Annual Performance Reviews

I'm happy to report that 98% of our annual performance reviews were completed, reviewed and submitted to UT HR by the March 31 deadline. Although it is a long and time consuming process, it is important that every employee understand the expectations placed upon him/her by the leadership of the organization in order to best serve our customers.

Now we have a chance to take a breather and later this summer we will re-visit our process. Although the time frame is dictated by the university, as is the performance review summary form, the internal forms and processes are entirely up to us. I encourage you to engage in discussion with your agency management team on ways to improve the forms, the reporting and the overall process.

Given that we will continue to conduct annual reviews (and more frequent follow-ups with those not performing at or above expectations), we need to make the process work for us. Every employee deserves to know how his/her individual work contributes to the agency, institute and university strategies for success.

Guest Blog from Steve Thompson - SCUPSO

On April 2-4 I had the opportunity to attend the annual SCUPSO (Southern Consortium of University Public Service Organizations) conference, held this year in Biloxi, Mississippi, and hosted by the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State. Dr. Jinks has been active in SCUPSO in the past, as has Chuck Shoopman, and this year I attended with Dr. Jinks and Keith Groves of CIS. Keith lead an interesting and well-attended discussion on LEAN government and principles, and provided a major piece of the conference.

I’ll take just a moment both to talk about Biloxi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the experience of working with and discussing issues common among university-based public service organizations, such as ours.

Over the past few years most of us have witnessed severe storm damage in Tennessee and across the southeast, and during the conference we heard and saw a number of videos and presentations on the 2005 storm and the on-going recovery of the area. Clearly the communities and businesses in the Biloxi area were not prepared for the storm event or for the aftermath, and for those of us in MTAS this demonstrates the need for effective emergency management systems and proper emergency planning. I personally witnessed the impact and recovery of Hurricane Hugo on the Charleston, SC area, and while there are a number of differences between the areas, after 7 years, and unlike Charleston, the Mississippi gulf area continues to struggle with economic recovery and reconstruction. Biloxi appears to have lost almost 1/3 of the city population, and many homes and businesses have not been rebuilt. In addition to emergency preparation there are a number of factors in this discussion that are of interest to all of us working with cities and towns, but despite federal grants and private insurance claims neither the population nor the economy have fully returned. Economic recovery measures are certainly important to communities in Mississippi and in our state, and are often overlooked in emergency planning.

We also discussed the need for public service organizations, and the growing role of these organizations with data analysis, convening of public forum discussions and facilitation, and public policy research and support. A number of these organizations also provide “boots on the ground” technical support for local governments in their states, somewhat similar to the work of MTAS, CTAS, and CIS, but while there were similarities I am not aware of another organization that provided the depth and detail of IPS services. The other organizations are, however, very effective in the areas of public policy, research and training, and there clearly are opportunities for greater sharing of information and resources.
As we constantly look for other organizations that can assist us in our service, the colleges and universities of SCUPSO offer contrasts and models that will continue to serve us in the future.

And I’m quite sure that the others will agree - Dr. Jinks, Keith and I enjoyed the seafood of the gulf coast.

Guest Blog from Chuck Shoopman

Recent legislative proposals by members of the Tennessee General Assembly regarding gun rights, property rights, and the role of governments in regulating the exercise of our rights offers a reminder of the importance of open communication and dialogue to the experiment of self-governance. There are many ways to express frustrations, as demonstrated by the Arab Spring, the Tea Party Movement, and the Occupy Movement.

Clearly, opening a window and shouting, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore", calls attention to one's exasperation. However, in a community that chooses to govern itself primarily by the rule of law rather than the use of force, effective communication between people of differing opinions is needed to resolve our conflicts in a way that preserves goodwill while managing the conflict. A community's ability to preserve goodwill while resolving its conflicts will ultimately influence the desire of its members to continue living by rule of law rather than rule of force.

In our state and nation, we hold a number of conflicting values, e.g. individual freedom vs. majority rule. We struggle to find the proper balance between what is best for the individual and what is best for the community at large. Recent proposals from the Tennessee General Assembly regarding where gun owners can legally carry their weapons and whether local governments, or any government, can regulate the use of private property, serve as reminders that our conflicting values remain with us and require our constant attention. We should also be reminded that we still get to choose how we resolve these conflicts. We can beat one another with our language and use the power of positions to impose a temporary resolution. Or, we can energetically and respectfully discuss our differences of opinion and decide how to best resolve them for the moment.

The challenge isn't whether we will permanently resolve all our disputes, for many questions must be re-visited periodically to best meet the realities of the day. The question is whether our model for resolving our disputes will strengthen or erode the confidence of future Tennesseans to perpetuate this experiment in self-governance, or simply allow the strongest of the moment to have the final word.

Thoughts?

More on the Employee Engagement Survey

Modern Think identifies three key "barometer" statements that demonstrate the overall engagement in an organization. Great places to work have at least 75% positive and no more than 10% negative. The chart below also indicates the "honor roll" organizations. These are scores from 4-year universities with at least 10,000 students. That's certainly not an exact comparison to IPS, but it is aspirational.



These data tell us that we have a sizable group of staff "in the middle" who neither agree nor disagree with the statements, so that is the group we need to improve. What suggestions do you have to improve these three key areas?

Employee Engagement Survey

The summary data from last fall's Employee Engagement Survey was recently released by Modern Think. I was a little disappointed that the IPS scores weren't higher, but it tells me I have work to do to improve our work environment and culture. I'm committed to doing that, in partnership will all our staff and leadership team. Below are the summary results comparing IPS to the entire UT System.

March Events

As you saw from my earlier post, February was a busy month. March is no less hectic.

March 1 - IPS Quarterly Leadership Team meeting
March 6-7 - LEIC Advisory Board Meeting
March 7 - Employee Engagement Survey Data preliminary meeting with ModernThink
March 12 - IT Reorganization Briefing
March 13 - UT Day on the Hill in Nashville
March 19-21 - IPS Leadership Academy in Nashville

March is also full of annual performance review meetings and a week of budget hearings still to come. Finally, we launched the search for the new assistant vice president. It's an exciting time in IPS.

Recent Happenings

My Blog has been silent for a while. I simply haven't taken the time to commit to paper all that is happening. Here's a quick rundown for February:

Feb 2 - System Strategic Planning Steering Committee meeting
Feb 6 - President's staff meeting
Feb 8 - A briefing with Senator Coker's staff on who we are and what we do
Feb 10 - CTAS Advisory Committee meeting in Nashville
Feb 14 - Fundraising trip to Nashville
Feb 15 - A short segment on Channel 10's "Live at Five" on the COCTP and how it works
Feb 22 - System Strategic Planning Steering Committee meeting
Feb 23 - Fundraising trip to Maryville
Feb 24 - Monthly meeting with the President
Feb 27 - Compensation Advisory Board Meeting in Memphis
Feb 28-29 - UT Board of Trustees Meeting in Memphis

Of course, there are many other exciting things going on across the institute that we share on our web site and in our newsletters. There is never a slow time for our work!