Tips On Board Assessment Tools
If your organization does not have one, now is the perfect period to introduce a Program Evaluation system.
Why is this the opportune time for your organization to implement an outcomes management, (Program Evaluation) System?
Performance evaluation systems may be classified along a range of dimensions that capture variations within their structure, content, and process characteristics. Among-the most critical dimensions are the following:
Who/what is evaluated? Do we evaluate the individual, the workgroup, the division?
Who performs (and it has input into) the evaluation? Is it completed by each individual's immediate supervisor? Peers, subordinates, or customers? The amount input does the individual being evaluated has into the evaluation as well as in appealing the final results?
Time period: short to long. What will be the time-frame over which data are collected (either formally and objectively or informally) before evaluations are rendered?
Objective/formulaic versus subjective/impressionistic evaluations. In some cases, performance is measured very objectively, using unambiguous measures of distinct aspects of performance. One example is a salesperson could be scored on Euros sales, new customers developed, and increases in orders by old customers, and each one of these being put on some standard scale (e.g., standard deviations from the mean performance of salesmen within the organization) and after that weighted 40%, 40%, and 20%, respectively. Alternatively, employees in a facility could be evaluated and rated depending on the subjective overall impressions of their immediate superiors.
When objective or formulaic evaluations are used, there is the further issue of how closely tailored the formula must be to the specific situation of each individual. At one extreme, every similarly situated individual within the firm (say, every salesperson) is evaluated using the exact same rigid formula. The middle ground includes cases in which individuals are evaluated against their own previous performance; improvements are noted, however the same categories are utilized for each individual. At another extreme are systems by which each individual in each period has a specially tailored set of goals and objectives. A prime example of this really is management by objectives schemes, through which each individual takes part in designing his or her group of objectives.
Relative versus absolute performance. In certain instances, employees are evaluated on an absolute scale-for example, board effectiveness sales volume, units produced weekly, touchdowns scored, or dollar value of hours billed to clients. In other instances, performance is evaluated on some sort of relative basis, or performance is measured on a mixture of absolute and relative performance. Quite often, the benchmark that's used is the performance of other individuals, either within the organization or outside, who are presumed to face the same productive environment and constraints and to possess similar capability levels. In other cases, performance is measured relative to the individual's own previous performance.
Forced distribution versus unspecified percentages. When summary categories are used, a forced distribution (numerous percent in category 1, a lot of in category 2, etc.) may be employed, or perhaps the percentages may go unspecified. Remember that where forced distributions are used, there must be some sort of relative performance evaluation going on, even if only implicitly.
Multi-source versus single-source evaluation. In some systems, data are gathered entirely or largely from an individual source, such as the person's supervisor. Other evaluation systems gather performance appraisals from many sources-customers, peers, supervisors, and so on-where each source is asked to appraise those aspects of performance that the source can reasonably be expected to understand about.
Multi-criterion versus single summary statistic. In probably the majority of performance evaluation systems, all the data are ultimately massaged in to a single summary rating statistic of overall performance. Many dimensions of performance may enter into this statistic, but the final outcome is one dimensional. In certain other systems, there's absolutely no try to formulate just one statistic. Within the middle are systems where there is a summary statistic which is very coarse (just about everyone is within the same category), grading many dimensions.
