The Cutting Edge: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : Employee Review Software: Practical; Needs Improvement
Performance reviews are rarely much fun for anyone involved. And it isn’t very obvious how computers could help--a subjective matter such as employee reviews would seem to be the last thing one would want to trust to a machine.
As it turns out, a certain type of computer program known as an “expert system” is well suited to the kind of analysis involved in a performance evaluation. While they don’t pretend to substitute for human judgment, two fine expert systems-based programs can be a great help in preparing job reviews: Performance Now!, a Windows program published by KnowledgePoint in Petaluma, Calif., ($129; [800] 727-1133) and Employee Appraiser for Windows and Macintosh, published by Austin-Hayne Corp. in Redwood City, Calif. ($129; [800] 809-9920).
Both programs help managers write reviews while leaving them completely in charge of the actual evaluation part of the performance analysis. Managers who hate to write will find them especially helpful, but even managers who enjoy writing will like the way these programs can help them record job-oriented incidents throughout the year and easily insert them in the review.
Both programs actually create the text of the job review, based on information entered by the manager. Built-in word processors allow you to create and modify text and even include a scanning feature that looks for words that might cause legal difficulties. Think the review came out too positive? Both programs, at the touch of a button, will revise the wording to make it more negative.
And once you’ve done that, you can consult the program for advice on how to present the review to the employee, including specific suggestions for problem workers on how they can improve.
The most important difference between the two programs is that Performance Now! gives you a scale of 1 to 5 on which to rank performance for each of the various rating factors provided for different types of jobs. Employee Appraiser lacks an objective rating scale, thus preventing supervisors from accurately gauging how one worker’s review compares to another’s.
On the other hand, Employee Appraiser can write reviews in two styles: second person (“you are doing a good job”) or third person (“Jonathan is doing a good job”). Performance Now! reviews are only in third person.
Performance Now! keeps track of more information about employees than Employee Appraiser does, including pay scales and pay periods, the reviewer and the company, department and location. It will accept data from a company’s personnel database, so that information already in a company’s computer system doesn’t have to be entered a second time. Performance Now! also has a calendar feature that notifies you when reviews for particular employees are upcoming (if the reviews aren’t all listed on the same schedule).
The text creation portion of Performance Now! is quite sophisticated. It creates a complete paragraph, structuring it from the most positive to the most negative factors according to how you rate an employee on each factor of a job performance element.
Here’s a simple example. If an employee named David is given a rating of 3 (average) for being “competent in required job skills and knowledge” and a 4 (above average) for “requires minimal supervision,” Performance Now! suggests this paragraph:
“David needs a minimal amount of supervision to fulfill his responsibilities. He demonstrates competency in the skills and knowledge required.”
But turn those ratings around, a 4 on competency and a 3 on supervision, and you get the following:
“David demonstrates a high level of competency in the skills and knowledge required. He works within the normal scope of supervision.”
If you give David below-average marks, Performance Now! issues a warning before letting you move on to the next section:
“You rated the employee low for this element and should add supporting details to this text on the review form. Doing so will help the employee understand the reasons for the rating and provide needed documentation in case the rating is challenged.”
Employee Appraiser tends to be more verbose.
Under one aspect of the topic “Job knowledge,” Employee Appraiser offers these three choices: “thoroughly understands job,” “generally understands job” or “confused about job duties.”
Choosing the first item results in this assessment: “You thoroughly understand the duties and responsibilities of the job. Because of your firm grasp of your position, you are able to take initiative. You are very alert to changes in your environment and respond immediately to meet them.”
If you choose “generally understands job,” the program proposes an evaluation that says, “You generally understand the duties and responsibilities of the job. As a result, you are often able to act on your own initiative.”
If that is still a little more positive than you want, there are “tuning” buttons on the tool bar at the top of the screen to make the review a little more positive or a little more negative. In this example, pressing the “NEG” button replaces the text with, “You have an adequate understanding of the duties and responsibilities of the job. As a result, you can generally act on your own initiative.”
In none of these examples did Employee Appraiser give you a chance to rate the employee’s initiative or responses to the work environment. The program inferred that all by itself. If it isn’t true, you would have to edit it out.
Performance Now!’s numerical rating scale could come in handy in a large department where one wants to firmly establish how each employee’s review compares with others’. It creates a single overall score based on all of your 1-to-5 choices, making it easy to see how everyone stacks up and fine-tune assessments when necessary.
Employee Appraiser offers 17 job performance topics, generally applicable to all kinds of employees, and five more specifically for managers. Performance Now! has 26 topics, which it calls elements, without making any distinctions among employee types. An individual employee would be rated on only some of the topics or elements in each program, according to the specific job. For each topic or element, there are several measurement factors on which to rate employees, yielding a thorough analysis, whichever program you choose.
So what’s my performance review for these two programs? On a scale of 1 to 5, I’d give Performance Now! a 4.5 overall and Employee Appraiser a 3.9. Of course, I had to do that the old-fashioned seat-of-the-pants way.
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Write to Richard O’Reilly, Computer File, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or message oreilly@latimes.com on the Internet.
