performance plan vs. PD

[Anonymous]

Fellow feds....I was hired under a specific PD, at a grade specific to the PD.
As the years have gone on, my performance plan has evolved. I have a coworker who was telling me that she thinks my performance plan should only reflect duties that are outlined in my PD, and the extra items that have made their way to my performance plan should be considered going "above and beyond" come rating time.

I never said anything before about my performance plan not matching my PD -I have a different supervisor every year or so (DOD, our supervisors are military), so they always seem to add to my performance plan what they think I should be doing.

Is she right? Should I nip this in the bud or should I discuss having my PD re-written to reflect the duties I am currently doing?

I've never gotten any recognition (financial or otherwise) for going above and beyond, and now she has me wondering if that's because the extra duties I do are outlined on my performance plan (but not my PD).

any advice is appreciated. And I'm not complaining, just tryin to get a better understanding of this process.

[Anonymous]

Sorry I wish I had the answer to this but I'm bumping this up in hopes that someone else will give an opinion.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, I am still curious. I don't want to ask my HR because they are useless. Maybe there's a manager (especially a fed one) who can comment...

[Anonymous]

Many many many federal employees perform duties that are not covered by their PD. In fact all attorneys in my agency are on the same PD, though we all do very different work. This is not a road you want to go down. What you would be essentially asking for is a desk audit or a position reclassification. A desk audit could result in you being down-graded if the result is that you are not doing work at our grade level. It could result in you being upgraded if you are doing work above your grade-level. Importantly, this is not about what duties you are doing, or whether they are on your PD, but about the grade-level of the work you are doing. You could ask for a position reclassification, but it would not do you any good, and could do you some harm. Basically, it changes your series, for example, from "EEO Specialist" to "EEO Analyst" or something like that.

If you are unionized, you could potentially grieve the "change" in your duties as it relates to your PD, but I'm not sure what that would get you.

[Anonymous]

Well, I am essentially asking if I am being screwed by having my performance plan differ so much from my PD in that I am never classified as going "above and beyond" on the off chance there are ever bonuses or promotions (HAHAHAHA haha that was funny, but really). I don't care if my PD is changed really, since there's no money to bump it up, but I do know that I do way more than is outlined in my PD.

So that is my question - should I be pushing for my performance plan to be more in line with my PD and keep the "extra stuff" they've padded my plan with for when I do the evaluation as going above and beyond?

(and I'm not talking admin stuff or whatever, I'm talking about substantial duties that should be on a PD when they hire someone that I have taken on for 3 years and have just sort of become expected with no recognition...if that makes any sense?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many many many federal employees perform duties that are not covered by their PD. In fact all attorneys in my agency are on the same PD, though we all do very different work. This is not a road you want to go down. What you would be essentially asking for is a desk audit or a position reclassification. A desk audit could result in you being down-graded if the result is that you are not doing work at our grade level. It could result in you being upgraded if you are doing work above your grade-level. Importantly, this is not about what duties you are doing, or whether they are on your PD, but about the grade-level of the work you are doing. You could ask for a position reclassification, but it would not do you any good, and could do you some harm. Basically, it changes your series, for example, from "EEO Specialist" to "EEO Analyst" or something like that.

If you are unionized, you could potentially grieve the "change" in your duties as it relates to your PD, but I'm not sure what that would get you.

I think you've gone off topic, and I think this is lousy advice. OP should request that if her primary current job duties are not reflected in her performance plan, that they be added. She should request that items that are not longer her responsibility be removed. The plan should be updated to reflect reality and she should work with her manager on that. PDs in my office are very generic and are not the same as the perf plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Many many many federal employees perform duties that are not covered by their PD. In fact all attorneys in my agency are on the same PD, though we all do very different work. This is not a road you want to go down. What you would be essentially asking for is a desk audit or a position reclassification. A desk audit could result in you being down-graded if the result is that you are not doing work at our grade level. It could result in you being upgraded if you are doing work above your grade-level. Importantly, this is not about what duties you are doing, or whether they are on your PD, but about the grade-level of the work you are doing. You could ask for a position reclassification, but it would not do you any good, and could do you some harm. Basically, it changes your series, for example, from "EEO Specialist" to "EEO Analyst" or something like that.

If you are unionized, you could potentially grieve the "change" in your duties as it relates to your PD, but I'm not sure what that would get you.

I think you've gone off topic, and I think this is lousy advice. OP should request that if her primary current job duties are not reflected in her performance plan, that they be added. She should request that items that are not longer her responsibility be removed. The plan should be updated to reflect reality and she should work with her manager on that. PDs in my office are very generic and are not the same as the perf plan.

I'm not sure how my advice was off-topic. I was telling her avenues that are available if she thinks her PD is inaccurate. I actually think yours is off-topic. The OP said that her PD did not reflect her current job duties and that her performance plan does reflect those duties. Your advice is to ask them to change her plan. Why would they do that if it is already accurate?

[Anonymous]

Is a performance plan one of those HR things for people who are rated unsatisfactory?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is a performance plan one of those HR things for people who are rated unsatisfactory?

No. That is a performance improvement plan. Everybody has a performance plan for each rating cycle. The terms can be very confusing, sometimes I think intentionally so....

[Anonymous]

OP here - I don't really care what's on my PD - I DO what's on my PD and then some. My question is, am I hurting myself by allowing these performance plan tasks that ARENT a part of my PD onto the performance plan because I'll never be rated as going "above and beyond" (should we ever get bonuses back)?

On top of that, am I being taken advantage of because I do significantly more than is on my PD because it's on my performance plan?

I don't want to get into desk audits, etc. It's far easier for me to say, "look, the items on my performance plan are not at all part of what I was hired to do, and I'm never recognized for them so I'm no longer going to agree to a performance plan than is "above and beyond" my PD"?

[Anonymous]

Your position description is a general outline of your functioning and the supervision you will receive. Your performance plan is much more specific and varied by year. They do not have to match up. You are not going "above and beyond" if you do something in your performance plan that is not in your PD.

For example, your PD says things like "As a grade 7 widget operator, Larla fulfills the mission of the Widget Services Administration to bring widgets to the public with minimal supervision in a timely fashion with integrity and responsibility."

Your performance plan says things like "In 2013 Larla will be widgetizing the Division of Training Services."

[Anonymous]

Ok, I get that.

so if your performance plan continues to outline more duties that are really outside the scope of your PD, you're not going to get compensated for that, right? (assuming we'll ever get WIGIs or anything like that again). I was hired under NSPS, so I guess I don't really see the point of a performance plan if you're never going to be recognized for good work (my previous agency was GS but always went to bat for employees and recognized you either with time off awards, thank yous, or a small bonus....which motivated me to work harder even though they were small tokens)

This is less for my current job, and more for my own information. My coworker told me that I'm doing stuff I shouldn't be doing because I'm never recognized for it, either with a thank you or money (which is a function of management). I've stopped caring and just do what I need to do to stay under the radar.

[Anonymous]

I don't want to get into desk audits, etc. It's far easier for me to say, "look, the items on my performance plan are not at all part of what I was hired to do, and I'm never recognized for them so I'm no longer going to agree to a performance plan than is "above and beyond" my PD"?

OP, what is it that you want to gain? What do you think will improve for you if you say that to your manager? I'm not trying to be snarky, but am genuinely curious. PPs are correct that it is commonplace for federal employees to do much more than is contained in a very general PD. PDs are onerous to create, which is why agencies have a stock of PDs for types of positions that are NOT customized to the particular employee.

Your rating, and any corresponding performance award is by law tied to how you performed under your performance plan, and has very little to do with your PD. As such, you are getting "credit" for those duties when your rating is based on them. You really are not missing out here.

[Anonymous]

I've got something I sign every year that is fairly detailed but pretty much identical for everyone doing my job so I don't really pay much attention to it. I am wondering if that is meant to be a performance plan and they just aren't able to project specific projects in advance, or if that's the PD?

[Anonymous]

OP here: my previous positions have tended to line up more with what I actually do, with of course other duties that I picked up.

So my coworker is wrong - I'm not screwing myself out of anything. If they're not rating me highly for all of the extra work I do, it's not the PD/Plan, it's management just ignoring the work I do.

Ratings don't really matter in the long run when there are no bonuses or WIGIs, but that's just my view (and was before my coworker said this to me the other day).