An employee's performance has a significant impact on an organization's capacity to fulfill its mission. However, the effectiveness of the performance appraisal conference is directly correlated to the preparation prior to the conference itself.
Due to my short time in a supervisory role I will depend on three main items for your yearly evaluation.
Monthly reports on the TeXas System
County Commissioner's Court reports
Annual outcome summaries
Support materials provided by the agents in monthly reports
I will also review interpretation materials that communicate programmatic outcomes.I have had the great opportunity to interact with many of your county judges and commissioners at the annual conference we sponsored in December. The feedback received from these stakeholders was very informative. Feedback from Regional Program Directors provide an excellent insight regarding agent's effectiveness as it related to programming efforts is provided by our RPD's.
I have had the opportunity to review Specialist feedback. Specialists many times provide feedback regarding educational events conducted in counties that enable me to analysis the effectiveness of a county program.
I plan to have a positive and productive conference with each and everyone of the agents in District 11. Please have all your support material available for review and have the evaluation instruments completed prior to our conferences. I will postpone our conferences if I feel you have not taken the time to prepare properly. Give me a call if you have anyquestions.
The Role of the County Extenssion Agent involving a county fair or junior stock show.
Wtih many county stock show and major stock show season upon us I would like to offers some guidance in working with your shows.
The Texas AgriLife Extension Service asks its County Extension Agents to not serve on County Fair Boards or Jr. Livestock Show Boards for two primary reasons:
1.Our mission as an agency is to provide high quality and relevant educational programs which address the needs of the local citizens. So, our County Extension Agents' role in a county is to provide education and advise to 4-H members, 4-H families, agriculture producers, consumers, homeowners, etc. With this in mind and during a county fair, our agents should be helping and advising 4-H youth and families with their livestock projects and other projects. There are a lot of youth involved in a county fair. So, the agents' time should be focused on helping 4-H youth and families before and during the fair and not on the procedural processes and functions in planning, conducting and managing a county fair.
2. As you know, the agenda items and decisions for a Fair Board can be controversial at times and can cause disagreements across a county and between groups such as communities; 4-H and FFA; etc. In the educational role of an agent, he or she must remain non-biased and impartial and has the responsibility to work with all people. Serving on a Fair Board can undermine an agent’s effectiveness across a county. Also, when an agent serves as an officer or elected member of a Fair Board, the line between the agent’s official duties and volunteer duties can become blurred. A perceived conflict of interest involving the agent and/or the agency, and additional issues of personal and organization liability can be the result. Therefore, we ask that an agent not serve in this role. We do allow our agents to serve as an advisor to the board and we would hope that the board would have the Ag Science teachers serve as advisers to the board as well.
Personell News: District 11 welcomes: Kara Matheney, Colorado County ANR Agent, JD Folbre, Karnes County ANR Agent, Virginia(Ginger) Easton-Smith, Aransas County ANR Agent, and Makenzie Wyatt, Matagorda County 4-H Agent. Kara and JD are completing their first step programs in Austin, and Wilson Counties, Ginger and Makenzie have started in their new appontements.
