NOTES ON PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

Evelyn Daniel

Evaluating Personnel

Personnel evaluation can be irritating or irrelevant. A "satisfactory" evaluation in a service environment depends on an agreement between employer and employee about what the service relationship should be.

People are most crucial element in a service organization. The employer has a right to expect that employees will perform to the standards of the job description. The employee has a right to expect fair treatment, that is, equitable treatment compared to comparable work/salary/benefits that others have.

A job should be realistic, that is, one that can be performed satisfactorily with a reasonable amount of effort and with a reasonable chance of success. If job can't be completed, saying "do the best you can" is meaningless. Redesign job so that it can be completed through reducation in input, modification of technique, reduction of standards, or the like.

Subordinates want to be evaluated and they understand the need to be evaluated. The following five points are good management practice in respect to supervising staff:

• JOB DESIGN
  The job description should cover 80% of what really occurs. If "other tasks that may be assigned" comprises more than half the work, it's time to rewrite the job description. Both employer and employee should be involved in writing the job description and should accure that it accurately and completely describes the position. The description should include what an employee can reasonably accomplish plus the the resources (material, money, time) to accomplish it.

• DELEGATION
  Once the employee knows the job, has the training and resources to accomplish the tasks, leave him/her alone. Judge by results not by method. If employer describes not only what is to be done but how, it is assigning not delegating. Employee may consider it intrusive and indicative of lack of trust.

• MENTORING
  This is the provision of support for the job, sometimes called role modeling. Employees should feel free to ask questions in the confidence that help will be given if requested. If people aren't comfortable in asking for help, they will guess which can result in disaster.

• PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
  Most people want to be told how they are doing but not in a meaningless, manipulative way. Every job needs a clear standard of acceptable performance which should be used in regular performance evaluations. Good performance evaluation depends on agreement on
  • what is job
  • that job can be done
  • what method will be used to demonstrate that job has been completely satisfactorily.
  If there has been ongoing performance evaluation against an accurate job description according to agreed on performance standards, then the "formal" evaluation only documents what both already know. So first 10-15 minutes can be "summing up" and remainding 45-50 minutes can be spent on considering the future (really two futures: the library's and the employee's which may converge or diverge.

• REWARD MECHANISMS
  "Praise in public; criticize in private" is an excellent rule. Pay and promotion are what most people think of first in rewarding employees. Feedback and recognition, task identity and task significance, achievement of goals are often equally or more highly motivating.

Herb White, to whom I am indebted for many of these thoughts says:

Management must evaluate the needs of subordinates against the needs of the organization we are responsible for and look for ways to make the two fit or agree that they don't. ... As good managers,

• we give people doable jobs.
• make sure they understand them.
• leave them alone to do them.
• help them if they ask us.
• evaluate what they did.
• seek correction and direction.
• reward and punish.
• seek ways to balance organization needs against personal needs.