Industrial-Organizational Psychology Learning Module E valuating Work Performance Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998

Lesson Objectives n Know why evaluating work performance is important n Know how I/O psychologists help people evaluate work performance n Understand one approach to developing evaluation tools At the end of this lecture, you should: Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998

Why does evaluating work performance matter? n Helps people do their jobs better n Identifies training and education needs n Assigns people to work they can do well n 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 n Most workers want to know how they are doing on the job n Workers need performance feedback to work effectively u timely, accurate, constructive feedback is key to effective performance u 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 n Critical for identifying training needs u shows individual strengths u shows “development opportunities” n Jobs change, markets change, and the competition changes u most workers will have more than one career and frequent need to develop new skills n 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 n People are hired to do one job... u but they may eventually become more suited for a different job u many people also develop areas of expertise on their jobs: activities at which they excel n Performance evaluation systems help manage these changes u to identify individuals for promotion u to facilitate lateral transfers Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998

Evaluation Facilitates Fairness in Important Decisions n Rewarding good performance u merit-based salary and benefits u promotions n Addressing poor performance u firing decisions n Requires accurate measurement of how well people do their jobs n 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 n Many court battles are fought because of discrimination in the workplace u Example: Rountree v. Department of Agriculture u Example: Hopkins v. Price-Waterhouse n Performance evaluation is often at the center of these disputes n 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? n Identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other qualities necessary for performance n Create standards for performance: What is acceptable, or good, or excellent? n Train supervisors to: u observe/evaluate performance accurately u focus on only job-relevant issues n Study why and how rating errors happen Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998

Exercise: Evaluate Your Boss n Think of your boss and the things he or she does at work n On a blank piece of paper, choose one or two dimensions of work performance from the following list: u Training others u Planning work for others u Assigning tasks to others u Scheduling people u Observing others’ work Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998

Exercise: Evaluate Your Boss n Next, for each area/dimension you have chosen, write three sentences u Sentence A: Give an example of very poor performance in this area u Sentence B: Give an example of acceptable performance in this area u Sentence C: Give an example of excellent performance in this area n 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.” “Gives people a choice of shifts, whenever possible.” “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 n Using your example statements as a guide, make a rating of your boss on the scale you designed. n In an actual work setting, I/O psychologists would spend much time and effort with workers and supervisors to make sure that: u All of the performance areas made sense for the job being rated u All of the example statements fit the areas u All of the scale values were fair Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998

Conclusions n Performance evaluation is an important issue both for companies and for workers n With careful design and appropriate use, performance evaluations can support productivity and fair allocation of rewards n Industrial-organizational psychologists specialize in making sure that performance evaluations are designed correctly Prepared by the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - SIOP © 1998