Anne Barry writes:
I have a friend, who believe it or not does not have access to the
Internet yet, but is the new Human Resources Manager at a small
manufacturing company of 50+ people. This is a brand new
position that was created because they reached the 50 employee
mark. The business is expanding rapidly due to the high demand
of their product. 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.
He wants to initiate a new performance evaluation process that is
innovative, fair, and motivating. One of the areas they are
examining for evaluation is attitude. Do you go beyond the call of
duty? If you have free time, do you look for other ways to help
within the company, looking at the whole of the company instead
of just your job?
So, here are my questions:
1. Does anyone know of a performance evaluation process that
has been successful, or one that is very innovative, maybe
includes attitude measurement?
2. How can you measure attitude?
Lots of people will claim to know of successful performance evaluation or
appraisal systems and just as many or more will be quick to attack those
claims -- and performance appraisal systems in general. You might go out
to the web site indicated below and print copies of a couple of papers
you'll find there. One has to do with scrapping performance appraisal
systems (because their costs far outweigh their benefits), the other has
some ideas about what to do if you scrap it (or don't put one in place to
begin with).
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
As for measuring attitude, you can't -- at least not directly. Attitude is
an attribute; it is based on patterns we spot in others' behavior. You're
better off focusing on behavior patterns you'd like to see displayed and
recognize that "attitudes" are fabrications used to account for observed
behavior.
Fred Nickols, Executive Director
Strategic Planning & Management Services
Educational Testing Service, Mail Stop 09-C
Princeton, NJ 08541
Tel = 609.734.5077
Fax = 609.734.5590
e-mail =
fnickols@ets.org