Performance Now Provides "Fire-Specific" Solution
for Roseville Fire Department

Organized in 1907 to serve the sleepy hamlet of Roseville, the Roseville Fire Department today must meet the needs of a city that has grown far beyond its roots as a railroad switching town. Located outside California's capitol city of Sacramento, Roseville's current population of 71,000 is growing at a rate of 7% each year.

To fulfill its mission to protect life and property from fire and other disasters, the Roseville Fire Department provides fire prevention, public education and information, disaster preparedness, emergency response, emergency scene investigation, and other forms of public assistance.

And in a field where employee performance can mean the difference between life and death, Assistant Chief of Operations Terry Sharp understands the necessity of implementing a performance management process that is relevant to the fire department's highly specialized workforce.

Stacey Haney, Senior Human Resources Analyst for the City of Roseville, identified similar problems at a city-wide level. "There was a distinct lack of narrative to back up the evaluator's ratings," Haney explains. "It made it difficult for us to justify disciplinary measures and to assist in improving performance."

In order to boost the quality of evaluations and achieve more consistency across departments, human resources decided to implement Administaff's Performance Now Enterprise Edition on a city-wide basis. The Roseville Fire Department was one of three departments selected to pilot the program.

Assistant Chief Sharp, the human resources department, and the Performance Now Evaluation Department Committee (consisting of management representatives from across city lines) worked together to determine the criteria that would appear on the fire department's evaluation form. Because the City had also purchased Administaff's Fire & Emergency Services Competency Module, Sharp was able to choose from 19 fire-specific competencies, such as "Emergency Response" and "Operating Equipment".

"Being able to design our own form means that it's really job-specific," says Sharp. Performance Now user Captain Ed Rutherford agrees - in fact, he was surprised to find a software product that so closely matched the fire department's needs. "Usually there's something that doesn't fit, doesn't apply," says Rutherford. "But Performance Now is relevant throughout."

"Everyone's got a certain amount of work they're required to do," Rutherford explains. "But what we really strive for is that employees continue to improve themselves, to shoot for the next level. Most of us remain in the field for twenty years or longer, so you need to keep people enthusiastic and on track for their careers."

Rutherford also appreciates the way Performance Now provides the user with narrative text to support each rating. Previously, Rutherford found it challenging to come up with new feedback for employees he'd supervised for ten years or longer. Now, with the review language in Performance Now serving as a model, he's found new ways to describe employee performance. And with two libraries of language to choose from, he can keep his wording fresh from year to year.

"It makes my job easier, because the program comes up with phrases and creates a descriptive paragraph. Then you can edit it afterwards a bit, to make it your own. But it helps you to be more descriptive about an employee's performance - and it's a lot easier than trying to be a creative writer from scratch."

An important benefit of providing more written feedback is that the performance review discussion has become more meaningful for supervisors and employees alike, who now have detailed written narrative to use as a basis for discussion of past and future performance. "Using Performance Now," says Rutherford, "has made me a better evaluator."

Captain Rutherford is not alone in his response to Performance Now. According to Assistant Chief Sharp, the fire department has found the transition to Performance Now to be a smooth one. "Training was our only concern, and it turned out to be unfounded," says Sharp. "Our people have found Performance Now to be very user friendly."

The result, claims Sharp, is a performance management process that is streamlined, standardized, and most importantly, relevant to the challenging and specialized nature of fire service occupations.