At 08:46 AM 2/4/98 -0500, you wrote:
... snip ...
>The owner of the company is very sensitive to
>rewarding deserving employees and is concerned for the
>happiness of his employees. He realizes that if someone is
>miserable at work, they will not produce at their maximum.
... that's a great start!
>He wants to initiate a new performance evaluation process that is
>innovative, fair, and motivating.
... snip ...
In [very brief] response to your questions about innovation and evaluating
attitude, I'd try it this way:
0. I'd seriously consider enlisting the assistance of one or two facilitators
1. Convene the employees for approx. 3 hrs. of uninterrupted time, say a
full morning
2. As you will see from my sig, i'd advocate using an electronic group
decision support system or GDSS. This exercise is perfect for the use of
technology.
3. Pick a given discipline or area and ask the employees to brainstorm all
functions, work activities, processes. Work with them to focus on a
discrete function at a time.
4. Have the employees then assign criteria to each function (after
distilling the list to the key functions/activities) that represent a clear
indication that the job, function or activity has been completed.
5. Ask employees to ascribe a character, letter or number to the qualifiers,
such as -
not completed
completed but needs to be refined/polished/checked
completed satisfactorily, i.e., on time and with acceptable
quality
completed in exemplary fashion
and so on...
6. Ask employees to describe what they think they need in order to be able
to perform to the highest standard. This is an opportunity for managers and
supervisors to participate in the exercise, to ensure that no key function
gets left out. You can expect to hear things such as, proper training; the
correct tools for the job; a clean and safe work environment; properly
performed predecessor activities and functions; well-trained co-workers...
I think it is incumbent upon the organization to provide these latter things
if there is an expectation that the work is to be done in the best way
possible. The commitment should be very public and sincere. This doesn't
automatically mean that employees shouldn't be encouraged to optimize
existing resources. But the effort to work together toward getting the
right tools and training (quite possibly a substantial expense) is a major
indicator that you are partners in the enterprise.
This is a very rough, very incomplete example of management deferring
authority to the collective wisdom of the people actually doing the work.
There is clearly room to insert additional items in and among those noted
above. Owner/senior management can take this opportunity to demonstrate a
profound interest in what the employees have to say about the activities
that they apparently have performed successfully enough to be able to grow
to the extent they have. You can allay fears that with growth may come a
distancing from the ways of earlier days.
With respect to measuring attitude, I'd say that once you demonstrate
allegiance to the shop floor smarts of the people who do the work, you can
be relatively assured that you will receive honest answers to concerns about
morale, needs, and culture issues that go to how people feel about working
there.
In a nutshell, I believe that 'good attitude' is a function of respect for
individual input. I wouldn't ask about attitude until I had demonstrated
that I really care; and that demonstration only comes with the kinds of
things I mentioned above. If an employee's workplace experience is
enriching and rewarding because it is at least partly a creature of his/her
own making, then that elusive intangible - attitude - will be reflective.
The only other thing (Brother! If this is brief, I wonder what a
comprehensive response would look like?!) - the actual evaluation process
should be one of no surprises; one that is ongoing, i.e., not come out of
nowhere once a year; one in which the individual has had an opportunity to
participate and comment; one that is clearly dedicated to determining clear
and predetermined indicators of work-related progress; and one that
demonstrates respect in the time and setting of the actual evaluation meeting.
John
_______________________________________________________
Prins Associates planning group process facilitation
prins.assoc@worldnet.att.net electronic meetings
Advanced Technology for More Productive Work Groups