Developing Job Specific Appraisal Factors in Large Organizations

Developing Job Specific Appraisal Factors in Large Organizations A method is presented for identifying job specific performance appraisal factors in large organizations across a wide range of jobs. This study covered 375 classifications out of 450 in a county government. Jobs ranged from custodial and labor trades through middle level staff, line, and management positions. A single 284 item duty oriented questionnairewas developed and administered to incumbents in all classifications. Factor analysis was used to isolate 79 factors. These were further reduced to 29 factors through the use of professional judgement. Job specific combinations of these factors were assigned to each classification by managers. Examination of factor overlap within a classification and across departments indicates consistency of factor assignment. Four evaluations suggest that the factors are content valied. The direct cost of implementing this methodology was $15.10 per classification. Personnel directors and line managers are increasingly being faced with the problem of conducting performance appraisals with job specific performance factors. Generic, global factors such as "Worth To Organization," "Leadership Capacity," and "Productivity" are no longer adequate in a legal environment which often demands EEO justification and equal treatment assurances, and a professional environment which demands identification of specific employee weaknesses with appropriate corrective training. Performance appraisal feedback should be based on observable and directly relevant job behavior (Cascio, 1982). The supervisor should describe and record specific tasks and identify acceptable and unacceptable levels of performance in order to guide future behavior and promote employee motivation (Beer, 1985). In addition, the courts have been critical for many years of validation studies with criterion variables that are not clearly and directly job relevant (Brito v. Zia Co., 1973; Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 1975; James v. Stockholm Valves & Fittings Co., 1977). In all three of these instances, the courts found the job specificity of the company's appraisal factors to be inadequate. The courts encourage the use of job specific appraisal factors with clear, demonstrable job relatedness, which can be used to classify and categorize specific observations made by supervisors. Managers in large organizations who must develop job specific performance appraisal factors face a special challenge simply due to the magnitude of the task. Job analysis methods such as the P.A.Q. and TI/CODAP have been widely used in the public sector to deal with the job analysis problems of large organizations, but they do not offer a solution to constructing job specific appraisal factors. Task oriented questionnaires such as TI/CODAP (Crystal, 1974) are inappropriate because their length becomes unmanageable if they are constructed across job families. The typical CODAP questionnaire contains about 600 items per classification. Similarly, the number of questionnaires required would be prohibitive if they are constructed within a job family. Worker oriented questionnaires, such as the P.A.Q. (Mecham, McCormick, Jeanneret, 1977) assess job content in terms of the required human skills. Since there are a limited number of human skills, it is possible to describe virtually any job with the P.A.Q., for example, as a unique combination of 45 interrelated factors resulting from 194 questionnaire items. This 45 factor solution would seem to solve the problem. However, since the factors do not describe specific work behaviors, but instead relate to the underlying human skills, they are virtually useless for constructing job specific performance appraisals. As a result of these problems, many large organizations have adopted strategies which result in less than ideal performance appraisal procedures. Some organizations conclude that they cannot develop a set of job specific evaluation factors, and as a result purchase or develop as set of suitably bland factors for application to all jobs. …