UCSB Human Resources and campus IT recently joined forces to revamp what the employee performance management process looks like through the implementation of ePerformance, a PeopleSoft module accessible through UCPath. As part of a long-term effort to electronically streamline processes that were previously done on paper, ePerformance, released in April 2021, is the last of many modules that have launched over the last three years.
“Anytime that we can get away from pen and paper processes is a big win for the organization and campus as a whole,” explained Maria Ayllon, project manager with UCSB IT’s Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO.) Electronic storage of departmental performance data can act as a valuable resource for campus stakeholders to refer to when creating future plans for business development.
The new, web-based system has been redesigned with a space to proactively agree on goals for the upcoming year, rather than just focusing on reactive evaluation of an employee’s performance. This phase of the process, known as performance development, incorporates opportunities for ongoing communication between employees and supervisors via progress checkpoints.
This final step of the multi-phase UCPath system update proved challenging because, unlike other modules, campus stakeholders were not involved in the initial design of ePerformance. Ayllon describes how this influenced the implementation process, saying, “We had to take a reverse engineering mindset: consider what the module was capable of doing and what campus wanted to gain from it, and then find a way to mesh the two. There was a lot of testing within the UCPath center to make this happen.”
The module runs on a 12-month performance cycle, from April 1 through March 31. All policy-covered career staff are encouraged to utilize the forward-thinking performance management tools available through this program. Learn more about ePerformance and explore additional features available for employees and supervisors here.