5 U.S.C. § 4302 - U.S. Code - Unannotated Title 5. Government Organization and Employees § 4302. Establishment of performance appraisal systems

(1) provide for periodic appraisals of job performance of employees;

(2) encourage employee participation in establishing performance standards; and

(3) use the results of performance appraisals as a basis for training, rewarding, reassigning, promoting, reducing in grade, retaining, and removing employees.

(b)(1) The head of each agency, in consultation with the Director of the Office of Personnel Management and the Special Counsel, shall develop criteria that--

(2) The criteria required under paragraph (1) shall include--

(3) In this subsection--

(1) establishing performance standards which will, to the maximum extent feasible, permit the accurate evaluation of job performance on the basis of objective criteria (which may include the extent of courtesy demonstrated to the public) related to the job in question for each employee or position under the system;

(2) as soon as practicable, but not later than October 1, 1981, with respect to initial appraisal periods, and thereafter at the beginning of each following appraisal period, communicating to each employee the performance standards and the critical elements of the employee's position;

(3) evaluating each employee during the appraisal period on such standards;

(4) recognizing and rewarding employees whose performance so warrants;

(5) assisting employees in improving unacceptable performance; and

(6) reassigning, reducing in grade, or removing employees who continue to have unacceptable performance but only after an opportunity to demonstrate acceptable performance.