Libby Spotts
But I also think self reflection was another one of those strategies. Very rarely, should we really have to give feedback, if staff have an opportunity and have space to think about that topic or to think about that skill on their own, then maybe we’re just doing a little coaching or a little reframing, rather than what feels like a truth that maybe wasn’t known before, or something that that we’re bringing to their attention, there’s certainly certainly should be space for those team elements to come in where, you know, if we want to think about theories and all of the what is known to others, but may not be known to us for come to come into that space. But those conversations start to feel different when it’s done regularly. It starts to feel different when people have a voice at the table about how they want to receive feedback. And they can build that trust with their team, because what their boundaries and values and their processes is being respected in that space.

Heather Shea
Welcome to Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for Student Affairs educators. I am the host of today’s episode Heather Shea. Today on the podcast, we’re talking about performance evaluations and how we might rethink this human resource practice to be more equity centered, inclusive, and frankly, more humane. I’m joined by three folks who have been recommended to me for their skills in conducting particularly developmental, intentional, and thoughtful performance reviews. But before I get to introducing our panel, I’m going to provide a little bit more background information on the podcast in case you’re one of our new listeners. Student Affairs NOW is the premier podcast and learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope you find these conversations make a contribution to the field and our restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays and you can find us online at studentaffairsnow.com on YouTube, or anywhere you listen to podcast. Today’s episode is sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decisions. And you can stay tuned to the end of the podcast for more information today about Symplicity. As I mentioned, I’m your host for today’s episode, Heather Shea, my pronouns are she, her and hers and I am broadcasting from the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the three fires confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi peoples otherwise known as East Lansing, Michigan, home of Michigan State University, where I work. So let me open up the screen here and welcome our panelists for today. Brian Libby. Dave, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Welcome. When we as we go around, I’d love to just hear a little bit about you know how you are entering this space today, a little bit about your roles in or adjacent to higher education. And Dave, we’re gonna start with you, welcome.

Dave Fleming
Sure. Well, thank you for having me. My name is Dave Fleming. I’m the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Residence Life and Housing at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. That’s the unseeded land of the tribes are us here he him pronouns. And I think the way I came to this is, number one, my my grad program over 20 years ago, was an industrial organizational psychology. And so when I got this invite, I was like, Oh, I’m going right back to grad school. And it’s a really exciting thing for me to be able to use some of my organizational psychology background to be here. But most recently, I served on the Presidential Task Force for the 21st century employment in higher ed for a CPA. And in that work, we performance reviews and position descriptions, and those sorts of things certainly popped up and, and we’ve got some insight on on how to move forward in the future of employment. So, but I’m glad to be here. Thanks for inviting.

Heather Shea
Yeah. Dave, thank you so much. So I understood you said you actually took a class on how to write performance reviews.

Dave Fleming
I did. It was a whole semester long. And it was a binder full of materials that I cannot find any longer. I saved all my textbooks, but I don’t think I saved the binders. So but the whole semester.

Heather Shea
I think those of us in student affairs master’s program be like hmm, maybe we should have a class on this as a as a field. So I’m looking forward to hearing what you all have to say. Libby, welcome to the

Libby Spotts
Thank you for having me. I’m Libby Spotts that you she her pronouns. I am coming at you from Bloomington, Indiana, Indiana University in Bloomington, which is the home of Miami, Delaware, Shawnee, Kickapoo, and Potawatomi peoples. I’m here because the passion of developing our professional staff where I serve here at Indiana University as the Senior Associate Dean of Students, I get to work with folks who have hard conversations daily oversee our accountability and conduct areas I serve as our deputy title nine coordinator. And those skills are often underrepresented in the arena and the space where we do performance evaluations. So I’m excited to be a part of this conversation and share this space with the folks here today.

Heather Shea
Thank you so much for being here as well. Brian, welcome.

Brian Arao
Thank you so much longtime listener first time caller. My name is Brian Arao I use he him his pronouns. I’m joining you today from Santa Cruz, California, which is located within the unceded territory of the Alaska speaking up tribe. I wear a couple of hats. I am the Associate Dean of Students and Chief of Staff at UC Santa Cruz, and I’m also the president and co founder of brave space leadership, which offers executive coaching and consulting services in support of leadership for diversity, equity, social justice, and belonging. And I have been writing performance evaluations for I think all of my 23 years so far year, sorry, 23 years so far career in student affairs. And I’ve had mixed experiences, right, I have mixed feelings. Sometimes I’ve you know, they’ve gone great, sometimes not so great. And I think there’s so much potential and so much richness to be having this conversation about, you know, what works about them? Where could they go? Where could they grow? Um, so I’m really excited to be in community and conversation with you all today.

Heather Shea
It was just a matter of time, Brian, before you were on an episode, I think, given your connections to all of us. So let’s stick with you, though, for a moment, because as you were highlighting in your last response, that this is a stressful process, right? It’s stressful for the employee, but it’s also stressful for the supervisor. I don’t think it has to be this way. But before we get into kind of rethinking, and reevaluating, and maybe revolutionising these processes, let’s talk a little bit about why they’re important. So, Brian, from your perspective, why are performance reviews or performance appraisals? Important?

Brian Arao
Well, there’s, there’s a multitude of reasons, right. And I think that we could all we could spend the whole episode just making a list of them. But some that come immediately to mind for me, are for one, they just ensure that feedback actually takes place on some kind of a regular cadence. You know, when there’s when there’s an accountability structure behind giving feedback, you know, that it happens, right. And I know a lot of folks struggle to get good feedback, or to figure out how and when to offer feedback as supervisors. And so having a performance evaluation process addresses that kind of need, it creates an opportunity for there to be some kind of a shared reference point for what someone’s job expectations are job responsibilities, maybe. And also to provide a an opportunity to partner with with an employee in identifying, you know, different opportunities and strategies, or for growth or improvement and for cultivating strengths, with respect to the work that they’re doing. And I also just want to highlight, I think that performance evaluations have the potential to be helpful for everyone, but they might be especially important for folks who have minoritized identities. And that’s, that’s the case, because a lot of times, you know, those of us with those kinds of identities, struggle to get good, regular, clear, consistent feedback and input about how we’re doing. And we may not have access to the kinds of information about how one, you know, might progress or move through a career and develop and grow, you know, through through any number of careers, including a career in student affairs. And so So I think, again, having a regular performance evaluation process, you know, can really speak to those needs.

Heather Shea
Thank you so much. What else would Libby you or Dave, add to why they’re important?

Libby Spotts
I really appreciated Brian’s comment about the regular and consistent feedback. I think sometimes that anxiety comes from an environment where maybe that’s not happening. And it feels like everything is coming at once. And, you know, I’m sure to share this value with the folks who were in a conversation today is there shouldn’t be any surprises in that moment. And the more often we can say to the folks who are expecting a performance evaluation, I am not going to surprise you, I expect that those who are supervising you are not going to surprise you. I think we do have a little bit of agency and helping to control that moment, or helping folks to take control that moment for themselves, so that they’re not in a panic mode, which makes giving feedback even harder, right? It’s really difficult to even sit in this space of hearing that we could do something differently when we’re defensive. And so if we can reduce this defensive and early and often say, there shouldn’t be any surprises, I’m not going to surprise you. Maybe we can kind of help people decrease that stress moment on the front end.

Heather Shea
Thank you. That’s great. Dave, what else would you add as to their importance?

Dave Fleming
Yeah, well, I think that the one of the really important parts even particularly today, is that the recruitment landscape is a difficult one right now. And I think there was a time where you could give up on an employee and there would be 100 in waiting to take their place. And that’s just not the case anymore. And so I think we really could use our performance reviews and look at the process in a way to really develop our current staff, help them reach their potential, to maybe understand their potential and, and really, really invest in, in the people that we have in our departments and in at our institutions. And, and it’s just for me, it’s just really important to do that. And I think often as a supervisor, have I done everything that I can to make sure that this person can be successful. Because if not, then that performance review is also a reflection on me, as the supervisors, not just of the individual that I’m reviewing, and so, so that that’s really important is how do we invest in our in our current staff?

Heather Shea
Yeah, I think that’s a really a great point, and that they shouldn’t be a mechanism to push people out. But an opportunity to develop those folks further. Yeah, I love that. I want to I want to also acknowledge that before we get into rethinking as well, that many of us work in higher education institutions whose central HR departments have very prescribed processes, right, per prescribed cycle and forms. And so we may not have a lot of latitude in some ways to completely remake that system. But I think there could be some modifications, and particularly around like, what are the metrics and key indicators that we’re looking at? Dave, can you talk a little bit about, you know, given the unique nature of the roles and responsibilities of Student Affairs, folks, why should we be looking at to evaluate performance of staff who work in our divisions of Student Affairs?

Dave Fleming
Sure. Well, I think that systems are different across the country, at at each of our institutions. And so, so it’s hard to really pinpoint the exact nature and in how we would change reviews, but but for me, the ability to know exactly what those staff members are, are participating in their in their daily work life. And being able to be able to reflect that on the review is really important. And for us at our institution that really starts with the position description, that position description feeds into our review process. And so if that is not a, an accurate representation of what a person is doing, or it’s just a list of to do items, but really you’re being evaluated on, on how you engage with students, and, and the demeanor and how people feel when they leave your office. That’s a really, it’s a difficult thing to measure. But it ends up being the most important things as we navigate Student Affairs is, is how do our students come out of our offices? How do they feel? Do they have the strategies that they need to be successful? And so as I think about metrics, I think about critical thinking skills, I think about the ability to focus on solutions, rather than problems, you know, how do we get to yes, with our students, I think about skills like motivational interviewing, Intergroup Dialogue, these skill sets that are just essential to help our students identify where they are and where they want to be, and to be able to help them navigate that, that sometimes messy process of being at college. And then I think, finally just looking at, are you a team player? Do you look at the work that we do is a shared success and a shared failure mentality? I am always looking for individuals who can can look beyond their their individual accomplishments and which are which are really important. But how do they blend in and weave into the accomplishments of of everyone else in the department or at the institution to really achieve our goal?

Heather Shea
I love that that’s that teamwork piece, I think is a really critical component that’s often under evaluated, because it does kind of come at this really individual, individual perspective. So Libby, when we think about like, kind of a culture of continuous improvement and development. You know, Can Can you talk a little bit about the ways that these reviews can kind of foster that. And also acknowledge the fact that staff have a lot of complexities to their work, right. It’s not just a, as I was saying, before we started recording like a quantity and quality kind of conversation. Like there’s a lot of challenges and complexities and certainly COVID has not helped that right. So how, how do we use these to really create that improvement mindset?

Libby Spotts
Yeah, I think it’s such a good question, because I do think at times this idea of personal development, and human development is at odds with the expectation of productivity, the idea that we could take space use to develop a staff member the same way or with the same intentionality that we bring to our work to develop students. It feels weird. And when we’re worried about output based performance, and we’re focusing on the output that doesn’t seem like it’s in alignment with some of the values that are often associated with higher education, when I think of those things, I immediately go to some of the stories that I’ve experienced and heard about staff who have been in performance evaluation situations where their performance evaluation is directly connected to a cost of living increased. And what does that mean for motivation? What does that mean for owning that we can be in a developmental stage, but also being in a fight or flight or panic mode, because now we’re talking about just the ability to live with a reasonable amount of, you know, 2%, maybe if we’re lucky, 2% increase. And so I think when we’re talking about acknowledging the complexities of each individual person, not even position, but the complexities that each person brings to those competencies to those skills, we have to find a balance of both the standardization that gives people a clearer sense of what their job is, in the acknowledgement and the space to say maybe it’s okay, if they do that differently. Or if this year, that competency was knocked out of the park, and next year, it’s not going to harm them if they’re doing their job, or if they’re not meeting expectations. But maybe they’re doing something else, because they have gone ahead and improved in that area, in alignment with their own goals. But I think to be okay with that we’re asking, and this is where maybe some of the panic from earlier comes into, we’re asking employees to consider being okay with doing their job, and we have a perfect or going against perfectionist culture, we’re going against sometimes these things being connected to funding. And I think that those complexities all come into play with how and why we sit down and we do this and some of the resistance that is at times met. When you think about the challenges and complexities between standardization and opening the space for this individualized acknowledgement of work. Where are we acknowledging that some staff do have a workload that others do not have staff who are serving marginalized students who maybe hold marginalized identities? And are serving the needs of students who are more comfortable going to them? Where is there space for that? Where are we saying, Yes, this is it, this is something that is being contributed, and we’re going to not only acknowledge it, but also benefit employees who are in that space. And walking with that I have the pleasure of supervising staff members who are in a trauma informed area day to day. And while that’s a skill set, what I want to also know is how they’re managing their own emotions and taking care of themselves. But that sort of development is rarely in a performance evaluation.

Heather Shea
Yeah, I have thought about that quite a lot recently, in my own kind of struggle with better assessing staff and I think that the last couple of years have really kind of put into complexity and particularly on on my campus, right, that experience to a massive a mass shooting. So like thinking about how staff are navigating that it’s like, it’s okay to just be doing your job. Right. And, and even if you have to take time away, also totally okay, you’re gonna you’re showing you can manage these things multiply.

Libby Spotts
Anything else, you know, and criminology, that taking that time is a form of competency. It’s a form of doing your job really well, actually it to just do your job in those moments. Absolutely.

Heather Shea
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Dave or Brian, what else would you add in terms of the complexities of this work?

Brian Arao
I just loved that whole last exchange, just amazing. Wisdom Libby, Thank you. And I really made me think about, you know, the importance of context, in performance evaluations, and, and really thinking about, you know, how we include that. I mean, I think those of us who write performance evaluations always have, I shouldn’t say always, we often have the latitude to include information about context. As we’re determining, you know, what did what did your performance look like, you know, in this cycle, right. But But I don’t think it’s often built into processes. You know, I don’t I’ve never had, you know, when I’ve received a particular kind of prescribed form or way to do a performance evaluation. I don’t think I’ve ever been encouraged directly, or asked to say and, and how does the context in which work unfolded this year impact upon your assessment of what this person’s performance was? Because even thinking about this idea of like, you know, you just did your job, you know, you met expectations of your job. You know, what that might look like? You know, in one year, which, you know, we might say, as a more standard year, you know, for me when I don’t know if this is similar for other folks in the call, but, you know, during the first year, for example of the pandemic, it was the kind of the context was completely different, right? Simply to do your job was was considerably more than then sort of meeting expectations, right, like you’re going above and beyond just like getting it done. And so really thinking about, you know, how sensitive are our instruments or tools that we may be using in a performance evaluation process to being able to include that especially around something, you know, like he was saying that might be connected, in some ways to to evaluations of, of either cost of living or merit increases to salary has a real material impact on folks in that way, too.

Heather Shea
Yeah, I’ve just I’ve, yeah, go ahead, Dave.

Dave Fleming
Well, I was just thinking, you know, back to the merit increases and whatnot, at some institutions, that there are additional parameters around that. I was at an institution a number of years ago, where we’re one of one of the requirements of department heads was to rank order, they’re their staff. So not everyone could get the exceeds expectations, or the meet expectations or whatnot. They, they had to, they had to spread it out. And so I think, number one, knowing that upfront, is really important as both employees and supervisors, and you really have to know, in a year in advance, as far as I’m concerned, but but I think you have to understand the intention and the motivations of these reviews in order for them to be effective. And sometimes they’re not, they’re not aligned with with what we think of as professional development, the actual use of them is not aligned. And I think you have to be mindful of that.

Libby Spotts
I like what you said, there are a lot about just acknowledging and maybe it’s environment specific. But there there could be scenarios where the performance evaluation is just not going to be the developmental tool, and there isn’t a lot of agency and control over that. So then the question shifts and becomes how do we then provide that feedback that is developmental? Certainly, maybe we don’t need to do multiple evaluations or tours, similar tools. But I think the opportunity to reflect and that reflective learning component that can be a powerful element of an evaluation tool, is something that is worthwhile, even if there are metrics that aren’t represented that maybe should be in ways that we want to address these complexities. And so I think that could happen in a number of different ways less formally,

Heather Shea
you’re queuing up my next question perfectly, because I think we should like really rethink, right? So imagine a world in which we didn’t have these prescribed processes. And we really have at the center, you know, a contextualized developmental inclusive process like, Brian, if you had to completely rethink this, what would it look like? What would you in envision?

Brian Arao
Oh, so many things. But, you know, one button and I don’t know if this is necessarily in contrast to what toilet Libby shared, but maybe a little different is thinking about, I’ve often thought about what it looked like to not just have like one annual evaluation, right? But but to have shorter and more regular evaluations and have that really be part of how we formally assess folks performance. And for me, there’s many reasons around that, you know, one of them being, you know, and I think it’s potentially true for many people listening right now that there’s podcasts that weren’t that everyone was in the midst of completing their annual performance review, and timely, depending on how many people report to you, you know, you could be like, I could easily and have easily spent weeks just on this, right? Because it’s important to me, and it’s important to employees to thoughtfully and caringly, complete these these tasks, and they feel very high impact and very high consequence, because this is a one time we get to do this, right. And so, you know, it’s not that that’s bad, necessarily. And I do think kind of summative feedback can be really helpful and important, like, how did this year really go? And I also think, especially from a developmental perspective, we could find ways to break it up into smaller portions and kind of throughout the course of a cycle say how are you doing? Right? But from where I sit, how are you doing from where you sit also, right? How are you doing? And so, you know, utilizing self appraisals, when those are part of the process to really encourage employees also to be thinking about, like, what right, how am I assessing my performance? And then how are those things then coming together into into some sort of a, you know, more formal document of, of here’s, here’s, here’s the assessment, right if your performance, you know, and I also I think that that speaks to, you know, the idea of maybe kind of broadening the scope of accountability within performance evaluations so that, you know, it’s perhaps less focused on the notion that perhaps it’s really on the employee, like your performance is, right, whether you succeeded or not, or glue or not, is really on you. And really thinking more about like, no, no, this is actually something that we’re that we need to work on together, that’s part of my responsibilities your supervisor is, is to work with you throughout the year, right, throughout the time that you’re that you work here, to, to learn and to grow, and to know what’s going well, and also to know, you know, where other areas where where things need to improve. You know, and I think that can grow even beyond like supervisor and supervisee, you know, and thinking even like, what ways could could exist or be created for there to be more kind of 360 opportunities built into performance evaluations, where you’re getting a much more full and realistic picture from multiple vantage points for anyone about really, how are you doing? Right? And to have that be just the most fully informed a nuanced picture, right. And I say all these things that are like the sounds like adding a lot more to the process, I guess it is, but also maybe thinking about what are the ways that we can restructure it so that that would be more manageable, and still get to some of the outcomes that I think are really important in terms of, you know, do we again, have some sort of clear, standardized way of of explaining and talking to employees and talking more broadly in the university about how folks are doing, you know, but also to be able to do that in ways that are clearly developmental, that are clearly demonstrating investment in care in the work and the growth of folks who are doing amazing things foreign with students? As we’re, you know, engaging these processes.

Heather Shea
I want to go ahead, and

Libby Spotts
I want to take what Brian just said, and like, marry it with what you said earlier about the context. And this has this is a delight have a question to kind of live in the possibility of, of all of those things in the with what Brian was just saying, I think this idea of, yes, we have standardization, there are competencies, we there’s a reason we have those, we know that, that that’s in a large degree, our professional values, what we’re doing to make sure that we’re not adding any harm to students lives, that we’re doing things ethically. And also to acknowledge the context of things in my brain in this transformative landscape immediately went to what would it would a narrative transcript of a performance evaluation look like? It is probably every HR employees nightmare. Because it’s individualized, but in in that spirit of being in community, and then it went to a place for me, where I was thinking, oh, what would even shared identify? So we talked so much about coded language, but if if we had the chance to sit down and demystify that or just agree that this is what we’re going to interpret it as this is what the shared definition means for us, the two of us in the supervisor supervisee relationship, or us as a team to bring in some of those elements that Brian was talking about incorporating teamwork, and how do you operate there? Maybe we can take standardized language and shape it to make the meaning that it needs to make for us, maybe we can also live in a world where those things can exist separate from a standardized standardized evaluation, and it just isn’t going to be a part of this formal annual process.

Heather Shea
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think decoupling makes a lot of sense for all the reasons that you all have already named. Dave, what else would you add in terms of completely re envisioning?

Dave Fleming
Sure, and I think this piggybacks off of what Brian and Libby were talking about. But I think that as we as we think about maybe spreading this out, and it not just being a one time event, and I don’t know if it’s if you all experienced the same thing, but as I get older, the year goes by a lot quicker. And that email from HR comes and I’m like, how has it been a year? Have I even written anything down about this employee over an entire year? And of course, I have, but, but it’s like, I have to wrack my brain of how I actually coached this person in a year. And so I wonder, are there opportunities to leverage technology to provide these reminders to say, say, Hey, what’s going on with this employee? You know, how are they doing? I equated so I have a two year old at home and, and my partner set up a some some app that sends her a text message every couple of weeks. It says, basically, what’s this developmental thing or what’s this memory that you have? That that’s happening right now and it’s a great reminder because it’s documenting all of these things that are happening in the development of our, of our child and, and I would love to have that as a supervisor, because I don’t know about you all, but I have, I am more than just a supervisor, I have a lot of other to do list items. And so to be able to be reminded of, Hey, your job is also and probably the most important job is to mentor and coach these individuals, I think would be a really useful thing for institutions to employ. I saw a list of so we’re doing recognitions or state institution, we do recognitions of 510 1520 years, so every five years, people get recognized for their years of service. And the list got Center at different supervisors. And, and just thinking about the wealth of that, I know that that’s not all they’re doing. Right? Or else, no one would do any work. It would just just be a bunch of supervision. And so So I think figuring out how to find ways to make that process easier. I think frequent, as Brian said, you know, put it in the small, small pieces so that we can get there, I think is really important.

Heather Shea
Yeah, I, I often think supervision, if it is one of the things on your job description, it needs to be up towards the top at some on some levels, right? Because it does it a it takes up a lot of time. And if you do it well, like, you know, everyone, I think and at all levels needs a supervisor or right or somebody who cares about their personal development, and engagement and, you know, encourages their satisfaction and all of those kinds of things. But I think the other piece is that sometimes I also think the higher we get, the less our supervisors think that we need them. But I think there’s regardless of where you are in your career, it can always be helpful. So Libby I’m curious about strategies. So you know, if we’ve kind of thought broadly about all the rethinking and possible ways that we might do this differently. If we’re thinking about performance reviews as really this supportive, constructive, positive community, and employee engagement strategy, you know, what are some of the ways that we can think about that within our divisions? Knowing that, you know, probably completely throwing them out the door is not a possibility? What are some strategies that you would recommend?

Libby Spotts
I think we’ve talked about a couple of them throughout the conversation today, beginning with the early and often piece of the puzzle, to to reduce the concern that folks might have about about feedback. But I also think self reflection was another one of those strategies. Very rarely, should we really have to give feedback, if staff have an opportunity and have space to think about that topic or to think about that skill on their own, then maybe we’re just doing a little coaching or a little reframing, rather than what feels like a truth that maybe wasn’t known before, or something that that we’re bringing to their attention, there’s certainly certainly should be space for those team elements to come in where, you know, if we want to think about theories and all of the what is known to others, but may not be known to us for come to come into that space. But those conversations start to feel different when it’s done regularly. It starts to feel different when people have a voice at the table about how they want to receive feedback. And they can build that trust with their team, because what their boundaries and values and their processes is being respected in that space. And so I think, when we talk about the strategies, I don’t know that we can separate frequency from effectiveness in terms of development. I don’t know that many of us do develop well, with just a once a year. And to Dave’s point, those years go really quickly. And we often have a moment of oh, my gosh, how are we here? Again, I thought we just did that. So you know, resource wise, I think it can be difficult to set that time aside as a supervisor and to engage in a in sort of a consistent practice of those things. To say it’s okay for you not to be perfect. It’s okay for one day to look excellent. And for another day to not hit the mark. And the more that we acknowledge those things, and that we value people even when they’re not hitting the mark, right, because that’s that’s not a statement of somebody’s worth or value. But when these things get so tied up into high job performance, high output, How late is somebody working? How many emails are there? Are they sending the message just becomes skewed to output rather than development? And I think that’s exactly why we’re having this conversation today. So that slow systematic chipping away at what really matters and, and what’s going to help somebody live a good life and perform well, but be a better person at the end of the year or meet their goals at the end of their job with us. swim when they’re ready to move up or move on, those are the things that I think are gonna matter.

Heather Shea
So I know we didn’t have I know, my grad program did not have a class on how to do this kind of thing. Well, Brian or Libby, either, have you taken a class in this? No, I’m jealous of you Dave. But I do think that there are some resources for professional development out there for supervisors, you know, either within their own HR departments or beyond. And so I’d love to hear suggestions for folks who may not come to this practice naturally, right, like, inherently are just good at performance appraisal. What, what resources are out there? Dave? Maybe we could start with you.

Dave Fleming
Yeah, well, I mean, I think this is the time that I get the plug, the report report from the 21st century, employment in higher education from a CPA. But there’s some really good information in there. And for those of you who have listened to this, this podcast, there have been a number of sessions on on this report, talking about different topics, but but we do dive in into performance reviews a little bit and talking about the success, which I think we’ve talked about the the tenants of, of of those in our conversations already. But really, our goal is to really dismantle the supremacy, culture of fear, which comes from this unexpected review, right? Like we’ve waited all year to tell you all of our grapes and concerns with your performance. And so how do you dismantle that, and then also how to do there’s another part around dismantling the right to comfort and so if you are doing performance reviews in a in the right way, you can develop a caring, compassionate relationship with the individual that you’re reviewing, and still have hard conversations. So have really, really candid conversations about where they are missing the mark, perhaps where they’re creating toxicity in your department. And I think often we we don’t like being uncomfortable, or we don’t like making others uncomfortable. And so instead of addressing those issues, we push them aside, we we take a detour and give that work to someone else, or just leave someone out of that process. And instead of doing that, what we need to be doing is growing. And so that the the report on the 21st century employment talks about a little bit about how to do that. But then really focused on these these components that we’ve talked about. And so having clear and specific performance reviews, making sure that you’re able to cite examples, instead of these vague statements of either good performance or poor performance, focusing on the the collaborative nature of it, and so making sure that there’s an opportunity for self evaluation, and being able to incorporate that into the supervisors review. I think the other piece is just training training supervisors. I don’t know about you, I haven’t been trained how to do a performance evaluation in 20 years. It’s, here’s the, here’s the document that you need to fill out, go and be married. Right. And so I think there’s an assumption that, that people know how to be good supervisors. And I think, you know, supervisors are human, they’ve got strengths and they’ve got weaknesses, they’ve got insecurities, which I think, you know, fall bring come into, into performance reviews. And, and so, so again, this report kind of helps frame that in a way that people can start thinking critically about how they show up in the review process.

Heather Shea
Other recommendations for where to go to get additional resources or, or development around this?

Brian Arao
Well, um, I love what Libby was saying earlier about coaching, right, as a as aging as a way to engage, you know, with folks that you supervise, and I really think it’s such a proponent of pitching in a million different ways, but but I really, in particular, think that it can be powerful in a performance, evaluation context, and also just generally, you know, as a manager, and so I always like to recommend book the Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier, which is designed specifically for managers who want to utilize a coaching approach in their work. And, you know, one of the reasons I think it’s really relevant to this conversation is that it is an inherently asset based approach, and it really kind of shifts the locus of focus right from from you as the manager, you know, to the person that you’re working with. And really, how are you partnering with them, and recognizing and helping them to recognize and utilize their agency to identify areas where they need to grow areas where they’re succeeding, you know, ways to navigate through and around and over barriers that may be getting in the way of them being able to do the best work possible working with students. And, you know, I’ve just found it to be so, so useful to take that approach, because I think, for many, many years, you know, I approached supervision work, and got feedback, right, that that what I was doing was coaching. But But actually, I think a lot of the time, what I was doing was giving advice, and creating environments where folks felt like they had to come to me in order to get the answer they didn’t trust, right, that their instincts or their capacity to sort of make decisions and figure out the solution, you know, was was sufficient? And so they would, they would come to me, right, looking for that. And so, you know, I think, you know, based on all you know, all of that, I think that shifting to, you know, a coaching approach can be a really, really powerful way to help folks within and beyond the performance evaluation to to grow as as practitioners.

Libby Spotts
we had talked, just briefly before we hit record, there’s a book I read last year. And it’s one thing you know, the one that I might add to this, this list of really great resources, and it’s the race conscious supervision, book, and for me as a white sis woman, in a space where the intersection of marginalized identities actually absolutely play out in the performance evaluation space, in terms of taking some conscious steps to address those moments, and to reframe those practices and to build relationships that matter so that we can all develop and move forward together. That’s the, for those who might be being useful, helpful for I think that that that book does give some good insights and tools that are applicable, even beyond race conscious supervision, when we’re thinking about the interplay of identities, and feedback and performance.

Heather Shea
This is great, so many great resources that we will link in our show notes for today. So if you’re listening to this later, you can go to our website and scroll to where it talks about notes and get additional information and feedback and maybe some links that you can download. So we are at the end of our time, we always run a little bit short on time. And I’d love to hear a little bit about how we kind of always end our episodes on Student Affairs NOW, which is if you could take a moment or two and just summarize what you’re pondering questioning, thinking about excited about now. And then if you’d like to share how or where people can connect with you to follow up. You know, please do add that as well. And Libby, How about how about you kick us off for final thoughts?

Libby Spotts
I’m certainly thinking of thinking about performance evaluations. You’re right. This is the time of year. And I think this is this is a shared, I’ve heard it in every professional space, the recruitment and retention of our talented staff, where we are kind of in this landscape of higher education. And it absolutely dovetails into performance evaluation. There’s something that Dave said earlier about what if this is the thing that we have to offer, at least that’s how I took it, that really good performance evaluations can be a hallmark of working in higher education, where maybe some other you know, work dynamics may not be the hallmarks of higher education, maybe this is something that we can lean into it. I don’t know if Dave intended it in that spirit, but I’m kind of taking it in that spirit and running with it. But the retention of our really talented staff, especially as folks are looking to move up, move on, and we’re all kind of recovering from our collective experiences during the pandemic.

Heather Shea
Thank you so much, Libby. I appreciate that. Dave, what about you final thoughts?

Dave Fleming
Yeah, so I am actually taken back to a book from a long time ago Good to Great. And I And we’re in a place where, you know, fewer resources, but we’ve got a lot of passionate and great people on this campus. But there’s not a lot of room for movement, because there are a lot of extra positions on campus to promote and whatnot and, and I’m reminded of a section in that book around getting people on the bus, and then getting them in the right seats and then figuring out where you’re going to go. And and so I’ve been thinking a lot about how how can I I think supports my staffs desire to grow and develop in their roles. And sometimes that’s not necessarily in a position change, but how, how do you help identify their strengths, and then get them into places where they can really shine, and utilize those strengths to really benefit the institution with more efficiency and more excellence. And so that’s really where, where my brain is right now is how do we do that within the constructs of, of a state institution?

Heather Shea
That is a fabulous book, we’ll definitely link that as well. And I also thinking about the book essentialism, where it’s like, you can do 20 million things, kind of mediocre. But if you want, if you put all of those efforts to a few things, you know, if we can also help our staff think about that, you know, it’s not about quantity, about getting like that specific experience. What about you, Brian? Final thoughts?

Brian Arao
Sure, well, you know, there’s, this is so hard asking a Gemini to pick and a final. You know, lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time just thinking about the critical importance of rest, joy, and community, and sustaining, you know, really any kind of leadership work and in particular, leadership work that is focused on promoting diversity, equity, social justice, and belonging. And it’s something that we are, you know, that these are things that are often sort of seen as frivolous or not really necessary. And, you know, in point of fact, I think that, you know, systems of oppression and dominance really require folks who want to work against them to be exhausted and unhappy and disconnect. Right. And so so I’ve really been focusing a lot more in the various kinds of work I get to do with leaders. On the idea of really centering those those three things as being quite important to prioritize and thinking about the power that could come from like, what what if we were all well rested and happy and connected? Like, what can we accomplish? How much further could we could we go with respect to creating the world we want to live in? So So that’s been really exciting for me, it’s been a positive forward momentum for me, and I see it relating to so many different kinds of leadership, whether it be performance evaluations, or any of the other activities we engage in. Also to your other question about how to stay in touch with folks that they want to do that, I would love to connect with folks on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn if you’d like to join me there. And I am also on Instagram at Dr. Brian Arao.

Heather Shea
Great. Well, thank you all, for your contributions and for your time today in contributing to this episode, which I do think is very timely, as I was just completing performance reviews of staff that I work with so painfully, yes, definitely. This is something that as we put it out into the universe will be useful for folks. Thank you, especially to our wonderful behind the scenes producer Nat who makes all of us look and sound great. If you are listening today, and this is your first time ever listening to an episode of Student Affairs NOW and you’re not receiving our weekly newsletter, please add your name to our email list by going to our website studentaffairsnow.com. And while you’re there, you can check out our archives. I think we’re at 150 Plus episodes at this point, featuring topics and conversations spanning the gamut of Student Affairs and adjacent work. And then thanks again to our sponsor. Today’s episode Symplicity is the global leader in student success technology platforms with state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decisions specific to their goals, a true partner to the institution, Symplicity supports all aspects of student life including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being student success and accessibility services. And you can learn more by visiting symplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. And you can take a moment to visit our website and click on the sponsors link to learn more. Again, I’m Heather Shea thanks to all of our listeners, everybody who is watching. Make it a great week.

Identity-conscious supervision: A model for equity (2021). Craig Elliott, Shruti Desai, Robert Brown

https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20396