JEDDAH: Several companies now depend on outside help to get an objective evaluation of the performance of their employees in a bid to end inefficiency and corruption, Al-Madinah daily reported yesterday.
“The evaluation and assessment by an outside agency is significant because it will be unbiased and give a real picture of the employees and their performance,” said Raid Al-Oqaili, a member of the Real Estate Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The report did not list any specific companies that have implemented, or intend to implement, this plan.
Under the plan, undercover agents sent by a specialized assessment agency will visit a company’s administrative offices and branches as customers or job applicants in order to observe the way officials work and treat customers. They will also find out if the officials were influenced by personal interests in making new appointments and treatment of customers rather than by the interest of the company. The investigators will also check if superior officials evaluate the employees under them and recommend promotions and salary increases on the basis of merit or personal considerations.
Evaluation experts will assess and index a worker’s performance on the basis of the report of detectives. These experts consider that the treatment of a customer at the reception counter is most significant. The indexing will consider how many times a customer has to repeat a question at the counter to get a satisfactory answer, how they operate and the level of discipline in their offices, and the flexibility of supervisors, general appearance and cleanliness.
Several banks, hospitals and contracting companies seek the help of outside agencies for the evaluation of their staff. Secret investigators visit these establishments on a daily basis and report findings to their offices for evaluation.
The facts and figures and the analyses supplied by the evaluation experts would serve as the guideline for company chiefs to take the decisions, instead of depending on the whimsical judgment of a supervisor or his cronies at the company headquarters.
Al-Oqaili suggested that this objective evaluation system should be implemented in ministries and government offices in order to improve the performance level of employees.
Nawal Ibrahim, an expert of employee evaluation, said, “The trend of making objective evaluation of employees is on the increase particularly in advanced countries as a foolproof method to guarantee better performance.”
Many companies have been prompted to seek the help of experts for performance assessment after observing that some of their top officials were incapable of discharging their duties in a satisfactory manner and consequently the productivity of the companies has been declining.
