Exceeds = Discretionary Effort Jean R. Magee, CPM, SPHR Human Resources Manager/Employee Relations Division Pinellas County Human Resources Department Phone: 727/

DEFINITIONS

From the U.P.S. Performance Management Program Manual: Exceeds (“2”) – The employee’s job performance far exceeds standards and/or makes a very significant contribution to the success of the department and the division.

From the April 2011 Management & Supervisory Notes article: “Exceeds” does not mean perfect. It means that the employee consistently delivers quality discretionary (higher levels of) effort on the job which produces valuable results for the organization. They may even have some areas of their performance which needs strengthening (we all do); however, their overall efforts significantly surpass the requirements for successful job performance.

From Susan M. Heathfield, HR expert, writer, management consultant, and trainer: “There is a concept called discretionary energy or discretionary effort. This is the effort / energy that an employee chooses to exert in service to coworkers or customers at work - or not. An employer pays for the fundamental tasks that he hires an employee to perform. The employee's willingness to perform above and beyond the basic requirements of the job is a reflection of the employee's willingness to engage his or her discretionary effort / energy.”discretionary energy or discretionary effort

Susan M. Heathfield – cont. From an employer's point of view, the more employee discretionary effort or energy that you can tap, the better your potential for well-served customers. You also increase your potential for happy employees. A happy employee is positively interacting with customers and coworkers and experiencing all of the work benefits that accrue as a result of these positive interactions.”discretionary effort or energy that you can tap

From Love at Work: Why Passion Drives Performance by Brady G. Wilson “There is a profound lesson here, backed up by research conducted by the Corporate Leadership Council: Leaders who trigger emotional engagement release 400 percent more discretionary effort than those who trigger rational engagement. Jean Martin, executive director of the CLC, states: “Emotional commitment is the ever-elusive love of your job and love of your manager or organization… Our data [have] proven, year after year, that the emotional side of engagement is actually four times more powerful than the rational side when it comes to driving the business impacts we care about … One specific finding is that when employees move from being engaged to being highly engaged, their productivity improves 20 percentage points in performance levels.”

From Aubrey Daniels, author of Bringing Out the Best in People: How to Apply the Astonishing Power of Positive Reinforcement “Discretionary effort is defined as that level of effort people could give if they wanted to, but which is beyond what is required. In other words, since discretionary effort is above and beyond what is expected, demanded, paid for, there would be no punishment to the performers if they didn’t do it. Discretionary effort is what is possible.”

Aubrey Daniels – continued: “People do what they do because of what happens to them when they do it.” “At the end of every working day people leave either more motivated to come back and do their jobs again tomorrow or less motivated as a result of what happens to them that day. Performance is about what happens every day.”

Aubrey Daniels – continued: “The only way business can capture discretionary effort is through the effective use of positive reinforcement. As Russell Justice has said: ‘Discretionary effort is like loose change in a person’s pocket. It is management’s job to get them to spend it all every day.’”

Joe Judge, President of Clear Possibilities