ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Measuring Job-Performance
PSY 516
Measuring Job-Performance
How well or how successful an organization can grow, may largely depend of the job
performance of its employees. Employee performance is an essential factor of a company’s
success. For this reason, assessments and evaluations of employee’s job performance must be
implemented to ensure the company’s overall business needs or objectives are being met. Job
performance measures how well an employee has done their job according to their job
description and responsibility. These performance reviews can provide valuable insight, aide
success, growth and the reputation of an organization. When job performance is at its best, it can
play a major role in job promotions, expansion and employee benefits. According to the Journal
of Management Development “job performance relates to the effectiveness in which employees
perform activities that contribute to the organization’s technical core and organizational
effectiveness of gaining the competitive advantage.
Properly measuring the performance of your employees can identify operational lapses and
motivate them to increase their workplace contributions. Employee performance evaluations can
also help identify candidates for leadership positions and other career advancement
opportunities. However, it can be challenging to evaluate the performance of employees who are
not in roles where there are metrics for tracking productivity and results. Below are tips to
measure and improve the contributions of your staff.
Performance goals for your employees
Performance goals are expectations related to an employee’s duties and responsibilities. To
improve the contributions of your staff to organizational goals, it is important for them to have
targets. Your performance goals need follow the SMART method to be specific, measurable,
attainable, realistic and time-bound.
You can set a variety of performance goals for employees. In a manufacturing setting, goals can
be production quotas per month or per quarter. Salespeople can also have performance goals
related to customer acquisition and revenue generation. You can give customer service agents the
goal of reducing customer complaints by a certain percentage.
To ensure your employees can contribute meaningfully to the company’s success, here are
techniques to improve their performance:
Set clear goals
Invest in employee development
Perform regular employee evaluations
Individualize employee motivation
Ask for feedback
Reward improvement
Set clear goals
To keep employees at their best, it is necessary to communicate your expectations in clear
language. Employees need to understand their work assignments, duties, responsibilities and
result and how to achieve them. Provide consistent feedback to help them make sense of their
objectives.
Invest in employee development
Employees need to update their skills and knowledge continuously to contribute effectively to
the organization. Rather than simply setting performance goals, empower employees by
investing in their development to help them achieve career objectives while moving the company
closer to its goals.
Perform regular employee evaluations
To improve employee performance, you need to appraise them regularly. Regular performance
evaluations will show your staff what they need to do to meet their goals. This can encourage
employees to dedicate themselves to achieving personal and organizational objectives.
Individualize employee motivation
Employees have diverse personalities that require different styles of leadership and motivation.
Try to understand your employees and the best way to approach each individual to improve their
performance. By knowing your employees’ individual strengths and weaknesses, you can help
them attain better outcomes by placing them in positions where they can maximize their talents
and experiences.
Ask for feedback
Many of the issues making your employees underperform may be out of their control. This
makes it vital to always ask for their feedback and suggestions on how to improve working
conditions and increase productivity. Listening to employees’ concerns can help management
identify easier ways of solving problems, improve workplace relationship and boost the
achievement of organizational goals.
Reward improvement
Another way to boost performance is to reward employees who achieve their goals. Rewards can
take the form of gifts, bonuses, verbal praise and promotions. The point is to demonstrate your
appreciation of their commitment to the organization.
How to measure the right thing
Measuring employee performance requires knowing the right metrics to track. Here are examples
of the most important points to consider when assessing employee performance:
1. Work execution: One of the best ways to measure employee performance is to evaluate
their level of execution. You want to measure their ability to prioritize, delegate and
manage time effectively to get things done.
2. Work quality: The quality of work is another crucial indicator of employee performance.
It is important for teams to deliver products and services that meet the requirements and
specifications of the company and end-users. If there are lapses in production or delivery
timelines, performance evaluation can help identify problems and provide solutions.
3. Punctuality: Late coming and absenteeism are signs of an underperforming employee.
High-achieving employees know how to manage their resources to deliver projects on
time and on budget. If an employee has difficulty keeping to time, it is best to find out
whether the issues are work-related or personal and look for ways to help the person
achieve peak performance.
4. Attitude: The attitude of an employee can be a strong indicator of their performance
level. People with a positive attitude often find it easy to collaborate, communicate,
accept feedback and criticism and learn on the job. These qualities improve their ability
to deliver higher results. However, employees who can’t follow rules, disrespect
colleagues and display insubordinate behavior may find it difficult to meet their work
objectives.
5. Personal habits: Personal habits can affect employee performance positively and
negatively. Employees who engage in unacceptable behavior and use company property
for non-work-related activities such as social media may be incapable of delivering on
their goals. This makes it vital to have a behavioral code that will guide employee
conduct to maintain order and improve performance in the workplace.
6. Creativity: Creativity is another important performance metric. This can involve
discovering new ways of performing duties or learning new skills. You can encourage
employees to practice critical thinking to improve their ability to come up with novel
ideas for solving the company’s problems.
7. Sales revenue: The number of sales an employee generates is a key indicator of their
performance. An employee who consistently meets sales and revenue quotas can move
the company towards its goals. Such high-achieving people can teach others how to
achieve better results for improved performance.
8. Customer and peer feedback: Employees who receive positive feedback from
customers and colleagues will likely have good performance records. The opposite is
often true if customers and peers always complain about the conduct of an employee.
Metrics to Gauge Employee Performance
A company is only as good as the talent behind it. Consistently and accurately evaluating and
measuring employee performance is essential not only to individual success, but also to the
overall success of an organization.
That being the case, you’d think more companies would actively analyze their HR data.<56
percent of people teams hope to incorporate more data in their processes in 2018 a 10 percent
jump from last year. The question is, exactly how<do<you measure employee work performance?
Many companies tend to take the more-is-better approach when it comes to measuring work
performance, evaluating talent across a wide (often<too<wide) range of qualities, skills,
competencies, etc. But where employee performance metrics are concerned, less is more.
In an effort to accurately gauge the performance level of your employees, consider scaling down
from too many subpar measurements to these four tried-and-true talent performance metrics.
From assessing quality of work to individual goals, reviewing employee performance on an
individual level will help you form an accurate understanding of how your talent stacks up to the
rest of your organization. Here are four employee performance metrics you should measure at
your business:<
1. Quality of Work
Quality trumps quantity especially when you consider employee productivity. Sure, meeting
deadlines is important and does reflect on individual performance, but if what’s being produced
is of lower quality, meeting deadlines takes a back seat. Ideally, you want employees who do it
right the first time.
How to measure employee performance with quality of work:Measuring the quality of
someone’s work is subjective. What and how you measure is very dependent on the industry
you’re in and the specific duties and tasks of the employee. One thing to consider, however, is
the percentage of work output that is rejected or must be redone. With<talent management
software<you can gain more insight into individual performance by viewing the status
of<onboarding for new hires, 360-degree performance reviews for existing staff, and more.
2. Employee Efficiency
An efficient employee is able to maximize their productivity with minimum effort and expense.
Costly mistakes are few and far between, deadlines are met and quality of work is not sacrificed.
They neither waste time nor effort. Simply put, they get the job done and done well.
How to measure employee performance through efficiency:To measure individual efficiency,
try conducting team assessments. Team assessments can provide an in-depth evaluation of a
team’s ability to meet goals, as well as identify challenges. Additionally, communicating with
the people with whom an employee works on a day-to-day basis can give you valuable insight on
how an employee is performing—insight you might not otherwise get.
Is your employee efficiency slipping? Something as easy as encouraging employees to take more
breaks or even<more vacation can reduce burnout<and<improve employee productivity<and
happiness. Employee unhappiness may be contributing to lower productivity levels. Try
measuring<employee net promoter score<to learn how your employees feel about your
organization and leadership. Low morale or a poor company culture may be the underlying
culprits behind low employee efficiency scores.
3. Training Programs
Invest in your employees, and they’ll invest in you it’s that simple.<Learning and development
programs<are essential to help employees grow professionally, improve their job satisfaction, and
reach peak performance. Millennials are now the largest generation in the modern workforce and
they are changing the way companies look at training programs. More and more<millennial
workers have an appetite to learn<and grow professionally, and companies need to adapt their
L&D strategies to attract and retain top talent.
However, providing formal training, attending professional development events, bringing in
industry leaders for lunch-and-learns, and other such employee development opportunities can be
costly. And sometimes, training for training’s sake is not a wise use of company resources.
Fortunately, the success of those development opportunities can be argued via their return on
investment.
4. Individual Goals
Employee goals speak for themselves. Whether or not an employee is meeting his or her
individual work goals can tell you a lot about how they’re performing, even if you’re not able to
interact with them on a daily basis. To gain the most insight when measuring work performance,
help your employees<set goals that are measurable and timely<(i.e. set realistic quarterly goals).
How to measure performance against individual goals:The best time to discuss individual
work goals is during performance appraisals. Scratch the<annual performance review<and,
instead, meet with the employee in a casual, one-on-one setting on a quarterly or more frequent
basis. This<ongoing feedback<model is the perfect time for managers to bring up performance and
evaluate employee goal-setting and achievements.<<
Situation
As the Lead Supervisor over the department of Human resources, the manager and I have
decided to evaluate the job performance of 5 employees. Business expansion is going into
consideration and for these 5 employees and promotions are in the air. The main vision is
focused on the overall success of the company, and how well the employees are meeting
organizational goals.
