CIRES supervisors fulfill an important role at CIRES. This article shares an overview of supervisor responsibilities.

CIRES supervisors serve as:

• Communications channel between employees, CIRES, University, and Labs
• Main contact between CIRES and employees:
  • Guidance for onboarding
  • Guidance for separation
• Contact between employee and the rest of the local staff
• Source for evaluation of employee performance 
• Source to review and approve leave requests and timecards 
• Primary support for consideration of career track promotion readiness

Annual Performance Management Process 

At CIRES the performance management process involves completion of an Annual Summary of Accomplishments (ASA), involving the employee, supervisor, and science advisor, where applicable.

Supervisor Goals

• Give employee honest, objective, and constructive feedback
• Recognize the employee's contributions and accomplishments
• Obtain input from employee
• Address job-related issues
• Revise job description
• Mutually establish future goals
• Identify areas for improvement
• Develop new projects, skills
• Address career development
• Identify new responsibilities
• Nominate for promotion as appropriate

Preparation of Assessment

• Review Annual Summary of Accomplishments (submitted by employee)
• Obtain input from others if applicable
• Review employee's background
• Review job description. Assessments should be driven by performance, not salary
• Review last year's goals

Considerations

• Assess the job performance standards, not the employee's traits
• Avoid seeing only the "exceptional" performance; watch out for peaks and valleys
• Assess the performance across the entire period, not just on most recent work
• Give feedback throughout the year, without surprises at the assessment
• Do not inflate the assessment for monetary reasons
• Focus on how to get the employee to the next level

Meeting with the Employee

• Establish a date and time for employee, supervisor and science advisor (if applicable) to discuss assessment. Meet in a private location, and allow sufficient time
• You may give employee a draft of your assessment in advance to read
• Be helpful and constructive, not critical
• Seek input from the employee
• Look for opportunities for improvement
• Discuss how you can help make the employee more successful
• Suggest organizational improvement
• Be prepared to revise your assessment
• Do not disclose recommended salary adjustments until notified by CIRES administration

Annual Salary Increases

• A completed performance assessment and rating is required to be on file for employees to be eligible for any annual increase. Not all employee groups are eligible for an annual increase, including students, temporary hires, retirees.
• New salaries are normally effective January 1, reflected in the end-of-January paycheck

Promotions

• Please see the Career Track site for detailed information about promoting your employee(s)