Measuring Results and Behaviors

Question 1

Measuring results involve

Answer 1

o Determining Accountabilities
o Determining Objectives
o Determining Performance Standards

Question 2

Measuring Behaviors involve

Answer 2

o Comparative Systems
o Absolute Systems

Question 3

Steps to Measuring results

Answer 3

1. identify accountabilities.
2. set objectives for each
3. determining per- formance standards. These yardsticks are designed to help people understand to what extent the objective has been achieved. In creating standards, we must consider the dimensions of quality, quantity, and time.

Question 4

What are accountabilities?

Answer 4

Accountabilities are the various areas in which an individual is expected to focus.

Question 5

Objectives should be (10):

Answer 5

(1) specific and clear,
(2) challenging,
(3) agreed upon,
(4) significant,
(5) prioritized,
(6) bound by time,
(7) achievable,
(8) fully communicated,
(9) flexible, and
(10) limited in number.

Question 6

Good standards are: (6)

Answer 6

(1) related to the position;
(2) concrete, specific, and measurable;
(3) practical to measure;
(4) meaningful;
(5) realistic and achievable; and
(6) reviewed regularly.

Question 7

Steps in measuring performance adopting a behavior approach

Answer 7

1. identifying competencies
2. identifying indicators that will allow us to understand the extent to which each individual possesses the competency in question.
3. choose an appropriate measurement system, either comparative or absolute.

Question 8

What are Competencies?

Answer 8

Competencies are measurable clusters of KSAs that are critical in determining how results will be achieved. Examples of competencies are customer service, written or oral communication, creative thinking, and dependability.

Question 9

Indicators are:

Answer 9

behavioral manifestations of the underlying (unobservable) competency.

Question 10

How to describe a competency (4)

Answer 10

1. clearly define it,
2. describe behavioral indicators showing the presence of the competency
3. describe behavioral indicators showing the absence of the competency
4. list suggestions for developing the competency.

Question 11

What are comparative systems?

Answer 11

Comparative systems base the measurement on comparing employees with one another and include simple rank order, alternation rank order, paired comparisons, relative percentile, and forced distribution.

Question 12

Benefit of Comparative systems

Answer 12

Comparative systems are easy to explain, and the resulting data are easy to interpret, thereby facilitating administrative decisions.

Question 13

Drawbacks of Comparative systems

Answer 13

Employees are usually compared to one another in terms of one overall single category instead of in terms of specific behaviors or compe- tencies. This produces less useful feed- back that employees can use for their future improvement.

Question 14

What are absolute systems?

Answer 14

Absolute systems include evaluations of employees’ performance without mak- ing direct reference to other employees. Such systems include essays, behavior checklists, critical incidents, and graphic rating scales.

Question 15

Essays

Answer 15

A supervisor writes an essay describing each employee’s strengths and weaknesses and makes suggestions for improvement.Are difficult to quantify but produce useful and often detailed feedback.

Question 16

Behavior checklists

Answer 16

Are easy to use and understand, but the scale points used are often arbitrary, and we cannot assume that a one-point difference has the same meaning along the entire scale (i.e., the difference between an employee who scores 5 and an employee who scores 4 may not have the same meaning as the difference between an employee who scores 3 and one who scores 2).

Question 17

Critical incidents

Answer 17

The critical incidents measurement approach involves gathering reports of situations in which employees exhibited behaviors that were especially effective or ineffective in accomplishing their jobs. Critical incidents allow supervisors to focus on actual job behavior rather than on vaguely defined traits, but gathering critical incident data may be quite time consuming.

Question 18

Graphic rating scales

Answer 18

Graphic rating scales are arguably the measure- ment method most frequently used to assess performance. For this type of measurement to be most useful, the meaning of each response category should be clear, the individual interpreting the rat- ings (e.g., the human resources manager) should be able to tell clearly what response was intended, and the per- formance dimension being rated should be defined clearly for the rater.