Understanding Performance Management Setup

To implement the performance management features of Human Resources, you must define performance appraisal methods as either competency based or traditional. You define these methods at the system level; and you can override the settings by company, business unit, or appraisal type. Defining the performance appraisal methods at these levels enables you to implement performance management for either the whole organization or for parts of the organization in steps. For example, you can implement a competency based method for a selected business unit and use the traditional method to automate text based appraisals for other business units. You can also define a competency based appraisal method for appraisals created by managers and a traditional appraisal method for employee self appraisals.

The system includes a default company definition that specifies a traditional performance appraisal method. You can redefine this method description, add additional method descriptions, or change this method to a competency based method. You cannot delete the basic company definition.

If you are planning to implement a competency based performance appraisal method or a combination of competency based and traditional methods, you must first define the organizational structures for job competencies and enter background competency information.

You can also define whether all, part, or none of the organization will complete the appraisal process using Employee Self Service (ESS). You can select the Manager Signoff for EE option to specify that a delegate can approve or contest an appraisal on an employee's behalf, rather than having the employee access the appraisal using ESS and approving or contesting the appraisal on his or her own. You can specify that managers can approve or contest appraisals on behalf of employees at these levels:

• Company level

  You can specify that all companies (Company 00000) or specific companies allow approval on an employee's behalf by selecting this option in the Performance Management Company Constants program.

• Business unit level

  You can specify that specific business units allow approval on an employees behalf by selecting this option in the Performance Management Business Unit Overrides program.

• Appraisal type level

  You can specify that specific appraisal types allow approval on an employees behalf by selecting this option in the Performance Management Appraisal Type Overrides program.

As an alternative to setting up manager sign-off information at each level, you can run table conversion programs to automatically set the manager sign-off permissions across all companies, business units, or appraisal types.