• Contact Sales Rep
  • Log in
  • Solutions
    • Grant Management
    • Grant Accounting
    • Effort Certification and Reporting System
    • Recharge Center Management
  • Products
    • Department Manager
    • College Administrator
    • Research Administrator
    • Effort Administrator
  • Services
  • Customer Stories
    • Case Studies
  • Support
    • Training
    • Release Notes
    • Featured Article
    • User Groups & Training Intensives
    • Client Management
    • Support Process
    • Support Requests
  • Blog
  • About
    • Core Values
    • History of IT Works
    • Roadmap
    • Technical Management Teams
    • Careers
  • Contact

IT Works

Grant Management Software

  • Solutions
    • Grant Management
    • Grant Accounting
    • Effort Certification and Reporting System
    • Recharge Center Management
  • Products
    • Department Manager
    • College Administrator
    • Research Administrator
    • Effort Administrator
    • Modules
  • Services
  • Customer Stories
    • Case Studies
  • Support
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

Blog

How Grant Tracking Software Can Help With the Annual Performance Review

Posted on 08.05.15 by Brooke Marchetti

What is your most dreaded time of year? Some answers I’ve heard include cold and flu season, tax season and pothole season (for my Northern readers). I’m sure these rank high up there for most people, but I know my choice isn’t included on this list. For me it is the annual performance review season (or it is now that I’ve moved away from the potholes)!

Throughout my work history, I’ve experienced performance reviews from every angle – as an employee, as a manager and as an administrator to faculty – and I’m not sure which is worse.

grant tracking software and the annual performance review

How Grant Tracking Software Can Help with the Annual Performance Review

As an employee, when I was faced with completing my self-appraisal form, I would stare at the question “Describe your most significant accomplishments this past year” and couldn’t think of a single thing I’d done yesterday, let alone a full year ago! And then came the meeting to discuss my performance review with my supervisor, who would glance at what I’d spent hours writing, only to toss it to the side and discuss his own perspective on my achievements.

When preparing performance reviews for my team, I faced similar issues. It was difficult to remember everyone’s achievements over the past year, in addition to my perspective being skewed by more recent memories. When meeting with each individual I would hope that they wouldn’t bring up something significant that I had forgotten, leading me to rewrite their review. This oversight can be embarrassing and time consuming.

For the faculty, my involvement in their annual performance review consisted of completing requests for information on the number of grants they had submitted, or the amount of active funding they had over the past year. Because they would often start this process last minute, I would typically have little time to complete the request. Depending on the size of the person’s portfolio – this request could keep me bogged down for a few hours for each faculty person.

How can the performance review process be improved?

To prevent the last minute struggle to complete performance reviews, the process needs to be managed throughout the year. As an employee, you should be your own advocate and keep track of your progress on an ongoing basis. Some examples include:

  • Discussing expectations with your supervisor
  • Documenting individual goals
  • Maintaining a work journal to track accomplishments
  • Saving emails showing positive feedback
  • Monitoring your workload

Be sure to keep all of this information saved in a central location that is easy to locate. By tracking this information throughout the year, you will have an excellent foundation to prepare a personal review of your performance and be primed for a discussion with your supervisor.

As a manager, you should encourage the same process for your team. Make yourself available to meet one-on-one with your staff to discuss expectations and establish individual goals. Throughout the years, as you show that their performance reviews are used to make fair decisions regarding salary increases, identifying training needs and assigning responsibilities, your team should come to recognize the benefits of tracking their own performance throughout the year.

One way to monitor the workload of yourself or your team is through the use of grant tracking software. At any point, you could pull reports to indicate how many accounts you manage or how many grant submissions you have processed over the course of the year. In relation to my last post on Late Grant Submissions, you could also produce reports to show the number of the submissions you processed that were submitted last minute. Having a report showing your workload will be useful in reviewing your own performance, but also may be useful for your supervisor to recognize whether work needs to be distributed more evenly.

For your faculty, their performance review could request data on the number of proposals they have submitted or their active funding throughout the past year. With grant tracking software, these reports are simple to produce. Additionally, reports could be used to track trends such as their success rate with individual sponsors, funding rates over multiple years or the percentage that their budgets were cut. These reports could be used to provide a more comprehensive review of an individual’s research portfolio.

Grant tracking software gives grants administrators the tools to monitor their workload as well as a simple way to produce various reports. Examples of grant management software solutions frequently used in research intensive institutions include the Department Manager, College Administrator, and Research Administrator products provided by IT Works. For more information regarding these products, contact the IT Works team.

Categories: Grant Management Tips

About the Author

Brooke Marchetti

Brooke Marchetti‘s experience includes 11 years within the higher education and healthcare sectors. Her experience includes both pre and post award administration within departments at the University of Pittsburgh. She also has post award experience within the central administration office at UPMC. Her titles have included: Research Administration Manager, Grants Administrator, Project Administrator, Research Project Manager and Senior Sponsored Project Administrator.

Comments

  1. Sandra Nordahl says

    August 24, 2015 at 6:08 pm

    Excellent article! I use electronic means to assist me in providing information related to performance reviews. Be sure to pass along emails and other accomplishment documents to your supervisor throughout the year. I meet on a daily basis with most staff and have almost weekly meetings with my supervisor. Good, strong communication is a key for success!

    Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

IT Works Solutions

Grant Management

Grant Management

Track Pre and Post Award activities

Grant Accounting

Grant Accounting

Supplement GL with personnel cost projections and improved reporting

Effort Certification

Effort Certification

Comply with federal effort reporting guidelines

Recharge Center Management

Recharge Center Management

Monitor and bill core facility services

Recent Blog Posts

Software for Managing Crowdfunded Research Projects

July 31st, 2017

Grant Accounting Solutions and Challenges Happen Everwhere

April 7th, 2017

Best Practices using Research Administration Software

March 28th, 2017


Download Customer Stories and View Videos


Categories

  • Best Practices for Grant Management
  • Compliance and Reporting
  • Events
  • Grant Accounting System
  • Grant Management News
  • Grant Management Tips
  • Recharge Center Management
  • Research Administrator
  • Scholarship Entries
  • Software Selection & Technology Evaluation

Address & Contact Info

IT Works

3725 National Drive | Suite 215
Raleigh, NC 27612
United States
Sales: (877) 689-3661
Support: (919) 232-5332
Fax: (919) 232-5373
E-mail: Contact Us
TwitterFacebookGoogle+Linkedin

Solutions

  • Grant Management
  • Grant Accounting
  • Effort Certification and Reporting System
  • Recharge Center Management

Products

  • Department Manager™
  • College Administrator™
  • Research Administrator™
  • Effort Administrator™

Client Testimonial

The greatest benefit we receive from Department Manager Software is its flexibility and reporting features. Many Department Manager Software packages have the ability to perform data entry, but few have the capability to transfer the data into so many reporting formats. I couldn’t do without Department Manager.
Mark KramerCancer Center Administrator
IT Works is now Cayuse.
Read the Press Release
Site Map
© 2016 IT Works, Inc.