Managing Performance of Workers

By: Maj. Gen. B.K. Bhatia
Date: July 12th, 2010
Posted in: Human Resources | 4 Comments »

Introduction

Organizations in the manufacturing sector and also those in the service sectors such as hospitality, infrastructure, Security, logistic & retail services have a large component of their work force below the supervisor levels.

In general, the work force below officer / supervisor level may be called ‘Workers’ –the blue collared workforcein the organizations. This article discusses issues related to performance management of workers.

Special Characteristics of Workers

This includes features such as :

• They function as groups/ teams & seldom as individuals.
• They have the rights to form unions as per the the industrial norms applicable in their country.
• Generally workers have team targets, rather than individual goals.
• Job – profiles for workers are based on ’skill sets’.
• Their growth is linked with the expertise acquired in their skill-domain.
• Occasionally a multi–skilled worker may get nominated as a team leader.
• Their work schedules are time based & shift-driven.
• Motivation includes over-time wages, profit sharing (in form of bonus), rewards and recognitions.
• Most workers may not be accustomed to the use of computers at their work-place.
• They may be agreeable to serving in the same role for an extended period of time given due pay increments and promotions.
• Some organizations have merit based provisions for career growth of workers to supervisory level.

Why Performance Management for Workers?

Keeping in view the special characteristics discussed above, why should there be a need to manage performance of the workers? After all, workers do not have significant career changes and growth opportunities that are typically seen by the white-collared workforce.

1. In my opinion, worker output does have a measurable impact on the bottom line. Workers appreciate automation, efficiency and understand benefits of technology.
2. Since workers perform as teams, which are largely inter-dependent, it is important to counsel in areas of team work and mutual co-existence.
3. Workers form a large and loyal base of employees that can be groomed for supervisor and even higher level positions. There are many cases of employees in lower level positions getting opportunities at the highest level.

Parameters for Performance Evaluation

Irrespective of the type of industry, rating workers on the following attributes (Qualities) may constitute a good & simple Appraisal instrument for their performance evaluation:

1. Timely Attendance/ Punctuality
2. Compliance with the company policies
3. Acceptance of additional work
4. Professional knowledge
5. Completion of assigned tasks
6. Learning potential
7. Contribution to team effort
8. Initiative, drive & Energy Levels
9. Quality consciousness
10. Safety Awareness

Note:

• You may modify the attributes in the above list to suit your specific business environment.
• You can use the Appraisal instrument to gather feedback on training needs of workers.

Choice of Scale

To rate the workers on the above attributes, a scale of ‘1′ to ‘5′ may be preferred. But defining the meaning of each step on the scale for each attribute in an unambiguous manner is important to ensure objectivity in evaluation.

This is a task to be completed by HR in consultation with Line Managers.

Reporting Channels

There is typically limited benefit of self appraisal at the workers level.

Initiation of performance reports on workers by the respective Line Managers/ Supervisors under whom the team is working is considered adequate. The concept of a ‘Reviewer’ is redundant, except for workers nominated as team leaders.

What more can Line Managers/ Supervisors do?

• Managers can communicate through the appraisal instrument the training needs of workers. This would enable HR to undertake organized planning of training thereby improving the performance potential of the task force.
• Managers may get each worker evaluated by other members of the team (ie, peer level assessment). A simplistic approach is that of relative grading. The process is manual and includes the following steps:
  1. Provide each worker the names of all team members on a sheet of paper.
  2. Let each worker rate each team member (including oneself) on a scale of 1 to number of workers on team as in the example below.
     Example: If there are 15 members in a team, each worker has to rate the best team member as ‘1′, the second best as ‘2′ and so on… The team member who, in his opinion, contributed the least to the team will get the rating as ‘15′. However, no two members in a team can have the same rating.
  3. A sum total of all ratings for each team member gives their relative performance. The individual with minimum sum total is the best worker as viewed by the team. (In the example above, the highest score of any worker in the team can be ‘15′ if all members have rated the same worker as ‘1′. Likewise, the lowest score can be ‘225′).
  4. Now prepare the order of merit list based on individual total scores.
• The Manager can use the above merit list, coupled with the ‘Performance Appraisal Report’ of the workers to nominate them for different awards. Also this information can be used for counseling and employee development.

Advantages of performance evaluation of workers

Organizations who undertake performance appraisal of their workers gain in the following way:

1. Are able to drive performance culture across the organization.
2. Develop the people management skills of their front end managers/ supervisors.
3. Can effectively deploy their career/ promotion management policies for the workers.
4. Are able to impart need based training to improve skill levels of workers across the organization.
5. Get more organized to interact with unions based on performance statistics of workers.
6. Use performance data base for Job Rotations, transfer management & out of turn promotions.
7. Introduce rewards & recognition schemes linked with performance.
8. Create a spirit of competition in the environment.
9. Negotiate effectively with the contractors providing skilled/ non-skilled labor for better quality workers.

‘EmpXtrack’ offers a ready to adopt solution to manage performance at workers level for all types of organizations including Government departments.