BOLA: Staff Appraisal

Staff Appraisal

Concern for Competence

"Competence-based" appraisal involves managers defining required elements of competence for the job or group of jobs e.g. all jobs in a call centre and then comparing the employee's ability against these. An employing organisation, as part of its review of mission and declaration of what it does best (its core competences - after Peters and Waterman), may define generic core competencies that the firm wants to see all organisational members displaying and striving towards. Staff appraisal schemes based onsuch cultural imperatives, tend to generalise on the competence statements as theese must cover widely different jobs e.g. all jobs or those in an IT or marketing function. We can also find instances where schemes incorporate flexibility - enabling the appraiser at least to state the extent to which "the competence" is relevant to the job.

The design of such staff appraisal schemes reveals how managers, and human resource managers, in particular seek to determine required behaviour in the organisation. The schemes present and circulate organisational values against which the behaviour of employees can be monitored in ways that are considered objective (objectivised) but which in essence are subjective, unilateral and managerial.

What is Competence Anyway?

Definitions of what competence is are legion.

Competencies are subjectively defined aggregates of understanding and ability perceived to be required for performance in a given setting. Mastery in performance depends on the context and the level of performance expected by the audience and director of the performance. The level of mastery can range from simple to complex, novice to advanced, routinised or ab initio (cope with whatever comes up using the general abilities you have).

Boyatsis (l982, p. 2l) for the managerial role defines a competence as:

'an underlying characteristic of a person which results in effective and/or superior performance in a job'.

Whether gutting a haddock, plumbing in a new domestic central heating system, singing a Mozart aria, writing a poem about staff appraisal or quality assuring a major software project, either you can

do it to a standard or
you can do some of it to the standard or
you can't do it.

Of course someone else has "defined the standard".

Ingredients and Cooks

A good cookbook will list the ingredients. But what are the ingredients of a competence? Can a competence be isolated or is it integral to the whole person? Will a statement of competence vary according to the season or the whim of the powerful.

Competencies in a staff appraisal are typically defined by someone (or a group)

analysing a group of similar jobs involving similar work and their key responsibilities and tasks and then listing
- behaviours or actions
  - things that the employee who has mastery of the job (competent performance) will be able to demonstrate they can do to the required level or standard of competence.

If all jobs vary substantially then we will try to define "generic" competences for all staff (just operations level staff or do we also include the most senior controlling managers?) that are thought essential to the overall success of the business operation. We then build a processing scheme around these. The examples are everywhere of steps, meetings, interviews, form filling, follow-up requirements, appeals routes and other checks and balances. To demonstrate this, visit www.google.com and do a search on "staff appraisal". (www.google.com)

A Customer Service - Example.

In giving customer service, one competence-related action might be

to act in ways that minimise the occurence of complaints or returned goods.

All sales staff might be expected to do things to limit this. The designer/author of an appraisal scheme now has to be aware of best practice and articulate examples. We would train and require staff to follow such best practice guidelines which might be reflected in:

remaining calm and not going "off-your-trolley" when a customer breathes fire at you.
advising the customer properly in the first instance about the features of the merchandise or service and what they are entitled to and not entitled to
noting and analysing trends and patterns in the return of goods and the range of customer grumbles and complaints. Communicating/reporting these to management.
examining returned goods, repackaging, repricing and reshelving
adjusting stock records
completing the return of goods procedures ensuring that customer receipts are checked
handling customers smoothly and with a smile at the point of return and them of reasons why particular returned goods can or cannot be accepted.

All - straightforward and inoccuous.

One size for all? Weighing the competence elements of the job

So those who define generic or specific competences for all staff, or a staff category e.g. technicians, supervisors, sales assistants , generalise when formulating the set of statements. We can try varius methods of obtaining consensus view from a representative group of what the competencies and required standards are (a synthesis of a group view). These must adequately reflect the target jobs. We end up with abstract wording so that the definition can be applied across the different job situations.

Relevant or not relevant to my job.

The device of asking the appraiser and appraisee to rate or weight the importance of particular competencies in the job is also often used. Clearly some competencies may be more or less important in some jobs than others. This device reflects an acceptance that at the individual and job level - flexibility of interpretation is needed or else the general statements will not satisfy the parties . The competence (or objectives/target) descriptions will out of line with what the job is really like bringing a lack of credibility to the scheme itself.

Exercise

Evaluate Appraisal Form 4 and note where/how weighting/rating is used for a complex appraisal format.

The range of situations

It is important to note also the contexts (typical situations) in which the behaviours and actions occur e.g.

under pressure, in front of customers, in the early hours of the morning, under situations of high or low risk, staff shortage or where the person has just started the new job.

The problem of decomposition of competencies

In our search for the semblence of "scientific accuracy and objectivity", we can divide and divide the elements of a job. As we atomise, our statements of a particular behaviour will overlap. The sub-components become too numerous to handle by people - appraiser and appraisee who will make subjective judgements anyway and be variable and fallible as we know people are in doing so.

The skills and understandings involved in taking one action will be generic to many other actions. Can the generic skills of reading, writing, talking, listening, adding up, smiling, remaining calm - all be assumed for a task or would we include these in our competence definitions? Perhaps we can have a separate category of "generic, transferable skills".

This quickly becomes a voluminous, nit-picking, specify-until-you-are-blue-in-the face approach. For those who persist with it, (as the UK government did in spending tens of millions of public funds to define national, occupational standards of competence - NVQs). The knack in specifying competencies is to identify actions that are significant and representative of the key tasks of the job.

At a high level we may be able to define an elegant, sublimely apposite statement of a complex competence. If we persist in decomposition we can drill down to a ridiculous level and for a simple job have many pages of competence statements. At some point, we must stop decomposing because we are going too far - into too much detail. Yet - some low level but high risk tasks may be important enough to define as, in doing so, we articulate the standard and/or the method that must be used to complete and control it.

Can elements of competence include

a trait ?

a quality that a person has, such as a trait of

"stoicism" - making virtue the highest good with control over the passions and indifference to pleasure and pain or
efficaciousness - desirous of producing results, being in control of future and fate. When encountering a problem, taking an initiative to resolve it, rather than wait for others to do it.

a motive?

- drives or impulses related to a particular goal, such as an achievement need to improve and compete against a standard of excellence. The motivated condition and behaviour would be the trait.

a skill?

ability to demonstrate a set of functional behaviours - innate or learnt- related to attaining a performance goal. Being able to diagnose faults in a car engine is a skill. It requires the sequenced ability to identify conditions and actions, which relate to and have the capacity to resolve a specific problem (objective). It also involves being able to identify potential obstacles and accessing sources of know-how in overcoming them. The skill can be generic to different situations. The ability just to change the sparking plugs is an ability only to perform that action.

a person's self-image?

Does competence have anything to do with confidence and willingness - the understanding we have of ourselves and an assessment of where we stand e.g. given the values held dear in our environment. For example: 'I am creative and innovative. I am expressive and I care about others.' (All traits) In a job requiring routine work and self-discipline, these statements might be evaluated by "the subject" as 'I am creative and innovative but too expressive - I open my mouth too much and it gets me into trouble. I care about others but give myself to them so much that others say I lack a degree of self-discipline.'

a person's social role?

How do competencies relate to one's perception of accepted and expeted social norms and behaviours that the person needs to adopt in order to fit in to a group or power setting. It may be that the role setting requires the person e.g. a member of a respected professional association to demonstrate deep understanding and ability to manipulate a body of knowledge.

If the above possibilities are representative of how competencies may be defined then:

which are learnt? How are they learnt? How can they be nurtured/developed?
how are the modified once learnt and when situations change?
how can they be measured? Some but not all? Should they be measured and what are the problems of measurement?

Neglect of Knowledge

If competence reflects "know-how", mastery of something - then we might be able to observe the assembly of behaviours - the "competence" - being performed. But we do not "see" the underpinning knowledge and cognitive level and ability that is required. - we can merely assume it from the behaviour.

A weakness of the competence analysis and classification approach to the design of appraisal schemes is that the knowledge-base tends to be less than adequately addressed. The London taxi driver like the doctor is examinined on :"the Knowledge" before they are allowed to practice. the facts, concepts, comprehension of relationships, "elements-in-the-thought-process" and stock of knowledge and understanding matters - . This neglect, and the over-specifying of occupational competencies, is a major criticism of the UK's NVQ system.

Current competence vs development

A major criticims of the NVQ approach to competence appraisal is that only current skills and abilities are being considered wit hthe assumption of competent "at a level". The person is ticked off against a checklist. They can either demonstrate (present evidence) that they can perform as illustrated by the statements of competence or not.

The competence appraisal is thus backward looking looking at historical data . This must be current and sufficient to cover the number of aspects of competence being considered and of a type that is at the right level of complexity etc (this brings its own problems in that a historical account is difficult to narrate in terms of all the situational variables). The assessor has to be able to say, "but this account is not enough for me to be able to judge whether you really can do it or not".

Furthermore, if the competence can be demonstrated it is a competence of now and of yesterday. I may lapse in the future through lack of practice or interest. My scope for future development and my progress in walking this path are not considered. I more on to another job - then apart from my "transferable skills" (accreditation of prior learning (certificated or experience based) , I may have to present myself for a test of competence relating to the new job.

Implementing Competence-based Appraisal

Having considered some of the issues now evaluate some examples of appraisal forms to see how the competencies approach has been adopted:

how have the designers of the forms generalised the competencies?
evaluate the wording and precision of wording of the competence statements
How might you as an appraiser interpret what the statements mean and how well do the descriptions of competence relate to a particular job?

What are your conclusions regarding the practice of appraising and grading using a competencies approach?