If you would like to be considered for addition in the future, or have questions about which departments/divisions are participating, please visit the Contact Us page.

There are four main expectations of program participants:

1. Meet with your supervisor at least every other week for a 1:1 feedback conversation of at least 15 minutes to discuss progress on projects/tasks, support or resource needs, or how to overcome obstacles.
2. Meet with your supervisor at least every six months to discuss setting, tracking, and reaching your individual performance and development goals.
3. Answer your monthly pulse survey and give honest feedback--your feedback is key to identifying needs and areas to improve.
4. Recognize your coworkers, supervisors, or staff for doing great work by using Cheers Central in Workday; whether they helped you complete a difficult project or brought bagels and brightened your day, send Cheers to show your appreciation.

Program Participants are not required to complete the traditional Annual Review process, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still discussing and reviewing performance with your supervisor. Instead, the Program focuses on taking all the feedback you would have received at the end of a review cycle and giving it to you in real-time throughout the year so you are better able to take steps towards improvement. 

Pulse Surveys are designed to check the “pulse” of program participants by asking employees for regular, anonymous feedback. We use a platform called Employee Voice to send you one question every month. The survey has two components:

1. The survey question is a 0-10 scale. Responses always anonymous.
2. Survey comments: this is where you can give context or elaborate on your response to the question. Your department's PDP Liaison may respond to your comment and you can respond back, allowing for a dialogue. You will see their name but your comments remain anonymous. You can also use the comment box to give suggestions or ideas to improve policies/programs. Suggestions and comments will be reviewed by PDP Liaisons and department leadership.

The survey will arrive in your email inbox at the beginning of every month. The link in the email will take you directly to your unique Employee Voice survey page to answer the one-question survey. You will also receive a Team's notification which allows you to easily take the survey from the Workday Peakon Employee Voice Teams chat.

The survey question is open until the end of the month and you will receive reminders if you haven't submitted it. You can access and answer the question by clicking the link in the original email or the follow-up reminders. 

Employee Voice and the County take the confidentiality of survey responses seriously and have a number of measures in place to protect employees' identities. PDP Liaisons and Admins who have permission to view survey results within the Employee Voice system cannot view any information that identifies a specific person as the author of a comment. Unless someone writes something that makes it clear who they are, they will not be identifiable to the person reading or responding to the comment. Individual responses will remain confidential unless there is a safety concern. The County may request that Employee Voice provide the identity of a commenter if a comment could be considered threatening but cannot otherwise link a comment with an employee. The scores an employee gives are always aggregated with scores given by other employees in the same segment.

Your department's PDP Liaison has access to the aggregated Pulse Survey responses, and are encouraged to share the results with department leadership. The feedback you provide is an important part of the real-time feedback loop of the program.  The survey results are used to track the consistency and success of 1:1 and goal conversations, identify areas individuals or supervisors need support, and track progress over time.

Sending "Cheers" through Cheers Central is a way to give recognition to coworkers, employees, or supervisors who you want to celebrate. Sending Cheers to someone can be a great way to show appreciation, recognize a contribution they made,  or just say "thank you" for brightening your day. You can send a Cheers to any County employee. Cheers are displayed on the Cheers Central dashboard within Workday. See instructions here for finding the Cheers Central dashboard and for sending Cheers.

There is no perfect formula for a 1:1 check-in, some people may get more out of a highly structured check-in with an agenda emailed in advance, while others may prefer a more free-flowing conversation to address whatever is top of mind.

The only defined rule for 1:1's is that they should happen at least once every two weeks, more frequently as needed. There are resources available including sample 1:1 agenda templates and a class to help supervisors have effective 1:1's. Some general guidelines: conversations should be at least 15 minutes in order to share all relevant information (many supervisors take 30 minutes or more); conversations should be in private, whether in an office, conference room, or outside location; and conversations should be two-way, with the employee having enough time to ask questions or for support as needed.

A successful Goal Conversation can vary widely depending on preferred communication styles, years in the role, and type of position. Generally speaking, supervisors and employees should meet to set, discuss, and review progress on goals at least once every six months, but many will do it more frequently than that. The intention is for this to be a longer conversation than a regular 1:1 check-in, with more space for reflection on both parts and coaching by the supervisor. Generally, employees should have a mix of 3-5 performance goals (complete Project X by Date Y, with success measured by criteria Z) and development goals (graduate formal education program, take on a Work-Out-of-Class position to learn supervisory skills).

One method that can be helpful for setting effective goals is the SMART system. There is flexibility in how you track goals--find a system that works for you and your supervisor.

The most important consideration with goals is that they need to be agreed to by both the employee and supervisor. Your supervisor will probably have priorities based on their goal-setting process.  If you are unsure you can meet the set expectations or have a different priority based on your experience, that should be communicated immediately so you can work together to develop a plan. Goals do not need to strictly align with higher-level goals, but they do need to support the County/department mission in a way that your supervisor supports.

Check ins and Goal Conversations are tracked through survey questions related to those pillars. The responsibility to schedule consistent 1:1s is shared by both the employee and supervisor. If a department/division does not appear to be consistently holding 1:1 conversations, and administrator interventions do not spur improvements, they may be removed from the program and returned to annual performance evaluations.