Employee evaluation Performance management

No clear guidelines exist for the appropriate use of performance impairment test systems for work eligibility. There is general agreement that in situations in which worker or public safety is potentially influenced by a worker s performance, impairment test systems are justified. However, no clear criteria for identifying safety issues are available.9 The use of such tests as a means of managing worker productivity is less universally accepted, and if used as an employee evaluation criterion, such tests should be given careful scrutiny. 

Chapter seven Employee coaching, evaluation, and discipline Table 7.1 Objectives of the Performance Management System 103... 

Evaluating an employee s performance is highly dependent on the manager s psychological makeup. 

Once work standards have been established, they can serve as one element in an employee-performance-evaluation scheme. An advantage of computer technology is the ability to have instantaneous information on individual employee performance in terms of the rate of output. This serves as one objective measure of how hard employees are working. But managers have to understand that this is just one element of employee performance and emphasis on quantity can have an adverse effect on the quality of work. Therefore, a balanced performance-evaluation system will include quality considerations as well. These are not as easy to obtain and are not as instantaneously available as are quantity measures. However, managers must resist the temptation to emphasize quantity measures just because they are readily available. A key consideration in any employee evaluation program is the issue of fairness, just as in workload determination. 

Once the job descriptions are completed, the next infrastructure item is performance management. Employees should be evaluated in their performance... 

How are managers, supervisors, and employees held accountable for meeting their responsibilities for workplace safety and health (Annual performance evaluations for managers and supervisors are required.)... 

Finally, the behavioral safety process provides delayed outcomes that also support safety. The observation data can be the basis for both team celebrations and individual recognition. By participating in a formal observation process, managers and supervisors can more accurately evaluate employee safety performance when making decisions regarding compensation and promotions. Thus the process helps the normal organizational contingencies to support safety more effectively. 

Absolute systems require the rater to indicate whether or not the employee is meeting a set of predetermined criteria for performance. This usually involves the use of a scale or index. Absolute systems are the most commonly employed of the three types of performance appraisal methods (Byars and Rue, 2000, p. 277). The main advantage that absolute systems have over other types of appraisal methods is the feedback that is derived inherently from the process. Allowing employees to see how they are evaluated among criteria deemed important by management enables them to learn about their strengths and the areas in which they will require improvement. 

Managers should establish a comfortable, professional atmosphere and maintain a positive tone when conducting the interview. They should be careful not to stereotype or prejudge certain employees. There may be occasions on which the rater simply does not like the person whom he or she is evaluating but must be careful to remain focused on the relevant behaviors and performance. Nonetheless, circumstances will arise in which the manager has to address performance deficiencies with an employee. Some suggestions for addressing these situations are as follows (Umiker, 1998, p. 157) ... 

But what are the real reasons that organizations conduct annual performance evaluations In a survey sponsored jointly by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Personnel Decisions International (PDl) in 2000, the number one answer by survey participants was to provide information to employees about their performance and to clarify organizational expectations of employees (Table 7.1). At the bottom of the list were documenting performance for employee records and gathering information for promotion decisions. 

The term matrix refers to the fact that project team members have a dual reporting relationship and therefore are known as multiply supervised employees (MSEs). The traditional matrix team concept has performed adequately. But, as initially conceived, the performance evaluation of team members was conducted only by their departmental management, so that the focus of team members was usually centered on their functional department. However, this evaluation structure was modified in the early 1990s by having each team member s performance evaluated, at least in part, by his or her project team leader. This change has greatly increased the effectiveness of the matrix team approach. 

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