A Handbook for Measuring Employee Performance - Office of ...

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DISTINGUISHING ACTIVITIES FROM ACCOMPLISHMENTS
❙ The customer perspective, which considers the organization’s performance through the eyes of
its customers, i.e., American citizens, so that the organization retains a careful focus on customer
needs and satisfaction. To achieve the best in business performance, agencies must incorporate customer
needs and wants and must respond to them as part of their performance planning. Federal
managers must answer the question: How do customers see us?
❙ The employee perspective, which focuses attention on the performance of the key internal processes
that drive the organization, including employee development and retention. This perspective directs
attention to the basis of all future success—the organization’ s people and infrastructure. Adequate investment
in these areas is critical to all long-term success. Federal managers must answer the question: Do
employees view the organization as a good place to work and develop their skills?
TIE-IN TO EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE The balanced measures philosophy need not apply
only at the organizational or senior executive level. A balanced approach to employee performance
appraisal is an effective way of getting a complete look at an employee's work performance.
Too often, employee performance plans with their elements and standards measure
behaviors, actions, or processes without also measuring the results of employees’ work. By measuring
only behaviors or actions in employee performance plans, an organization might find
that most of its employees are appraised as Outstanding when the organization as a whole has
failed to meet its objectives.
By using balanced measures at the organizational level, and by sharing the results with supervisors,
teams, and employees, managers are providing the information needed to align
employee performance plans with organizational goals. By balancing the measures used in
employee performance plans, the performance picture becomes complete.
Categories of Work
Sometimes performance plans describe elements using categories of work. Categories are
classifications of work types often used to organize performance elements and standards. If,
for example, the first beekeeper in our fable had used categories of work for his elements, he
might have used the broad category of “making honey” as the element and then included a
grouping that described all the activities the bees did to make the honey , such as gather nectar,
report to the drones, etc. Other examples of categories of work and the types of activities
that are often described under these categories include:
❙ customer service (greets customers with a smile, answers the phone promptly)
❙ teamwork (cooperates with others, shares information)
❙ communication (writes well, gives presentations)
❙ office duties (files papers, prepares reports)
THIS HANDBOOK DOES NOT EXPLAIN HOW TO DESCRIBE AND MEASURE CATEGORIES OF WORK. HERE YOU ARE
ASKED TO CONCENTRATE ON MEASURING ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
A HANDBOOK FOR MEASURING EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE