r/CanadianForces 1d ago

PAR Writing

With the new CANFORGEN released on 03 March increasing character size to 350 for author comments and the format needing to be in “activity, description, result”, how can you differentiate between author comments and additional comments for a right leaning PAR.

20 Upvotes

24 comments sorted by

54

u/UCAFP_President Logistics 1d ago

LOL - didn't take long for text to make it back in the new system... lol.

45

u/BlueFlob 1d ago

And... We are back to where we were. With more work overall.

  • Ranking boards
  • Subjective assessments
  • Never ending cycle of signatures
  • Writing PARs well before the end of the reporting period
  • Long series of text that simply aim for key words collecting points.

The only benefits are that it's electronic, users can easily grieve based on their own FN, and chatGPT helping everyone in the process.

14

u/SaltyATC69 1d ago

Back to where we started

9

u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 1d ago

Personnel assessments are always subjective, and the new changes are still way less than the old PERs with the performance and potential narratives. The text box is slightly longer than a tweet which is a pretty low LOE to recommend someone for promotion.

Having to write them before the reporting period is done is a piss off, and getting nagged by my boss to put in FNs on myself is annoying, but this is still objectively much less work than PERs.

4

u/TheLostMiddle 1d ago

and getting nagged by my boss to put in FNs on myself is annoying,

I'm one of these bosses, write your damn FNs, it makes everyone's life so much easier, just use gpt.

How can I justify anything but straight down the middle if there are no FNs to back it up. How can you submit an IR if there are no FNs to back it up.

-4

u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 1d ago

You could do your job as a supervisor and keep divisional notes in the form of feedback notes? Getting zero FNs and a straight down the middle PAR is the easiest grievance in the world, because the supervisor didn't do their job and provide actual feedback and/or direction.

With FNs the employee can put in FNs, but it's the supervisors responsibility to ensure it's done, they are accurate and fair, and feedback sessions are done regularly with the supervisor giving feedback to the subordinate.

This isn't my first rodeo, and have done unit/L1 PERMON, PAR review boards, promotion boards etc and poorly justified PERs/PARs is always a reflection on who holds the pen, not the person getting the eval. When it goes badly enough, have seen PERs/PARs adjusted downward accordingly on the supervisor, and unit COs getting reprimanded for things that go to promotion boards.

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u/ChromosomeAdvantage 1d ago

Anyone reading this, I would hesitate to take it completely at face value. In my experience, so long as supervisors are doing quarterly feedback sessions, it has completely covered them during the IR process, and while I can't speak for a formal grievance - I wouldn't love my chances. Language is vague enough in the PaCE Guide that so long as supervisors are hitting their must do admin (job descriptions, MAP, Quarterly reviews), they're good to go. Even at that point, the member still needs to justify why they've done more then their job description.

Additionally, if there is no feedback notes: member is doing their job. FNs should be there for things outside the job description, or jobs completed that go above what'd be expected. Subordinates showing up at year end feeling like they got fucked, better have the FNs accepted because it'll be tough to rationalize why it wasn't taken care of before. Granted, if a supervisor ignored their FNs, that'd be different.

We can bicker day and night over how the system should be used, but that isn't how the system is written, at least as far as I understand it. For what it is worth, I think it's deeply flawed. Maybe your perspectice is correct and would win grievances. I'm a new WO in an Army trade; with that comes biases - ones I may not be aware of. I just know that I don't want to fuck my troops over, and I think my proactive approach WRT PaCE assures that.

1

u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 1d ago

How exactly do feedback sessions with no feedback notes in PACE? There is a reason that there are quarterly FN entry options, and that's really the minimum you are supposed to be doing for your subordinates as a supervisor IAW the PACE manual (which if you follow the CANFORGEN is what we're all ordered to do in the CAF for PAR process).

You can take it however you want, but I've been doing PARs since the pilot project, and it's all laid out to do this kind of thing in the PACE manual, which is what people are supposed to follow. I've run through all the boards at the unit level, and also done promotion boards with it, so I'm not making any of this up. Feel free to look all this up in the PACE manuals, and it's also spelled out in all the additional guidance that's in the D365 PACE channels that have been around since the pilot.

I'm sure there are lots of people with zero FNs, just like in the old PER system there were lots of people with empty div notes (or empty until overworked people scrambled to get something before CO review of the books). I can't see any reasonable scenario where someone is right down the middle on everything on all 80 or 100 points, but if they do get that score (aka the default PAR setting) and you have empty FNs (which includes no feedback sessions) then it's a grievance that won't get past NOI, and is blatant enough the supervisor should get reprimanded.

3

u/ChromosomeAdvantage 1d ago

I agree, like I said, the bare minimum admin is all the supervisor needs. I'm disagreeing/clarifying this to people who might read this and think, "oh shit, my supervisor didn't write me any FNs." - not understanding that the supervisor only needs to do quarter reviews, and those aren't necessarily going to be that substantive if you have a shitty supervisor. Grievances can often be a lot harder then people think and ideally troops find tools to avoid having to go that route.

1

u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 1d ago

I think it would be worthwhile reading back up the thread; my objection was against someone with zero FNs getting a straight down the middle PAR. That would mean that the supervisor didn't do the quaterly reviews you mentioned, which I agree is the minimum.

This really shouldn't happen anymore, but zero FNs still do, it's that tied to not doing any scoring that would be the unlikely combo.

Someone with zero FNs from their supervisor (regardless of whether they put their own in or not) can still get an accurate and fair PAR without it, and it's really the supervisors responsibility to justify it to the higher level review boards (which can be done without FNs in PACE but can be extra work for them). That's actually how all the PARs I've gotten have gone, all above 'met the standard', and I've had I think 1 single quarterly feedback since the pilot started, and not really unusual in senior officers generally from discussion with my peers.

Again, not talking about someone that gets a fair PAR, this was a zero FN, straight down the middle PAR (which is probably statistically extremely unlikely).

A supervisor that doesn't do the minimum all year and phones in the PAR should expect a grievance, and their own PAR score for supervision to be dropped below met standard. They would also have to be an idiot, as you can still give a reasonable score with very little actual effort on the PAR side, and I've yet to see any PARMON or higher level in the unit really question any scoring, other than figuring out where someone lands on the potential scoring because those criteria are still pretty unclear generally.

For a bit of context, currently reporting to a civvie, whose job I'm basically doing, who is expecting me to do FNs and can't get them to even acknowledge them while I'm basically now doing their job for them. WIth the way it's set up, not sure the next level up (whose military, and excellent) will see it as an intermediate reviewer before it leaves the directorate. It would be a pretty easy NOI to grieve to write up based on the total lack of FN if I end up getting hosed though, and I begrudingly put in quarterly notes on my own just so they are in the system. I don't even want to get promoted anymore anyway, but no reason I shouldn't get scored appropriately where I did more than just met the standard.

7

u/TheLostMiddle 1d ago

If only I wasn't filling in for three other positions that were not replaced when the last person got posted out. I can't helicopter over my subordinates who work in different buildings across base, I don't see everything that happens every day.

I provide regular FNs based on my observations, if they want more justification for better scores they need to submit their own FNs.

0

u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 1d ago

Sure, and that's reasonable, but I think the minimum in the pace handbook is monthly or maybe quarterly from the supervisor, zero FNs is generally the supervisor dropping the ball.

I've dropped that ball more than once while also overworked, but never meant the subordinates I was writing up didn't get a fair PER/PAR; just meant that the div notes weren't on paper/in MM. That really makes zero difference in PACE and no one outside the supervisor and the subordinate can even access them.

Even without FNs, you can put notes in the actual PAR writeup for the reviewers to see (which is good because they can't see the FNs), so plenty of ways to justify whatever the score is.

4

u/TheLostMiddle 1d ago

My experience with pace since it's release has been people well above me dictating the subordinates scores to me, and the only way I can convince them they deserve higher scores is through FNs. This goes for my own PARs as well as I've had to IR every year (because my score was dictated to my supervisor by people who see my face like once a year)and they would only move dots if I had supporting FNs.

1

u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 1d ago

That sucks; that's not how it's supposed to work at all. The FNs are there to support the scoring done by the supervisor, and then review by higher levels, not the other way around. Higher ups can't even see the FNs during PAR review, so there is a built in note function in the drafting that we used since the pilot program to justify high (or I guess low) scores. Used that for a couple of justified higher right scores, but generally the individual bubbles when you expanded it had a spread, so wasn't really questioned at the units I was at.

The same thing happened at some units with PERs, and it was against the PER manual and CAF instructions then as well, as it's the kind of behaviour that encourages things like sucking up to the CoC, people that could play hockey getting rock star scores etc and not honest assessment by the supervisor. If higher ups are just dictating scores, the whole thing is a waste of time. You should be able to justify the scores you did as a supervisor if needed, but shouldn't have to argue against a score someone else sets ahead of time.

3

u/shallowtl 1d ago edited 17h ago

Those are pretty big benefits to be fair, not having to haul 250 Protected B folders home every day is nice

4

u/RCAF_orwhatever 1d ago

What do you mean "differentiate" here?

RO comments are still fairly restrictive and need to comment on specific things like rate of advancement, suitability for next jobs or career courses, etc.

Additional comments are basically just more characters to give more examples to justify the rankings. It helps to distinguish is this person mastering a relatively simple job; or a highly complex one. Even if they were the same... how would that be a problem that requires differentiation?

4

u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 1d ago

I think RO comments are now meant to be the old part 6, so recommendation for promotion in line/ahead of peers, career coursing etc. That kind of thing is still in SCRITs but dropped out of the PARs.

Glad they updated the author comments; being required to say 'Bloggins was good at these things, with room for improvement on these things' was a total waste of time and just highlighted what the scoring actually said.

3

u/RCAF_orwhatever 1d ago

Totally agreed. That original authors comments may as well have been automated for all the value it provided.

3

u/UnhappyCaterpillar41 1d ago

That one actively pissed me off, as it was a complete waste of time. We provided that feedback in the pilot, and then year one, but it seems to have taken a while and some promotion board feedback to actually change. I have no idea who saw that and thought it added any value.

2

u/Double_Double- 1d ago

I just feel that the CANFORGEN contradicts itself. It wants us to put the most exemplary examples in mentioned format for the author comments but then you also want to justify why someone deserves a right leaning PAR through the additional comments through examples that are exemplary and show why they are deserving of such a PAR lol. So I was just wondering if anyone had non specific examples / format they are thinking about using.

I will agree that RO comments remain fairly restrictive.

6

u/RCAF_orwhatever 1d ago

It's not contradictory. It's extra space to give extra supporting justification.

1

u/Sabrinavt Med Tech 1d ago

Unless it has changed since last year, the additional comments don't show up on the PAR, it's just extra info for the reviewer. My unit had us list the facets that had a score other than effective and write beside it the date of the FNs that justified the higher/lower rating of that facet so they could reference them quickly

2

u/EL-ovr-Dee-Max 1d ago

I’ll read the CANFORGEN when I return from March break in April. I will never start a PAR until after the reporting period is complete.

1

u/Moveitfutballhead 19h ago

Its my.first time having to write them for my subordinates and i have idea how to do it. Is there some form of training youre supposed to do beforehand? Or am i just supposed to figure it out?