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Azizeh Teimouri
Pakshoo QC Manager, Iran

This paper presents performance appraisal of knowledge workers in R&D department. A survey was deployed to determine if organization structure is in conformity with world class standards. The results showed that leadership and systems and methods in GIG compatible with world class standards but there is a gap between GIG HR Systems and world class organizations.

One of the most important requirements was compiling appraisal of knowledge workers. In this system by using evaluating theory, competency models, and experiences of managers has been developed new approach. In this paper presents performance measurements, relationship between performance measurements and job position and payments and performance measurements techniques and objectives. Pay attention to knowledge workers causes empowerment of people in knowledge and skills and finally profitability of organization.

Knowledge worker, a term coined by Peter Drucker in 1959, is one who works primarily with information or one who develops and uses knowledge in the workplace.1 Due to the constant industrial growth in North America and globally, there is increasing need for an academically capable workforce. In direct response to this, Knowledge Workers are now estimated to outnumber all other workers in North America by at least a four to one margin2. A Knowledge Worker's benefit to a company could be in the form of developing business intelligence, increasing the value of intellectual capital, gaining insight into customer preferences, or a variety of other important gains in knowledge that aid the business.

It has been further defined as work that involves analyzing information and applying specialized expertise to solve problems, generate ideas, teach others, or create new products and services.3 It is difficult to define knowledge work in more detail because knowledge work is primarily invisible. It is hidden in the head of the knowledge worker. Because of the difficulty of measuring knowledge worker production, dissatisfied knowledge workers may take advantage of the situation. This dissatisfaction may produce behavior in which personnel seek more financial satisfaction by giving themselves a "stealth raise", i.e., cutting back the effective hours in which they perform knowledge work at the office. They may dedicate more mental effort to another activity that is not job-related that brings them more satisfaction4. This contradicts Frederick Taylor's main philosophy of a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. Even though there should be no expectation of blind company loyalty as was expected in the past, companies should expect good work and some form of commitment to productivity from their knowledge workers while they are on the job.5

Knowledge workers work in an environment described as a knowledge network. There is always an increasing need for knowledge to grow and progress continually, whether tacit or explicit. Knowledge grows like organisms, with data serving as food to be assimilated rather than merely stored. All knowledge workers, particularly R&D project managers, need to easily access and search internal and external knowledge bases.

Toffler observed that typical knowledge workers in the age of knowledge economy and knowledge society must have some system at their disposal to create process and enhance their own technological knowledge.

Knowledge workers are believed to produce more when empowered to make the most of their deepest skills; they can often work on many projects at the same time; they know how to allocate their time; and they can multiply the results of their efforts through soft factors such as emotional intelligence and trust. Organizations designed around the knowledge worker (instead of just machine capital) are thought to integrate the best of hierarchy, self-organization and networking rather than the worst. Each dictates a different communications and rewards system, and requires activation of knowledge-sharing and action learning. A basic pattern rule of human systems is that when you mix them you will get the worst of each unless you contextually and carefully attend to connecting the best6.

Knowledge work, ranges from tasks performed by individual knowledge workers to global social networks. This framework spans every class of knowledge work that is being or is likely to be undertaken. There are seven levels or scales of knowledge work.

4. Knowledge management programs link the generation of knowledge (e.g., from science, synthesis, or learning) with its use (e.g., policy analysis, reporting, program management) as well as facilitating organizational learning and adaptation in a knowledge organization.

Measurement requires collecting data. Categorizes three basic ways to collect data about a given phenomenon or organizational system: inquiry, observation, and collecting system data or documentation. This data gathering is the essential part of measurement. It is the process by which productivity benchmarks are established. In the simplest form, the outputs are evaluated against the inputs, but even at this simple level terminology may be a problem. Some writers include no quantitative indicators such as quality in their definition of "output," but others confine the discussion of productivity to I/O. The definition affects the type and amount of data gathered.

USACERL has identified the need to measure productivity among knowledge workers to recognize any gains that can be attributed to implementation of KWS. They developed a measuring knowledge worker productivity model, and discussed which methodologies may work best in specific knowledge work environments7. An extensive search of work measurement literature was conducted. More than 100 journal articles, papers, and books were reviewed. Topical areas reviewed included work measurement, productivity, organizations, psychology, decision theory, and quality improvement. Several methodologies were examined for applicability to the kinds of environments in which Army knowledge workers operate, and the most promising were identified.

There is a distinct difference in the productivity of an organization and the productivity of a single work unit of that organization. A research group indicated this difference by use of its third objective-to establish measures that reflect an organization's degree of success in meeting its established goals. The goals for each level of the organization should differ to represent the contribution that specific level expects to make toward overall organizational goals. Therefore, each level's productivity evaluation should be different, reflecting its unique goals.

Historically, work has been separated into blue-collar and white-collar categories. This view can be expanded to include knowledge work as a third category. Knowledge work is all work whose output is mainly intangible, whose input is not clearly definable, and that allows a high degree of individual discretion in the task. This difference in work content requires different approaches to productivity evaluation. The difficulty of measuring something that is not clearly defined has been noted. An expanded definition of work that includes a category for knowledge work is a first step in the evaluation of knowledge worker productivity. Other models can be fined in the same reference.

The literature review shows that productivity measurement is discussed from a wide variety of viewpoints. A variety of implementation methodologies have been developed for different applications. What is lacking is a concept that unifies these diverse views. This section discusses several aspects of such a unifying concept. In addition, productivity measurement is most valuable as a dynamic measure, not as a static measure.

The authors propose categorizing work by eight components, as detailed in Table 1. Figures 1-4 show the components of work arrayed on a horizontal scale. Each characteristic is represented by a horizontal line, and is scaled from high to low.

The graph is set up so inversely related components are at opposite ends and strongly related components are grouped together. For example, "Decision making" and "Knowledge Use" are directly related to "Complexity" by definition. "Structured" is inversely related to "Complexity," so these two components are at opposite ends of the graph. There is not a lot of "Complexity," as defined, in a very structured job- the amount of decision making and the knowledge used is low. This means that "Structured" is also inversely related to "Knowledge Use" and "Decision making." "Volume" is directly related to "Time per