Some Guidelines for Writing Performance Standards

1. Some Guidelines for Writing Performance Standards Randy Richards For JITI MBA HR

2. Standards should • Be objective and written for the position not the person. • Explain how well a job should be done. • Be written for the parts of the jobs that are the same and applied to all positions doing that task or function. • Be written for acceptable performance capable of being exceeded. • Focus on the key duties

3. General measures Quantity: How many Quality: How Well Timeliness: How Fast

4. Why bother? • To make expectations very clear to others. • The employee knows what it takes to succeed. • Good leaders maintain focus on getting the task completed. • To help in discussing the work with employees without getting into “personality”, “attitude”, etc • To provide for fair, objective appraisal of employee performance. • To give the employee a basis for self-evaluation and self-correction. • To include in job descriptions as identifying these as critical factors of performing the job – not just what but how well.

5. Quantity Standards • Quantity addresses how much work is produced • Items, tasks, projects completed • Customers served • Calls answered • Wigits out the door • Products produced • Hours logged

6. Quality Standards • Quality refers to accuracy, appearance, usefulness, or effectiveness • Accuracy • Expressed as a % • Consistency with professional protocols, procedural or operations manuals • Customer satisfaction • Complaint reports • Measurements • Resource management • Cost contained or reduced • Material conserved • Scrap reduced • Personnel retained • Space saved or gained • Budget adherence • Amount Growth • Stability maintained

7. Timeliness • Timeliness addresses how quickly, when or by what date the work is produced. • Dates • Days • Hour • Shift • As needed • After, within, by, no later than, as soon as . . .

8. Specific Measures • Measures that make up the actual standard • To develop specific measure(s): • Determine how you would measure the quantity, quality, timeliness. • If it can be measured with numbers, clearly define those numbers. • If performance only can be described (i.e., observed and verified), clarify who would be the best judge to appraise the work and what factors they would look for. • http://www.orau.gov/pbm/sample/sample.html • http://www.som.cranfield.ac.uk/som/cbp/products/catalogue.asp

9. Writing the standard • Acceptable level of performance • Desired behaviors or outcomes • Measures or verifiers of performance • As specific, objective, verifiable as possible • Margins for error or degree of perfection required. • Expressed in terms of an error rate, percentage of correct results required, etc.. • Practice with some of ours

10. May indicate levels • Solid performance consistently fulfills expectations and at times exceeds them. • Above expectations performance is consistently beyond expectations. • Exceptional performance well exceeds expectations and is consistently outstanding.

11. Q and A