Measuring Results and Behaviors

MEASURING RESULTS
What are the different areas in which this individual is expected to focus efforts (key
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accountabilities)?
Within each area, what are the expected objectives?
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How do we know how well the results have been achieved (performance standards)?
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ACCOUNTABILITIES
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Broad areas of a job for which an employee is responsible for producing results.
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Determining Accountabilities
–Collect information about the job ( Job Description )
–Determine importance of task or cluster of tasks
Percentage of employee’s time spent performing tasks
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Impact on the unit’s mission if performed inadequately

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Consequences of error (Could inadequate performance of the accountability contribute to the injury or death of the employee or others, serious
property damage, or loss of time and money)
OBJECTIVES
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Statements of important and measurable outcomes.
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Determining Objectives
–Purpose : to identify outcomes
Limited number
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Highly important
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–When achieved
Dramatic impact on overall organization success
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CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD OBJECTIVES

Specific and clear

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Challenging (but not impossible to achieve)

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Agreed upon (Participation in the process increases objective aspirations and acceptance)
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Significant
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Prioritized
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Bound by time
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Achievable
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Full communicated
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PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
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Yardstick used to evaluate how well employees have achieved objectives
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Determining Performance Standards
–Standards refer to aspects of performance objectives, such as;
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Quality – How well the objective is achieved [usefulness, responsiveness, effect obtained (e.g., problem resolution), acceptance rate, error rate, and
feedback from users or customers (e.g., customer complaints, returns).]

Quantity – How much, how many, how often and at what cost ?
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Time – Due dates, schedule, cycle time and how quickly?

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Standards must include
–An action
–The desired result
–A due date
–Some type of indicator
Quality / Quantity
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Reduce overtime from 150 hours/month to 50 hours/month by December 1, 2012, at a cost not
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to exceed $12,000.
–The action is reduce
–The due date is December 1, 2012,
–The indicators are the reduction in hours from 150 to 50 and at a cost not to exceed
$12,000.
CHARACTERISTICS
Related to the position (based on the job’s key elements and tasks, not on individual traits or
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person-to-person comparisons)
Concrete, Specific and Measurable (observable and verifiable - below expectations, fully
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satisfactory, or above expectations)

Practical to measure (created by taking into account the cost, accuracy, and availability of the
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needed data)
Meaningful (purpose of the job, organization’s mission and objectives)
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Realistic and Achievable (within the specified time frame)

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Reviewed regularly
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MEASURING BEHAVIORS
Identify Competencies
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Identify Indicators
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Choose measurement system

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IDENTIFY COMPETENCIES
Measurable clusters of KSAs
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–Knowledge

–Skills

–Abilities

That are critical in determining how results will be achieved

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TYPES OF COMPETENCIES
Differentiating
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–Distinguish between superior and average performance

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Threshold
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–Needed to perform to minimum standard. Includes basic knowledge, skills, traits,

motives, self-image and social role and are essential for performing a job E.g.
Language skills, computer skills ...
IDENTIFY INDICATORS
To understand the extent to which an employee possesses a competency, we measure
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indicators. Each indicator is an observable behavior that gives us information regarding the
competency in question.
In other words, we don’t measure the competency directly, but we measure indicators that tell
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us whether the competency is present or not.

COMPONENTS FOR DESCRIBING COMPETENCIES

Definition of competency
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Description of specific behavioral indicators that can be observed when someone demonstrates
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a competency effectively
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Description of specific behaviors that are likely to occur when someone doesn’t demonstrate a
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competency effectively (what a competency is not)

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List of suggestions for developing the competency

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CHOOSE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM
In contrast to the measurement of results, the measurement of competencies is intrinsically
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judgmental. Competencies are measured using data provided by individuals who make a
judgment regarding the presence of the competency.
In other words, the behaviors displayed by the employees are observed and judged by raters
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(typically, the direct supervisor, but raters might also include peers, customers, subordinates,
and the employee himself).
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Comparative System
–Compares employees with one another
Rank Order
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Paired Comparisons
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Forced Distribution
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Absolute System
–Compares employees with pre-specified performance standard
Essays
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Behaviour Checklist
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Critical Incidents
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Graphic Rating Scales

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RANKING METHOD

Under this method, the ranking of an employee in a work group is done against that of another
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employee based on their job performance.

Though it is relatively easier to rank the best and worst employees, it is very difficult to rank
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the average employees.

Generally, evaluators pick the top and bottom employees first and then select the next highest
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and nest lowest and move towards the average (middle ) employees.
Limitations:
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–The‘whole man’ is compared with another ‘whole man’ . It is very difficult to

compare individual possessing varied behavioural traits.
– It does not tell about how better or how much worse.
–When a large number of employees are working, ranking of individuals becomes a
vexing issue
PAIRED COMPARISON METHOD

In order to overcome the limitations of ranking method this technique was proposed.
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For every trait (quantity of work, quality of work, and so on), you pair and compare every
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subordinate with every other subordinate.

Eg., when there five employees to be compared, then A’s performance is compared with that of
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B’s and decision is arrived at as to whose is better or worse. Next, B is also compared with all
others. Since A is already compared with B, this time B is to be compared with only C,D and
E. ie., when there are 5 employees 10 decisions are made (comparisons).
The number of decisions can be calculated by the formula N(N-1)/2, where N represents the
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total number of employees being evaluated.

In the diagram employee C has the most “+” and hence will receive more incentives.
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Disadvantages:
–Very time consuming
–May encounter problem of comparing “apples and oranges”
FORCED DISTRIBUTION METHOD

Under this system, the rater is asked to appraise the employee according to a predetermined
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distribution scale.
The two criteria used here for rating are the job performance and promotability
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One common error in evaluating employees is ranking most of them near a certain level. The
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forced distribution method tries to overcome this problem by assuming that employee
performance would follow statistical norms and be distributed more evenly.
The expectations of a bell curve would be something like: excellent is 10 percent, good 20 is
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percent, average is 40 percent, below average is 20 percent and unsatisfactory is 10 percent.

Use the forced distribution method to prevent leniency among evaluators.
ADVANTAGES OF COMPARATIVE SYSTEMS

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Easy to explain
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Straightforward (which employees are where in the distributions)
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Identifies top as well as under-performers
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Better control for biases and errors found in absolute systems
–Leniency (giving high scores to most employees)
–Severity (giving low scores to most employees)
–Central tendency
DISADVANTAGES OF COMPARATIVE SYSTEMS

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Rankings may not be specific enough for:
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Useful feedback
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Protection from legal challenge
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No information on relative distance between employees
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Specific issues with forced distribution method
 ESSAY EVALUATION

Here the rater is asked to express the strong as well as weak points of the employee’s
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behaviour.
While preparing the essay on the employee, the rater considers the following factors.
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–Job knowledge and potential of the employee

–Employees understanding of the company’s programmes, policies, objectives, etc.,
–Relations with co-workers and superiors
–General planning, orgainising and controlling ability
–The attitudes and perceptions of the employee, in general.
Limitations:
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–Highly subjective, the supervisor may write biased essay. The employees who are
sycophants will be evaluated more favorably than other employees.
–Some evaluators may be poor in writing essay on employees performance and other
may be superficial, which may not reflect the actual performance of the employee.
–Time consuming, busy appraiser may write the essay hurriedly without properly
assessing the actual performance.
CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE

Manager prepares a list of statements of very effective and ineffective behaviour of an

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employee.
Critical incidents or events represent the outstanding or poor behaviour of employees on the
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job.
The manager maintains logs on each employee, where by he periodically records critical
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incidents of the workers’ behaviour.

This method provides an objective basis for conducting a thorough discussion of an
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employee’s performance.
Avoids recently bias
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Eg., Good critical incident : July 20 – the sales clerk patiently attended to the customer’s
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complaint. He is polite, prompt, enthusiastic in solving the customer’s problem.

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Bad critical incident : July 20 – the sales assistant stayed 45 minutes over on his break during
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the busiest part of the day. He failed to answer the store manager’s call thrice. He is lazy,
negligent, stubborn and uninterested in work.
CHECKLISTS AND WEIGHTED CHECKLISTS

A checklist represents, in its simplest form, a set of objectives or descriptive statements about
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the employee and his behavior.

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If the rater believes strongly that the employee possesses a particular listed trait, he checks the
item; otherwise, he leaves the item blank.
A more recent variation of the checklist method is the weighted list. Under this, the value of
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each question may be weighted equally or certain questions may be weighted more heavily
than others.
The following are some of the sample questions in the checklist.
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–Is the employee really interested in the task assigned? Yes/No

–Is he respected by his colleagues (co-workers) Yes/No
–Does he give respect to his superiors? Yes/No
–Does he follow instructions properly? Yes/No
–Does he make mistakes frequently? Yes/No
The checklist method has a serious limitation.
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–The rater may be biased in distinguishing the positive and negative questions.
–He may assign biased weights to the questions.
–Method is expensive and time consuming.
– It becomes difficult for the manager to assemble, analyze and weigh a number of
statements about the employee's characteristics, contributions and behaviors
GRAPHIC RATING SCALE
The most commonly used and oldest method of performance evaluation is the graphic rating
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scale.
Under this method, a printed form is used to evaluate the performance of an employee.
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A variety of traits may be used in these types of rating devices, the most common being the
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quantity and quality of work.

 Unsatisfactory Fair Satisfactory Good Outstanding

Quantity of work: Volume of work

under normal working conditions

Quality of work: Neatness,

thoroughness and accuracy of
work
Knowledge of job
A clear understanding of the
factors connected with the job
Attitude: Exhibits enthusiasm and
cooperativeness on the job
Dependability: Conscientious,
thorough, reliable, accurate, with
respect to attendance, reliefs,
lunch breaks, etc.
Cooperation: Willingness and
ability to work with others to
produce desired goals.
BEHAVIORALLY ANCHORED RATING SCALES

Also known as the behavioral expectations scale

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It is a combination of the rating scale and critical incident techniques of employee performance
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evaluation.
The critical incidents serve as anchor statements on a scale and the rating form usually contains
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six to eight specifically defined performance dimensions.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF ABSOLUTE
SYSTEMS

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Advantages:
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Can be used in large and small organizations
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Evaluations more widely accepted by employees
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Disadvantages:
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Higher risk of leniency, severity, and central tendency biases
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Generally, more time consuming than comparative systems