Performance EvaluationConcept

Performance Evaluation is one of the tasks given to the duty of human resources management and consists on the systematic appreciation on the person´s evaluation in the duty that occupies and the tasks that performs, the goals and the results reached and the potential development, supported in the objective analyses of the behavior and communication at the same time as the evaluation result.

Well defined, performance evaluation of the human resources within organizations should be seen as a powerful method to solve productivity problems and better the quality of work and workers own motivation and not as a bureaucratic and uneventful method of filling evaluation reports. For that, performance evaluation should be structured to measure the worker’s evaluation and potential, through a systematic evaluation made by the direct superiors or others hierarchically superior familiar with the activity, so that are able to perfect the work developed without reducing independency and motivation.   

Evaluation activity implies the following steps:

- Observation of the method to measure;

- Behavior measurement;

- Communication of the result as a way to motivate the worker.

Performance Evaluation Goals: performance evaluation can have various types of goals, namely administrative extent, motivational and communication, like the following quoted:

. Identification of strong and weak points of the workers and, consequently, of the organization;

. Identification of the performance individual differences between the workers of the same team;

. Promote interpersonal communication among the team, sector and organization;

. Development of the team concept between leader and subordinate;

. Information to the worker of how the performance is understood by the other organization members;

. Stimulate individual development of the measurer and measured;     

. Indications for attribution of productivity awards, promotions and deserving wages increase;

. Identification of training needs and evaluation of the training already made;

. Evaluation of organizational climate and identification of work problems in general; in individual relationships, intra-team or inter-team.

 

Translated from Portuguese by Susana Saraiva, Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese translation specialist. Contact: spams@sapo.pt.