Work Performance Assessment

The author of "Performance Appraisal Reappraised" participated in designing a study on best practices in performance appraisal for the American Productivity and Quality Center. During this work, the author learned that contrary to expectations, the public sector offered creative approaches to performance appraisals from which private sector enterprises could learn.

Specifically, the Air Force research lab on Dayton put together a performance appraisal system based on how each job contributes to the overall mission of the lab. Individuals are drawn toward those tasks which are difficult, but which offer a significant potential for personal and professional reward (the lab has also structured its pay system around its performance assessment and the value of each job to the lab's operation). This assessment program was developed by the scientists who work at the lab (in other words, by the individuals who are subjected to the assessments) (Grote, 2000).

In Minnesota, the state department of transportation also reworked its performance assessment program to bring it in line with department's mission and strategic plan. A team composed of workers, supervisors and support staff reviewed the goals and objectives of the department, and identified the job skills necessary to meet those objectives. The skills were initially given vague titles, such as "leadership," but the team then spent a considerable amount of time detailing the specific characterist

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strategic plan. Again, the system was homegrown, created by a team of pothole fillers, their bosses, and support staff. The team reviewed the agency's goals and values and identified the skills the staff would need to fulfill them - leadership, organizational knowledge, technical know-how, strategic thinking, and so on. Instead of merely defining what those terms meant, however, the team members wrote concrete descriptions of what an employee would actually need to do to exemplify each one. Those behaviors defined the profile of what the team calls a "true master." What behaviors might we see in a master of organizational knowledge? According to the team's descriptions, a true master of organizational knowledge: * understands the agency's culture; * can accurately explain the agency's organizational structure, major products and services, and the contributions of different parts of the organization; * gets work done through formal channels and informal networks; * understands and can explain the origin and reasoning behind key policies, practices, and procedures; * understands, accepts, and communicates political realities and implications. By using the set of master profiles as the yardstick for all of its employee apprai

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