The infusion nurses who report to David Hirsch travel throughout Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia and Pennsylvania, providing intravenous therapies to people in their homes. That’s beneficial to patients but a challenge for Hirsch, who is responsible for writing annual reviews for two office-based employees and 27 on-the-road staffers.

“It was difficult throughout the year to keep track of who got a compliment, who did something well or who should be recognized,” says Hirsch, adult infusion nurse manager for Johns Hopkins Home Care Group. 

Evaluations are now easier to write and better reflect the work of his team, he says, since the Home Care Group began piloting the SuccessFactors human resources system and its employee evaluation tool, myPerformance.

No longer are evaluations written on paper and filed away until the next employee review 12 months later. They are now online, and employees can log in at any time to document their progress toward previously defined goals. “It’s more of a real-time and ongoing process,” explains Hirsch. 

The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System Corporation will switch to myPerformance in July, with rollout to the rest of Johns Hopkins Medicine expected by 2017. Johns Hopkins Community Physicians and Johns Hopkins HealthCare are already using it. The Johns Hopkins University will launch myPerformance in the next two years.  

Greg Finnegan, director of organizational development and training for the Johns Hopkins Health System, says myPerformance helps the organization hire and develop leaders, set employee goals that align with strategic priorities, create a fairer merit pay system, and improve communication between employees and managers.

To improve fiscal planning, all employees using myPerformance will be evaluated on the prior fiscal year between July 1 and Oct. 20, instead of on their hire-date anniversaries. Their raises will kick in the following Jan. 1, prorated for employees hired less than a year before their first review, explains Sharon Kemp, senior director of compensation for the health system.

Evaluations in myPerformance place a greater emphasis on meeting previously set goals than in the past, and also take into account major job responsibilities and adherence to Johns Hopkins Medicine core values. Midyear check-ins ensure that employees are on track.

Patricia Adams, practice administrator for Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, says she was nervous at first about conducting evaluations in a compressed time frame. However, now that she and others in her White Marsh office are familiar with myPerformance, they find it more efficient than paper-based annual reviews because employees log their progress throughout the year.

“Before, you had a one-time meeting and you said, ‘Here’s your evaluation. What do you think?’” says Marlana Neumann, assistant director of member and community initiatives for Johns Hopkins HealthCare. “Now employees have more opportunity to give input into their own job evaluation and how they feel about the job they did.”