In this eleventh edition, we will discuss the challenges that occur when you change your mind after you have rolled something out:
System - Performance sync limitations and workarounds.
Best Practice - Using groups or generic users
HR Operations - Christmas preparations
Performance sync limitations
On a performance template, there are certain things that will synchronise and others that won't after a performance template has already been assigned.
The things that won't sync include:
These limitations need to be considered carefully prior to assigning appraisal templates to live users within the organisation and we recommend testing several times using Employee User and Manager User as the assignees. This way you can check for functionality and user experience. We also create Quick Reference Guides and Screen Recordings to support users and this process also helps to test and audit the template.
What you see in the Administration view is not always a true reflection of what the user will see once the appraisal has been assigned.
We also know from experience that even the most well-considered performance templates often require changes midway through a performance cycle due to unforeseen events, changes, or new priorities in the organisation. In this case, knowing some workarounds is handy in dealing with these challenges.
The sync limitations include checkpoints. Even after you have updated a checkpoint, including dates, questions and other content, and synchronised; these changes won't flow through to any performance templates that have already been assigned. However, if you delete the checkpoint, before the start date, synchronise, then recreate the checkpoint with the right information and then re-sync, the checkpoint will update. IMPORTANT: If you delete a checkpoint that has already started and users have entered comments, when you delete the checkpoint, these comments will be lost and cannot be restored.
Whilst you may not want to delete a section (particularly if it contains responses), but no longer want it to appear in the users' appraisal, you can remove the visibility of one of either the Manager or the Employee. In this case, we would recommend removing visibility for the Employee, and communicating this to the Manager that they can see the section, but it requires no action.
Phase dates will update, but if you have your Action Phase set to finish automatically after the end date and you change the phase dates, the date change may impact the automatic finalisation of the phase and cause a situation where the appraisal gets 'stuck'. This is most likely to occur where the plan is already 'in progress' (and therefore within the action phase) when the date change occurs. Where this happens, you can change the Action Phase settings, so that the phase can be finalised manually before or after the end date:
This will turn on the 'Approve Action' button in the appraisal allowing the appraisal to move on to the next phase. REMEMBER: You may need to provide communication/training to your managers on when and how the 'Approve Action' button fits into the process.
Groups and generic users
Wherever possible, we encourage our clients to use generic users and/or groups to be assigned to tasks, approvals, notifications, and document sharing.
TIP: Have you noticed that it is now possible to share a document with a group? This option was added in the past few months and may prompt you to conduct an audit of your documents and forms to see if you have named individuals for sharing that you can convert to a group:
Groups make it easier to manage people coming and going in the organisation without the need to have a spreadsheet outside the system that tracks which forms/documents are shared with who. The individuals can simply be switched at group level. Note: if a form is a secure form and a user was not a member of the group at the time the form was completed, they will not be able to access the content from their profile.
Many of our clients use generic users to separate out their personal profile from the Company Admin - e.g. HR Admin, Payroll, IT etc. Others use an individual Company Admin for each Admin, separate to an Employee / Manager profile for their personal profile.
With the advent of the Change History function within the profile (more information coming in the next edition); we recommend that you create a single generic HR (or other functional) User and include them in the group to which approvals are assigned, documents are shared, and notifications are sent; so that individuals are captured in the audit trail, but all information is also captured via the profile of the generic user.
Christmas preparations
At this time of year, the HR team are usually walking the fine line between being the life of the party, the 'fun police' moniker, and protecting the organisation from risk.
Many of our clients are using this time of the year as an ideal time to remind their team of their responsibilities to maintain a high standard of conduct in work situations, regardless of how relaxed the scene may be.
With the Human Rights Commission realising their new powers of enforcement in relation to sexual harassment in December, a great (free) course to have your team complete is the Fair Work Commission's training on Workplace Sexual Harassment.
Fair Work Commission Workplace Sexual Harassment Module
As an external course that issues its own certificate, recording this completion in your ELMO system is important for compliance tracking.
In Edition 5 we talked about the function that had been added allowing a file upload as method for completing a course.
At the time, we did not know that it was necessary to make sure that the Course Activity Notification is enabled, in order for the Approver to receive the notification to advise that a file had been submitted for approval.
Also, initially there was no option to add a Group as the Approver. This has since been added; however, for those who set up the course before this function was released, there are challenges with updating this.
Because the File upload settings sit within a section; once the course is assigned, the sections become locked and the Approver cannot be changed. (A development suggestion has been logged with ELMO ).
In the interim, we recommend that you always use a Group, as even if this Group only contains one member; once the section becomes locked, you have the freedom to change the Approver at Group level.
For those who have already found themselves with a locked section, looking to change the Approver; the only option is to delete the enrolments for the course and re-enrol those who have not yet completed the course. This is manual and time-consuming, so we recommend getting the settings right in the first instance (now that you can).
Content credit: Martha Travis
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