One of the major aspects we stress in our holistic workshop series for NSPS is to make certain that your objectives and self-assessment correspond with one another. Remember, when your performance plan goes up the ladder and eventually reaches the pay pool, they really have a simple agenda (albeit know simple task)…to ensure you did (or accomplished) what you said you were going to do—and in some cases may have exceeded.
Your outcome based objectives depict what you intend to accomplish over the next performance period. Your self-assessment is going to state what you actually accomplished, and in very straightforward and simple terms. The pay pool is first looking for the match between the objectives and self-assessment. If there isn’t a clear connection between the two, it makes it really hard to understand what you did and accomplished during the performance period, which inevitably puts you at a disadvantage.
You want to make it as simple as possible for the pay pool to understand what it is that you accomplished and what you said you were going to accomplish. The clearer the connection, the lesser room for error or basis in the rating you receive. You want your performance to speak for itself.