The contemporary job requires performance evaluation

By Simon J Mone

The New Year is upon us and we have big expectations. Hopefully we can make great strides towards better performance on the job. And stay away from the mistakes of past years. So we enter through the gates of 2017 bringing with us fresh ideas for success, for achievement and for better job output.

Fresh ideas because we must depart from mediocrity of old paradigms (of closely monitoring employee presence more than their job output) and get into the largest room ever - room for improvement.

As if to seem that employees who stay at work stations 100% of the time (eight hours a day and forty hours a week), make the most significant contributions to their job. And thus during performance appraisals, employees who post 100% attendance get the highest score. It is an olden day practice which should change soon. It is time to depart from such an organisation culture.

Organisations are now adopting better employee evaluation systems for process improvement. Here, workers' performance evaluation is biased to outputs against initially pre-set performance objectives. This is the way to go now-a-days so do not stay behind.

Holding employees at gun-point will not necessarily deliver the required output. Of course certain job functions will need one to be present at station for the whole duration of the working shift - don't get me wrong! In some instances, an employee's 100 % presence on the job is of essence. But in the non-exceptional case (olden style), an employee who turns up at work at 8:00 am and leaves office at 5:00 pm is believed to be delivering the most productivity.

In the contemporary world, being glued on the desk is no longer guarantees good productivity. Employees that show up only to be stationary on the desk simply conform to contractual ritual, which seem to suggest that time is the most important measure of employee performance. Yes.

Time is of essence but should we not instead measure the time an employee take to complete a certain job task hand, rather than being there for an entire day with little to account for? Supervisors who have until now, refused to embrace employee performance based on output should take a deep look at themselves.

You want to prefer performance-based measurement since it is a progressive approach and managers plus their subordinates can be comfortable with. It uses a set of pre-determined performance criteria to lead organisations to the desired goals. It is efficient.

And supervisors can choose performance indicators that align with company's goals, and assessment methods that effectively appraise those indicators. Supervisors are able to improve the method of achieving what they set out to realise at the end of their reporting period.

The results tell a story about whether or not; an organisation is achieving its objectives. Efforts are re-directed to get nice results. In this way, the world will believe in the organisation's products and services. And supervisors are able to tell that the organisation's aims are being met or not and if customers are getting satisfaction.

Therefore, to you the old-fashioned supervisors, it is time to change the old approach. Better provide measurable objectives and get good outcomes from subordinates then be ready to give feedback for process improvement. A supervisors who don't do their part, lets down service provision, fails in their mentorship role of subordinates.

A supervisor who never mentors people kills job satisfaction. In 2017, let's pull up our sleeves and work better. Unfortunately, it is not easy to deal with this type of change.

But let's not remain stuck in the olden approach, at the expense of professionalism.

The writer is a civil engineer