Assignment

Determining Performance Guided by Metrics

Performance Management.

Think back to the last time you received an evaluation in your current position. Was it within the last six months or a year? Were you evaluated on clearly defined and measurable performance goals? Consider the evaluation marks you received. Do you believe you received an appropriate review?

Organizations continue to progress toward measurable performance reviews for their employees. Senior leadership sets the cornerstone of measurement by setting the overall goals for an organization and department. By pairing departmental goals with the vision and mission of an organization, senior leadership can help to ensure employees continue to grow and perform to the desired expectations of their management team.

This week, you examine the behavioral factors organizations use to evaluate employee performance. You evaluate different metrics used for performance evaluation and appropriate metric goals for employee evaluation and assessment.

Discussion: Performance Metrics

Performance is frequently measured based on applied metrics. Consider the performance of a baseball team. The team's success is measured by its ability to win games relative to the other teams in its division. When we analyze the performance of individual players on the team, we are using applied metrics. Each player is given a batting average, which can be calculated in its simplest form by dividing the individual's number of hits by his or her number of attempts at bat to get the "Batting Average" (Hits / At Bats = Batting Avg). So if player John Smith gets 202 hits during a season where he has 546 attempts at bat, his batting average would calculate out to .370. Similar calculations and averages can be used to measure employee performance that is more appropriate to an organization.

Reflect on a past work experience where your performance was reviewed and identify three behaviors that were evaluated. In examining the behaviors, which do you feel were task or contextual behaviors? In preparing your response, answer the following questions:

• How appropriate or effective were the metrics that were employed for these behaviors?
• How would you have improved the metrics?
• If there were no metrics in place, which metrics would you suggest? Justify your response.

Be specific and provide examples with references to this week's literature.