Historically, COER ratings were biased toward perfect scores, making it difficult to identify development needs and to measure improvement for officers of the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service (Corps). To achieve and maintain objective ratings, responsibility lies with officers, raters and reviewing officials at all levels and ranks, and across categories and organizations.
The 2010 COER instrument scales provide guidance on assigning scores for an objective rating of the officer. The raters must provide comments to support rating scores. The resources provided iterate that the COER should accurately reflect performance based on an officer’s duties and accomplishments. Abilities and areas needing improvement should be identified to enhance development and measure performance.
For career and professional development, it is critical that scores accurately reflect performance and identify areas for improvement. Raters should use the full 1-7 scale to ensure that inflated scores cease. A score of "7" must be clearly justified to be useful in guiding officer development. Rated officers should not anticipate all “7”s.
The intent of the 2010 COER business process is to minimize inflation of the scores and to obtain a more fair and objective evaluation. The 2010 COER system is initiated by the officer, sent to the rater, and released for initial review to the reviewing official. This allows for dialogue between the rater and reviewing official before the officer’s final review/signature and before the reviewing official’s final review/signature.
Please contact CAPT Christine Benally in the Office of Commissioned Corps Force Management at christine.benally@hhs.gov or 240-453-6089 for questions.
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HHS, Office of Public Health and Science |