N.J.A.C. 4A:6-5 Performance Evaluation
Every section of N.J.A.C. 4A:6-5, Performance Evaluation: 3 rules with full text, amendment history and citing decisions.
- 4A:6-5.1General provisions
In local service an employee performance evaluation program is optional, but using one in promotions or layoff requires review and approval by the Chairperson first. State service runs the Performance Assessment Review, which applies to all career service employees and to whichever unclassified titles a department designates, with agencies encouraged to include the rest. The default is a three-level scale: Exceptional, Successful, Unsatisfactory. The Chairperson may instead implement a five-level scale running from Exceptional Performance through Commendable, Successful, Needs Improvement/Development and Unsatisfactory Performance, unless a collective negotiations agreement precludes it. Rating cycles last one year, and within a cycle everyone is rated at the same time, twice, with the interim and final ratings six months apart. Evaluations sit in the personnel record, and final ratings are reported to the Commission.
- 4A:6-5.2PAR procedure: State service
The performance plan is built jointly by the employee and the supervisor, and an employee who disagrees with the plan that results may note the disagreement. Reviews come at six months, producing an interim rating, and at one year, producing the final one, and the employee is entitled to a copy of the rating. A change of job assignment or supervisor mid-cycle closes out the old plan: the work under it is rated, a new plan is written, and the final rating is a proration of everything received in the review period. A change of title works the same way, with the former supervisor assigning a final rating for the former plan. Any rating below Successful triggers a performance conference after three months, or sooner if the supervisor decides. Supervisors carry their own exposure: failing to complete subordinates' final ratings on time earns an Unsatisfactory rating and may bring discipline.
- 4A:6-5.3PAR use and review: State service
An annual rating below Successful denies the anniversary date increment, on either scale. An appointing authority may ask for the increment where performance has since improved, and if the Chairperson approves it starts no earlier than a pay period beginning at least 90 days after the anniversary date; on the five-level scale, a Needs Improvement/Development rating followed by improvement within 90 days restores it retroactively. Two consequences reach further than pay. An Unsatisfactory rating is evidence of incompetency, inefficiency or failure to perform duties, though in a disciplinary action the employee may challenge the basis of any rating at issue. Ratings may also be used as a factor in promotion and in layoff. Unrepresented employees, and represented ones whose contract sets no appeal procedure, use the noncontractual grievance route at N.J.A.C. 4A:2-3.1. Where a contract provides for it, appeals run to a three-member PAR Joint Union Management Panel with union representation at the hearing.