11 Ways to Measure Employees’ Performance

Once an annual ritual, performance appraisal has become a continuous process by which an employee’s understanding of a company’s goals and his or her progress toward contributing to them are measured. Performance measurement is an ongoing activity for all managers and their subordinates.
Performance measurement uses the following indicators of performance, as well as assessments of those indicators.

1. Quantity: The number of units produced, processed or sold is a good objective indicator of performance. Be careful of placing too much emphasis on quantity, lest quality suffer.

2. Quality: The quality of work performed can be measured by several means. The percentage of work output that must be redone or is rejected is one such indicator. In a sales environment, the percentage of inquiries converted to sales is an indicator of salesmanship quality.

3. Timeliness: How fast work is performed is another performance indicator that should be used with caution. In field service, the average customer’s downtime is a good indicator of timeliness. In manufacturing, it might be the number of units produced per hour.

4. Cost-Effectiveness: The cost of work performed should be used as a measure of performance only if the employee has some degree of control over costs. For example, a customer-service representative’s performance is indicated by the percentage of calls that he or she must escalate to more experienced and expensive reps.

5. Absenteeism/Tardiness: An employee is obviously not performing when he or she is not at work. Other employees’ performance may be adversely impacted by absences, too.

6. Creativity: It can be difficult to quantify creativity as a performance indicator, but in many white-collar jobs, it is vitally important. Supervisors and employees should keep track of creative work examples and attempt to quantify them.

7. Gossip and Other Personal Habits: They may not seem performance-related to the employee, but some personal habits, like gossip, can detract from job performance and interfere with the performance of others. The specific behaviors should be defined, and goals should be set for reducing their frequency.

8. Personal Appearance/Grooming: Most people know how to dress for work, but in many organizations, there is at least one employee who needs to be told. Examples of inappropriate appearance and grooming should be spelled out, their effects upon the employee’s performance and that of others explained, and corrective actions defined.

9. Team Appraisal: Similar to peer appraisal in that members of a team, who may hold different positions, are asked to appraise each other’s work and work styles. This approach assumes that the team’s objectives and each member’s expected contribution have been clearly defined.

10. Assessment Center: The employee is appraised by professional assessors who may evaluate simulated or actual work activities. Objectivity is one advantage of assessment centers, which produce reviews that are not clouded by personal relationships with employees.

11. MBO (Management by Objectives): The employee’s achievement of objective goals set in concert with his or her manager is assessed. The MBO process begins with action statements such as, “reduce rejected parts to 5 percent.” Ongoing monitoring and review of objectives keeps the employee focused on achieving goals. At the annual review, progress toward objectives is assessed, and new goals are set.