Posted on Dec 31, 2013
Writing your own evaluation (NCOER/OER)? Is it really THAT bad?
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As long as your rater/senior rater agree with it (by digitally signing it), why do some feel it's 'taboo' to write your own evaluation?<br><br>Here's some (hypothetical) reasoning:<br><br>Rater takes criticism personally - When we sit down to discuss my evaluation, I point out misspellings or grammatical inaccuracies; I don't want this held against me during a promotion board, but my senior rater takes this personally and gets upset.<br><br>It's worked this far, why change it? - I've been promoted on a previous centralized promotion board (or two) and I've read all the promotion board AARs to keep myself current on what's being looked at as higher importance.<br><br>Too Busy - My rater is too busy or I don't want to be a burden. I think it's my career and I feel a certain obligation to 'write it up' for my senior rater for review it and provide all necessary documentation to justify the quantifiable ratings.<br><br>Not an articulate writer - I'm a much better writer than my senior rater. I have a degree in English and my senior rater doesn't have a degree. I'm not looking to use fancy words, just words that appear on an educated level greater than high school.<br>
NCOER
OER
Military Career
Posted 12 y ago
Responses: 63
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Well, for starters, it's illegal. At least in the Air Force.
Section 8.1.4.1.3 of AIF 36-2406 (the regulation regarding performance reports) states that the Senior Rater "Will ensure no subordinate commander/supervisor asks or allows, an
officer to draft or prepare his or her own PRF. Note: Eligible officers may provide
input."
Section 8.1.4.1.3 of AIF 36-2406 (the regulation regarding performance reports) states that the Senior Rater "Will ensure no subordinate commander/supervisor asks or allows, an
officer to draft or prepare his or her own PRF. Note: Eligible officers may provide
input."
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We as NCO's have an obligation to make the time to write our subordinates NCOER's, and counsel them properly. The time it takes to write an NCOER is on the rater. If the rater is counseling ever quarter like they should, the NCOER really writes its self.
If you as a rater have a subordinate NCO write there own NCOER, you really should consider turning in your stripes. If you are an NCO and you don't nag your rater for your counseling, and basically force them to do there DUTY, then you are just as wrong as they are.
It is your report card, and if your not being counseling how do you know were you are going wrong, or if you are on the right glide path.
Raters and Senior Raters, if the counseling is not being done and you want to give the rated NCO a bad NCOER, all I can say is good luck. You don't have a leg to stand on. Just like when you want to frag a Soldier with AR15's and it doesn't happen do to lack of counseling. Any NCO that accepts a bad NCOER with no proof, shame on you.
End state is: Do your duty, and quit being lazy.
If you as a rater have a subordinate NCO write there own NCOER, you really should consider turning in your stripes. If you are an NCO and you don't nag your rater for your counseling, and basically force them to do there DUTY, then you are just as wrong as they are.
It is your report card, and if your not being counseling how do you know were you are going wrong, or if you are on the right glide path.
Raters and Senior Raters, if the counseling is not being done and you want to give the rated NCO a bad NCOER, all I can say is good luck. You don't have a leg to stand on. Just like when you want to frag a Soldier with AR15's and it doesn't happen do to lack of counseling. Any NCO that accepts a bad NCOER with no proof, shame on you.
End state is: Do your duty, and quit being lazy.
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With the new OER system it locks you out of the evaluation so that you cannot (from your own login) write your own evaluation. So either you would have to write it and they cut and paste it or have to do it from the rater's computer.
It should be interesting to see how long this works and if the NCOER system will follow suit.
It should be interesting to see how long this works and if the NCOER system will follow suit.
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COL Vincent Stoneking
As a follow-up, what I have seen in several instances is "send me rater and SR rater comments in a word document for me to copy and paste."...
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I have help write my NCOER with bullets or just input, however I left it to my rater to make all final decissions.
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Yes. I wrote my deployment award and I hated that I had to do it. But I took it as an opportunity to figure out how to write an award for when I became an NCO (I was a Specialist at the time) so the Soldiers I'm responsible for never have to.
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SSG (Join to see)
Yes. I am actually in the process of writing my own NCOER. I was told by my OIC that he wanted me to write the initial draft of the NCOER for self development and then he would then create a final product. I believe that this is an effective way to develop an NCO especially in my situation when I only have one other NCO under me.
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Sgt (Join to see)
yep, my boss during deployment looked over and asked what I did for the year... So I drafted it up and sent it to him in a Word doc. T'is the life of a NCO.
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I wrote my last 5 PCS awards, my retirement award, and a few impact awards.
As far as NCOER's, I probably did the base for about 5-6 of them, all annuals, and maybe 2-3 COR, and 1 complete the record.
Not saying it should be the norm, but many times it is becoming that way with many leaders stating they are too busy to do it over the past decade or so.
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Of course. I imagine it's fairly common.
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CW2 Jonathan Kantor
I have written my own awards and NCOERs a lot throughout my career... never an OER, which is good. Once, I was voluntold/begged to write NCOERs for 4 other NCOs in the office, 2 of which outranked me. I just gave everyone the best write-up I could come up with.
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SFC Michael Hasbun
I suspect we've all been there. It may be "poor leadership" to be a bad runner, but it's perfectly acceptable to have the grammar and writing ability of a first grader. Our priorities break my heart.
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COL Vincent Stoneking
SFC Michael Hasbun Well said. Sometimes the things we focus on make me shake my head. Of course, this is not just an Army thing. I cannot believe the evals I see in the civilian world - and people are stunned that the ones for my staff evaluate (and even enumerate!) them. This is just Management 101, which is the LOWEST level of leadership.
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Yes to both..had to write my own PCS award, and AAM, when I left Recruiting duty back in '98; Company Commander didn't even want to submit one, because I wasn't a stellar recruiter, station commander (was acting 1SG) had me write one up and he "pushed" it through told the commander it's the least I deserved for surviving the 3-years of hell and leaving with the same rank. Lol...
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I have written my own in the past; I now refuse to write my own. My rater should know all of my accomplishments. Though there are a few that I feel I didn't get what I thought I deserved, I took it as an opportunity to do better for my Soldiers. I have always written a first draft, then sit down and having long discussions regarding the past years performance and articulating the accomplishments in a way that for a good Soldier makes that Soldier feel good about the evaluation (counseling session). Yes, the eval is what may or may not be looked at for promotion; however, my feeling is that the NCOER is for the Soldier. Nothing demotivates a Soldier than having a leader that doesn't care or know what that Soldier did over the past year. Writing an NCOER should be difficult and time-consuming because the Soldier should be worth the effort and time.
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I review all of my bullets before my NCOER gets sent off to the senior rater. I want to make sure all of my accomplishments are annotated properly, grammar is correct, etc. You can sit back and take a hands off approach if you want to, but don't come back crying about how poorly your NCOER was written after the fact.
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I think keeping a running record of what happens in your rating period helps the rater and the rated NCO or Officer to better capture an honest picture of what truly happened. I do this for myself because nobody else is going to be my best advocate except for myself. Plus, I think it shows your rater that you really care about what goes on your OER/NCOER.
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MAJ (Join to see)
Your Outlook calendar is a great tool for doing this. by creating events to cover training, schools, development etc for your team, squad, platoon etc, as well as the quartet use if the counseling, you can go back and review the accomplishments for each rated Soldier. Open the specific events and you can keep personnel notes about each event and mark them as "private" if you don't want others reading if they have access to your calendar. At the end of the day, no one should be writing their own evaluations. Yet, it's a huge problem in our services.
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MAJ (Join to see)
Your Outlook calendar is a great tool for doing this. By creating events to cover training, schools, development etc for your team, squad, platoon etc, as well as quarterly counseling, you can go back and review the accomplishments for each rated Soldier. Open the specific events and you can keep personnel notes about each event and mark them as "private" if you don't want others reading if they have access to your calendar. At the end of the day, no one should be writing their own evaluations. Yet, it's a huge problem in our services.
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COL Vincent Stoneking
Great advice LT,
I do this monthly myself. I keep a word doc for just this purpose. I update my SPT form quarterly as well (very seldom in my career have the counselings that go with it been done - but the form has always been as up to date as I can make it). I start doing a draft OER about 3 months before the due date. 2-4 weeks before the thru date, I give it to the rater as "some starting ideas". Most times, the final OER is 75-80% my draft.
It will take a bit more finesse with the new ESS system, but I plan on following the same approach.
NOTE: I ASK for quarterly (at least) counseling and take it where and when I can get it, I just don't take it not happening as absolving me of responsibility for my career. And I can state that on the several occasions my seniors HAVE counseled me regularly, I made huge strides as a leader. I also have a draft of my SPT form before I even show up in the new position.
I do this monthly myself. I keep a word doc for just this purpose. I update my SPT form quarterly as well (very seldom in my career have the counselings that go with it been done - but the form has always been as up to date as I can make it). I start doing a draft OER about 3 months before the due date. 2-4 weeks before the thru date, I give it to the rater as "some starting ideas". Most times, the final OER is 75-80% my draft.
It will take a bit more finesse with the new ESS system, but I plan on following the same approach.
NOTE: I ASK for quarterly (at least) counseling and take it where and when I can get it, I just don't take it not happening as absolving me of responsibility for my career. And I can state that on the several occasions my seniors HAVE counseled me regularly, I made huge strides as a leader. I also have a draft of my SPT form before I even show up in the new position.
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You should not have to write your own NCOER. It is the raters responsibility to do so. However, more often than not, they fail to do so in a timely manner, NCOs "fill in" the admin data with a "few" suggested bullets nearly completing it. Those raters are also being rated and if they cannot properly conduct the counseling and ratings for their personnel, then it should reflect. And when you do it for them, it does not allow them to go through the process and learn to do it properly. They will never learn to effectively write an eval if they are taken out of the process.
Not saying it still wont happen, it just should not be your responsibility to do it.
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I've actually found writing one's own NCOER a useful tool in comparing what YOU think you did vs what your Cdr thinks you did. I've used this tool a couple times on my subordinates and found they're harder on themselves than I would have been (I'm the bark, but I will bite to keep people honest).
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I don't mind writing mine at all! Like CW2 Evans said in his comments, you might not even WANT your rater to do it. I've had raters who misspell everything and used street lingo. I've also had raters who didn't counsel me throughout the year and left stuff off the NCOER that I wanted on there. I wouldn't worry about the integrity check as much as I would the "Look in the Mirror" check. If you can't write your own evaluation and justify a 1/1 "Among the Best", then you might have some other issues to address!
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Relax and roll with it. It can be one of the best advantages you get.
Get input from peers, ask your rater for a few of his, etc to put together ideas. Get with the PSG or 1SG after your rough draft. Go to sites like NCOER.com for the word smithing. The integrity check is there since your rater still has to sign it and will call BS and make you rewrite if he disagrees with something.
Lets face it, you may not want him writing it... not everyone has a talent with words and if he's lazy enough to tell you to do it, he isn't going to put the effort into a good one if you insist.
If your Rater and Senior rater sign it, its fair.
Get input from peers, ask your rater for a few of his, etc to put together ideas. Get with the PSG or 1SG after your rough draft. Go to sites like NCOER.com for the word smithing. The integrity check is there since your rater still has to sign it and will call BS and make you rewrite if he disagrees with something.
Lets face it, you may not want him writing it... not everyone has a talent with words and if he's lazy enough to tell you to do it, he isn't going to put the effort into a good one if you insist.
If your Rater and Senior rater sign it, its fair.
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I think the 1st thought by many would be the personal bias one would have for themselves in their own assessment.
While I agree with some of your other points, I think the integrity of the NCOER would be invalid since it was not a true assessment and write up done by the rater.
And if everyone did it, their would be nothing but walk on water NCOs in the military.
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I got tired of my rater waiting until the day prior to it being due, then throwing something together with crap bullets. So I started giving my rate reminders of upcoming NCOERs... With no change. So I started scheduling hard times for NCO counselings and NCOER reviews... Which were ALL blown off or "rescheduled.". So I started just writing my own and giving it to my rater for review and tweak. I literally could not get my rater (and this was over a period of 5 years and 7 raters) to give a flying @$(# about my NCOER. I had mostly excellences, all 1/2 or 2/1, with two 1/1s. But the bullets were CRAP. Rater, senior rater, 1SG didn't care. So I started "helping" my rater by doing his job for him. Usually they tweaked significantly, but used the same basic bullets. A couple literally changed nothing. One changed almost everything - that was the one and only rater I have EVER had actually do quarterly counseling. 16 years as an NCO, one rater counseled me. There is your answer right there.
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I think the evals should be collaborative. You provide a shell, what you think is needed. Let the rater edit and submit to higher. In addition to your points it gives you a chance to learn to right the evals on a person you know best and who you'll make sure gets a good/fair shake - yourself. It'll make it easier to complete the evals of your juniors later.
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I personally feel that if I have to write my own evaluation then the rater is derelict in their duties. 90% of the time the rater and senior rater are officers who are supposed to be educated and therefore should be able to write a grammatically correct eval. In the off chance that they are not then yes, I feel it's my duty to assist in that area. If they forgot to mention key events that would improve the rating then I should also assist, but that also shows me that they failed to track my performance.
Nothing is more irritating to me than to hear a rater ask someone " what have you done"? It is our duty to track things, rough copy or draft, make notes so that come eval time we have the meat and potatoes.
How many NCO's have signed a falsified document? You know the NCOER with BS quarterly counseling dates that were never performed? That alone goes to the integrity of both rater and rated and puts the reviewer in question also for failing to verify as they are supposed to do.
Perhaps my desire to do things by the book and not be a "yes man" has prevented me from moving up as fast as others but in the end I will still have my integrity and I'm good with that.
Nothing is more irritating to me than to hear a rater ask someone " what have you done"? It is our duty to track things, rough copy or draft, make notes so that come eval time we have the meat and potatoes.
How many NCO's have signed a falsified document? You know the NCOER with BS quarterly counseling dates that were never performed? That alone goes to the integrity of both rater and rated and puts the reviewer in question also for failing to verify as they are supposed to do.
Perhaps my desire to do things by the book and not be a "yes man" has prevented me from moving up as fast as others but in the end I will still have my integrity and I'm good with that.
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