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AFGE Council 220 • Serving SSA Teleservice and Field Office Employees in the 50 States, Puerto Rico and the Pacific Islands
Your New Performance Standards– Alert #9
EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE PROTECTION PLAN
With the new appraisal system, comes another task for SSA employees: protecting yourself against inaccurate assessment of your performance and/or an evaluation of your performance that your supervisor intends to use against you in a performance based action (such as suspension, demotion, or removal from your job). Your appraisal and your award may depend upon how well you perform this task. Omit it or perform this task poorly and you may not be able to dispute your supervisor’s negative assessment of your work.

Follow these suggestions in order to protect yourself against
adverse action in the new performance process:

1. Ask questions if you don’t understand what your supervisor tells you or if the information isvague.
2. Put explanations from your supervisor into an email asking if your summary is accurate.Include a statement that says, “If you do not respond within five (5) days, I will assume thatmy interpretation is accurate.” Send (cc:) the email to yourself.
3. Request a Read Receipt when you send the email so you will know when your supervisor reads your message.
To request a Read Receipt:
• Type your email.
• Before sending, click on “Options” from the Menu Bar.
• Click on “Request a Read Receipt for this message.”
• Click “Close” at the bottom.
• Send your message.
4. Retain all correspondence from your supervisor regarding your performance. Put the emailsyou send, Read Receipt responses and all emails from your supervisor in both an electronicfile in OUTLOOK and also in a paper file. Do not remove information with names andSSNs from the office, and do not forward emails containing claimants’ names andSSNs to your private email. Sanitize all claimant information from these records (uselast name and last four digits of SSN only) if sharing these records with your unionrepresentative or others or if taking these records out of the office. For additionalguidance see “Procedures for Safeguarding Personally Identifiable Information (PII) onEmployee Review Forms” or contact your Local AFGE Representative.
5. Take notes of any performance-based meetings/discussions with your supervisor or anymember of management. If the discussion is verbal, send a message to the supervisor with asummary of the discussion per item 2 above. In every staff and unit meeting in whichperformance expectations are discussed, take good notes, ask questions and insist on clear
and explicit responses. Encourage your coworkers to do the same. Insist that supervisorsclarify their expectations.
6. Immediately rebut in writing, any unwarranted criticism or any negative performancefeedback, and insist that your rebuttal be placed in your SF-7B file. Ask for agency time towrite the rebuttal. (Attachment 1 can be used to help you document unwarranted negativefeedback.)
7. Inform your supervisor in writingwhen you are not being given enough time to complete yourassignments. Inform your supervisor in writingwhen you are not being given the resources tocomplete the assignment.
8. Keep records in writing, for example, if….
• Your work is held to a higher standard of performance than your peers
• You are given extra assignments or extra interviews
• You are asked to help clean up someone else’s desk
• You miss your desk/adjudication day
• You are assigned training or mentoring duties
9
. Document all additional duties as follows:
• Short description of the extra work
• Date you began and ended the work
• Number of cases processed, if applicable
• Length of time it took you to do the work
• Whether work was assigned or if you did it voluntarily
• Whether any other employees were involved in the extra work (Attachment 2 can be used to help you document extra duties.)
10. Under the new performance system, you may voluntarily submit a self-assessmentstatementto your supervisor to be considered as part of your appraisal. If you do so, provide onlypositive information since anything negative that you provide may quite possibly be usedagainst you.
Just as it’s going to be your responsibility to make management aware of your contributions that areperformance-related, it will also be up to you to provide documentation to support your rebuttal ofany negative or unwarranted feedback or criticism. The only way to make sure that you have theinformation you need is to document everything in writing.
For additional information, visit www.afgec220.org
May 2007
CHECKLIST FOR REBUTTAL INFORMATION
(Use this form to help document factors that were beyond your control that contributed to negative and unwarranted feedback from your supervisor.)
CLAIMANT NAME/SSN: ___________________________
• Case had case characteristics that were factors beyond my control:
• On vacation from ___________ to ______________
• Extra assignments:
• Due to coworkers’ leave or for other reasons, I missed desk days.
• I inherited this case from a coworker and it was already ________ days old.
• Extra Interviews
• Training, Mentoring assignments:
• Other:
EE Performance Protection Plan
PERFORMANCE TRACKING FORM -- EXTRA DUTIES
DATE
TIME BEGAN
TIME ENDED
TYPE OF EXTRA DUTY
VOLUNTARY OR ASSIGNED
(For special projects or workgroups, be sure to keep track of the time period, the supervisor who assigned the work, what you did and how you contributed to that group/project.)