Industrial-Organizational Psychology Learning Module

Evaluating Work

Performance

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Lesson Objectives
At the end of this lecture, you should:

Know why evaluating work performance is important Know how I/O psychologists help people evaluate work performance Understand one approach to developing evaluation tools

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Why does evaluating work performance matter?

Helps people do their jobs better Identifies training and education needs Assigns people to work they can do well Maintains fairness in salaries, benefits, promotion, hiring, and firing

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Evaluation Helps People Do Their Jobs Better

Most workers want to know how they are doing on the job Workers need performance feedback to work effectively
timely,

accurate, constructive feedback is key to effective performance motivational strategies such as goal setting depend upon regular performance updates

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Evaluation Helps Identify Training Needs

Critical for identifying training needs

shows

individual strengths shows development opportunities

Jobs change, markets change, and the competition changes

most

workers will have more than one career and frequent need to develop new skills

Organizations thrive when workers value lifelong learning

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Evaluation Helps Assign People to Appropriate Work

People are hired to do one job...

but

they may eventually become more suited for a different job many people also develop areas of expertise on their jobs: activities at which they excel

Performance evaluation systems help manage these changes

to

identify individuals for promotion to facilitate lateral transfers

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Evaluation Facilitates Fairness in Important Decisions

Rewarding good performance

merit-based promotions

salary and benefits

Addressing poor performance

firing

decisions

Requires accurate measurement of how well people do their jobs Issues that are NOT job related must be ignored by the evaluation system
Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Examples of Important Decisions

Many court battles are fought because of discrimination in the workplace

Example:

Rountree v. Department of Agriculture Example: Hopkins v. Price-Waterhouse

Performance evaluation is often at the center of these disputes I/O psychologists ensure the evaluation process is fair and help companies avoid these kinds of legal problems
Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

How do I/O psychologists help evaluate work performance?

Identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other qualities necessary for performance Create standards for performance: What is acceptable, or good, or excellent? Train supervisors to:
observe/evaluate

performance accurately focus on only job-relevant issues

Study why and how rating errors happen

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Exercise: Evaluate Your Boss

Think of your boss and the things he or she does at work On a blank piece of paper, choose one or two dimensions of work performance from the following list:
Training

others Planning work for others Assigning tasks to others Scheduling people Observing others work
Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Exercise: Evaluate Your Boss

Next, for each area/dimension you have chosen, write three sentences
Sentence

A: Give an example of very poor performance in this area Sentence B: Give an example of acceptable performance in this area Sentence C: Give an example of excellent performance in this area

Make a rating scale from 1 to 5, where 1 corresponds to sentence A, 3 to sentence B, and 5 to sentence C
Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Example: Scheduling People

1 - Often forgets to tell people when he has made changes to the shift schedule. 23 - Gives people a choice of shifts, whenever possible. 45 - Plans shifts so that no one person always ends up working the bad shift.
Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Exercise: Make your rating

Using your example statements as a guide, make a rating of your boss on the scale you designed. In an actual work setting, I/O psychologists would spend much time and effort with workers and supervisors to make sure that:
All

of the performance areas made sense for the job being rated All of the example statements fit the areas All of the scale values were fair
Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998

Conclusions

Performance evaluation is an important issue both for companies and for workers With careful design and appropriate use, performance evaluations can support productivity and fair allocation of rewards Industrial-organizational psychologists specialize in making sure that performance evaluations are designed correctly

Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP 1998