviewed.
3. In the last week of each month, HR should sends out an email publicizing which Collective members' reviews are coming up in the next month. (Who they are and whether the reviews are 3-month, 6-month, annual or ad-hoc.) The email has links to the job descriptions and the review surveys.
4. The deadline for feedback that will be formally incorporated into reviews should be the 10th of the month. Feedback received after that should still be looked at, but it should be treated as informal.
5. Review coordinators should encourage direct co-workers in person to complete their forms by the 10th.
6. Each review coordinator should forward the results of each survey to the reviewed staff member by the 15th.
7. Review coordinators should sit down with reviewed staff members by the 20th.
8. Reviewed staff should complete their written responses to questions, concerns and criticisms by the 25th. Collective members should send their full responses to the staff collective list and redacted (as necessary) responses to the paidworkers list.
9. Collective member reviews should be discussed at the Collective meeting on the last Friday of the month, unless it falls before the 28th, in which case they should be discussed on the first Friday of the following month. These discussions should be substantive and should occur in the absence of the reviewed Collective member.
10. The HR Committee should take the results of the Collective meeting discussion of reviews and prepare draft goals and expectations documents to be approved at the next Collective meeting. These documents should guide staff activities and feedback over the next review cycle.

Outcomes

• Each review should result in an overall performance evaluation of Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Needs Improvement or Unsatisfactory.
• An evaluation of Satisfactory or above is needed at a 6-month review in order to promote a Collective member to full Collective status.
• An evaluation of Needs Improvement at a 6-month review triggers an ad-hoc review to occur in another 3 months, i.e., a 9-month review. An evaluation of Unsatisfactory at a 6-month review triggers termination.
• An evaluation of either Needs Improvement or Unsatisfactory at a 9-month review triggers termination.
• Since consensus is required to award full Collective status, failure to reach consensus about an evaluation following a 6-month or 9-month review triggers termination.