NAPE Member Roger Sukup is a veteran Highway Maintenance Worker in O’Neill and has worked for NDOT since 1999. In March, Roger received his 2021 performance evaluation, and was rated unsatisfactory.
Despite having not been disciplined for performance issues or even placed on a Performance Improvement Plan, this was actually the 6th consecutive year that Roger had been rated unsatisfactory by his supervisor on his annual performance evaluation. However, during that entire time period, Roger disagreed that his performance was truly unsatisfactory, and given our newly negotiated contract language regarding performance evaluations, he reached out to NAPE for help.
When NAPE Field Staff began looking into Roger’s 2021 evaluation, it appeared something was off. In his evaluation, there were specific events mentioned that did not occur in 2021, but actually were from 2020. NAPE staff then checked his 2020 evaluation, and soon realized that the entire evaluation had been copy and pasted into this year’s evaluation, including the comments and scores. In addition, Roger disputed many of the comments as untrue. A grievance was soon filed on his behalf, challenging the contents of the evaluation. NAPE members can now challenge the contents of their evaluation if they have been rated unsatisfactory for two consecutive years.
A grievance meeting was held with NDOT HR, after which HR further investigated the evaluation. NDOT agreed that it was improper that Roger’s evaluation and the comments in it were copied from the previous year, and that many of the concerns listed in the evaluation were without merit. They required Roger’s supervisor to complete a new 2021 evaluation, in which he was rated satisfactory. This will ensure that Roger receives his performance based pay increase this July as he should.
If you discover problems with your performance evaluation that may violate our contract, be sure to contact us right away for assistance.