Our Position on Goal Setting

As many of you know, Dow Jones is implementing a new performance review system that moves away from numerical ratings and encourages more dialogue between employees and managers. This week's training sessions for the new system, Glint, have prompted questions from IAPE members, which we would like to briefly address.

We want to emphasize two points about this new process, available in Dow Jones information documents and communicated to staff last month in an email from Kamilah Mitchell Thomas:

First, self-assessments will continue to be optional (though management has stressed they are “strongly encouraged”). This has long been the situation for IAPE-represented employees, as we advised in a message to members last July.

Second, entering your own goals is also voluntary. The addition of goals is considered part of “Employee Completes Prep,” all of which is labeled as “optional.”

Similar to our message last year, we realize these employee/manager discussions are often employees’ best opportunities to talk about goals, expectations, performance and pay. IAPE is not opposed to members setting their own goals -- we simply want you to know that you are not required to submit yours if you would rather have your manager set those targets for you.

If you do choose to engage in this “self-reflection,” please know you are under no obligation to admit any shortcomings. A better approach may be offering suggestions your manager can follow to help you meet performance targets.

We continue to believe that setting expectations and evaluating performance are management functions, but we also want to be clear that this should not in any way prevent you from having constructive conversations with your boss about your future at Dow Jones.

Finally, we would like to remind you that Article XXI of the IAPE/DJ collective agreement states, “The Company and the Union agree that performance evaluations under this Article shall not be considered disciplinary actions.” That’s important -- IAPE-represented employees are always entitled to union representation during disciplinary meetings, and Article XI of the contract requires at least three hours’ advance notice of disciplinary meetings (except “in the event of exigent circumstances”). A discussion of disciplinary action should not occur during a meeting to talk about goals or expectations.

If your manager ever invites you to a disciplinary meeting, please contact an IAPE director or steward, or email union@iape1096.org for assistance.