Job Performance Standards / Measurements Creating meaningful, achievable, clearly stated, and measurable performance review criteria. By Darin Hanks

This subject is a tough one to cover in just a few paragraphs; without being there to facilitate discussion.  If I lose you, feel free to email me and we'll set-up a time to go over this one on one (for a fee of course, the boss gets mad if I work for free).  So grab a few important people, get to a dry-erase board (all of life's problems can be worked out on a dry-erase board) and work through the following for at least one position in your company.  Walk with me....talk with me.....

• Why was this POSITION (or job title) created?

• What is the expected financial return of the position?  In other words, how does the position profit the company?

If you've still decided to keep that position, let's proceed.

With the answers to those questions in mind; you are now ready to begin creating measurable standards. 

The answers to all of the "ASK" questions below should result in a statistical and objective response; meaning, convert all adjectives that you might be tempted to use such as "good", "perfect" etc. to numerical terms such as percentages or number ranges, to which you can apply a score.

To VERY quickly elaborate, "Good" is subject to opinion; "99%" is not.  Again, if you are not getting this in the brief room I have here, call me for personal coaching.

Now assuming you're with me....

• Think Job Knowledge; supervision required; level of expertise:  Ask:  How can I measure the expertise required to perform the tasks of this position?

• Think Productivity; efficiency; how long does it take the employee to complete assignments?  Ask:  How can we measure the rate of output?

• Think Quality; error-free work: Ask: What are the output defects for this position, and how can you measure the number of defects produced by an employee in this position?

• Think Customer Service; satisfied customers:  Ask: What is the indicator that an employee in this position is making customers (both internal and external) happy?

Congratulations!  You've just identified MEASUREMENTS.  Now let's set performance standards and assign ratings.

The areas for evaluation we have identified are: Job Knowledge, Productivity, Quality, and Customer Service. For all of the areas identified, you should now have at least one measurement for each. Try to limit your inspected/managed standards to two per area.  This will keep oversight from going into overkill or micro-management.

The next step is to create ratings.  For each of your measurements, set ratings/scores that indicate 3 levels of performance: MEETING STANDARDS, NEEDS IMPROVEMENT, and EXCEEDS STANDARDS.

For example, let's say that your response the question related to productivity was: "One way of measuring the productivity of a person in this position is to look at the number of packages labeled for shipment."

Example ratings for that response are:

10-15 Per hour = MEETS STANDARDS

1-9 Per Hour = NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

16+ Per Hour = EXCEEDS STANDARDS

Go ahead and create ratings for all of your measurements...

Now...let's put your work to test and see if you've created objective standards.  To test your ratings...

Consider an employee that is performing the job that you have used to do these exercises, then rate their productivity.

• Could the employee logically or reasonably disagree with your ratings?  In other words, were any of your ratings subject to opinion?

• If the answer is "Yes" to the above question, go back to the drawing board - a performance standard must not be subjective.

• Are your standards Meaningful, Achievable, Clearly Stated, and Measurable?

Performance Evaluation Template HRIT offers templates you can use as suggested in our tutorial. Price:  $19.99 An editable six-section Employee Evaluation Form; a template for formally reviewing job performance in the areas of Job Knowledge, Customer Service, Productivity, and Quality. Also included are one page of tips on writing a Performance Review.   All HR Forms