*Update 15.01.2024, the option to reuse the text from last evaluation means that the chat still takes place, but that there is no new written input possible from you or your line manager.*
Original article: You’ve done your best and it’s been a tough year. You’ve had your appraisal dialogue and prepared as best you could. In spite of it all, the evaluation is ‘Unsatisfactory’. What happens now? Firstly, don’t panic! Read everything you can (see list below) and act quickly: the career development review (CDR) can be refused (appealed) [1] but the deadlines are short and if nothing is done, the CDR is by default accepted.
- Check whether there were objectives assigned to you for the previous year. Objectives have been removed from the general implementing rules (GIPs) (C(2013) 8985 final) after several court cases were lost. However, it is still difficult for the Administration to argue that the performance was ‘unsatisfactory’ where there are no objectives against which your performance has been assessed. *Update 17.01.2024 many colleagues do indeed have objectives now but not all of them are realistic or even within the power of that individual to achieve. Check out guidelines-Job descriptions draft-good objectives where it is stated that the objectives should be realistic and agreed.*
- Check whether your reporting officer (RO) followed the Guidance for Reporting Officers during the CDR dialogue and when drafting your CDR report. This type of guidance has been recognised by the court to have legal effect (e.g. T-827/16 QB v ECB, paragraph 42)
- Your ‘unsatisfactory’ assessment must be based on factual elements with examples (Article 2(3) of the GIPs).
- The assessment of your performance must take account of the context within which you have performed your duties (Article 5 of the GIPs). That must be understood that for you to be assessed fairly, you must be placed in normal conditions (e.g. F-50/15 FS v EESC, paragraph 106; F-8/13 CP v EP, paragraph 58). That means that any sidelining, withholding of information, confusing or incomplete instructions, micromanagement, excessive pressure, overworking, etc. are not ‘normal conditions’.
- Always take a colleague with you (e.g. that could be someone from Generation 2004) to the appeal dialogue. This is your legal right and may not be denied. That person shall write together with you a doubly testified account of the CDR appeal dialogue.
- ‘The official may be accompanied at this meeting by a member of the Commission’s staff’ (Article 5, C(2019) 6855 final).
- ‘Upon a request by the jobholder expressed in his reasoned refusal to accept the report, the appeal assessor shall hold a dialogue with the jobholder within ten working days of the date of the reasoned refusal. The jobholder may arrange for another jobholder … to assist him during the dialogue.‘ (Article 7(2) of the GIPs)
Regardless of what you do, there is an obligation for the RO to take follow-up action: there must be a support plan with concrete objectives.
‘When an annual report drawn up under Article 43 of the staff regulations which has become final contains for the first time a conclusion stating that performance has not been satisfactory, the reporting officer shall, after a preliminary interview with the official, draw up a draft support plan in writing within one month of the annual report becoming final. […] The support plan shall establish:
(a) specific professional objectives
(b) the timetable and the means made available to the official to attain them
(c) clear and measurable success criteria and
(d) the role of the support person if a support person has been appointed.’ (Article 5, C(2019) 6855 final).
Also, consider the not-uncommon connection between ‘unsatisfactory’ and sickness/a health issue and/or health-related leave: we should be assessed on the work we did, not on what happened in our absence. Ideally, there should be no mention of sickness in any CDR, but it can and does happen, both from the job holder (JH) and the RO. As underlined above, for you to be assessed fairly, you must be placed in normal conditions, this means that working while suffering a mental breakdown/burnout in parallel, for example, cannot in any way be considered ‘normal conditions’. For this and many other reasons, one of 20 recommendations made by the Harassment Watch Network (HWN) is:
‘DG Ingestadt to ensure that no “unsatisfactory” mark is given in an appraisal report if the temporary underperformance is due to an underlying serious health issue.’ (Recommendation 11, p.53, Abuse of the annual appraisal exercise (“CDR”) in the European Commission as tool of psychological harassment with recommendations how to prevent this and better protect the targetted colleagues: second analytical paper, 2021).
If the ‘unsatisfactory’ is linked to sickness (or might be linked to sickness), it means that additional steps should have been taken already (the RO must already have contacted the performance management team). And this same option is open to the JH:
‘In addition, the Medical Service may … at the request of the colleague concerned … provide a medical opinion when it is necessary to remove doubt as to the medical origin of the unsatisfactory performance of the staff.’ (p.6, How to maintain and improve staff performance, Best Practice Guide, 2019)
Resources
- Commission Decision on procedures for dealing with professional incompetence, C(2019) 6855 final,
- Managing underperformance overview, 2019
- Career Development Review practical guide for jobholders, 2008
- Practical guide for CDR managers (human resources managers), 2008
- Performance management tool
- Harassment Watch Network (HWN) 2021, Abuse of the annual appraisal exercise (“CDR”) in the European Commission as tool of psychological harassment with recommendations how to prevent this and better protect the targetted colleagues: second analytical paper
- Generation 2004 deals with harassment
- See also the resources listed under ‘Harassment/bullying’ on our site.
As always, feel free to contact us, you don’t have to deal with this on your own.
We extend our thanks to the Harassment Watch Network (HWN) for reaching out to us with additional information for this article; your help is very much appreciated! Thank you!
If you have any additional resources not already mentioned here, please send us the details: we’d love to hear from you!
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[1] *Update 07.03.2022 A colleague contacted us to say that they had requested a second talk with the RO in order to discuss differences in expectations and that the CDR was updated accordingly, so this might also be an option.*
See Articles 6(8) and 7(1) of C(2013) 8985 final.
‘Article 6 – Appraisal procedure, 8. Within five working days of the date on which the jobholder was invited to consult his report, he may either accept the report, with or without adding comments in the appropriate section, or refuse to accept the report, stating the reasons for refusal. If the jobholder does not refuse to accept the report within the time limit referred to in the preceding subparagraph, the report shall become final.
Article 7 – Appeal procedure 1. The jobholder’s reasoned refusal to accept the report in accordance with Article 6(8) shall automatically mean referral of the matter to the appeal assessor. The jobholder may withdraw his reasoned refusal to accept the report at any time.’
The deadline is short, so even a short text can be enough for the refusal of the report e.g. ‘I believe that this report does not acknowledge the medical origin of the perceived unsatisfactory performance and that for that reason it unfairly judges my performance.’
Note that appealing the CDR report is different from appealing a non-promotion: Career Development Review practical guide for jobholders, 2008.
*This article was updated 03.03.2022 to add the sysper screenshot and to clarify that refusal (appeal) are one and the same.