OVERVIEW OF THE WORK PERFORMANCE FRAMEWORK

The WPF as a theoretical framework for work performance in public service contains three parts. The first part, consisting of human resources and enablers, addresses the antecedents to work performance, which include raw human resources and the enablers that transform these raw human resources into work inputs. The second part, consisting of work inputs, work processes, and work outputs, addresses actual work performance in a public-sector setting. The third and final part, consisting of outcomes and impacts, addresses the aftereffects of work performance, including public program benefits, HR outcomes, and the impacts of work performance and public programs on workers and other stakeholders. Table 1-1 presents an overview of the WPF.

TABLE 1-1 Work Performance framework

Human Resources and Enablers

In the WPF, human resources are identified as potential abilities; they are differentiated from applied abilities, including competencies or KSAs, which are presented as inputs. Potential abilities pass through an enabling process and become applied abilities at the time work is performed. Human resources and enablers, presented in Figure 1-1, precede inputs and are not a part of general systems theory.

FIGURE 1-1 Work Performance Framework—Human Resources and Enablers

Human Resources

People begin their quest for achievement with certain mental abilities, physical abilities, and socioeconomic conditions. These resources help to determine the training and development opportunities that are accessible to them, and ultimately which ones they select. These opportunities enhance their prospects for employment and career success. For example, a person with strong mathematical abilities might choose to study engineering and subsequently enter the workforce as an engineer armed with professional engineering KSAs.

Mental abilities are the capacity or capability to perform certain mental activities and include general mental ability represented as g, personality, aptitudes, talents, wisdom, creativity, and charisma. While these abilities are not job-ready, people with greater mental abilities are more likely to learn and understand information presented through education or training, or from on-the-job experience. General mental ability, or g, is considered one of the most reliable predictors of job performance. Nonetheless, it is far from a perfect predictor.

Physical abilities are included as a resource primarily to address effort as a factor of work performance. High performers not only have the mental capacity to deal with complex work situations; they must also have the energy to remain positive and effective under the adverse conditions of long workdays, strained relationships, in-fighting, shortened deadlines, and failing ventures. To offset the possibility that physical ability might be given too much importance in hiring, the Americans with Disabilities Act affords certain protections to people with physical or mental disabilities from employers who would discriminate against a disabled person.

While there is a legitimate interest in hiring energetic people, employers cannot leap to the conclusion on face value alone that a person with a disability necessarily has a low energy threshold or work limitation. Physical ability requirements are also important for security-related positions. Police officers and firefighters, for example, must use their physical abilities to save lives.

Socioeconomic conditions are influential in regard to work performance and likelihood of success. Wealthy people can afford to buy opportunities by, for example, living in the better school districts with better teachers and attending the expensive and exclusive colleges and universities with top-ranked faculty, enormous resources, and networked employment opportunities. Meanwhile, those with moderate or low incomes are often denied these advantages, live in the poorer school districts with fewer resources, and attend technical schools or state-operated colleges or universities, or they have no advanced education at all. Although the advantages of wealth do not absolutely predict individual outcomes, they clearly affect the odds.

In the public sector, helping the underprivileged is especially important. Frederickson defines the goal in terms of social equity, i.e., redistributing wealth to the needy. While some people may take a very conservative view of the government’s role in redistributing wealth, it is clear that helping the needy is an ideal embraced by our society as a whole, so the issue of socioeconomic conditions must be addressed within the WPF.

Enablers

The enablers described in the WPF complete the transition of human resources (mental abilities, physical abilities, and socioeconomic conditions) to work inputs (competencies, effort, and power). How does a mental ability become a competency? How does physical ability become effort? How do we help underprivileged people become valued employees? The enablers do it, and they are well known—education, training, experience, exercise, healthy living, and special assistance for those who need it.

Education, in particular higher education, addresses the inputs of professional and technical competencies to enable a person to become, say, a computer analyst, engineer, teacher, lawyer, doctor, or registered professional nurse. At the community college level, a person might become a technical expert such as a plumber, automotive technician, electrician, or licensed practical nurse, while four-year college and graduate-level programs tend to reflect professional-level jobs. Educational programs in public or business administration are available to obtain competencies in management and administration.

Training programs often address competencies related to staff supervision and operational information on pertinent laws, rules, regulations, policies, and procedures. Training programs may also target competencies related to interpersonal relationships, oral presentation, special computer software used by an organization, and customer-service procedures and techniques.

Experience can be gained directly through appointments and promotions, or indirectly through special assignments, internships, or even volunteer work. Such experience can be valuable in developing interpersonal skills and influencing techniques in a work environment, delegating work to others and monitoring their performance, and managing workload. A vital part of on-the-job experience is guidance through mentoring and coaching, which can help maximize the likelihood of a successful work opportunity.

Exercise and healthy living programs are often recognized by the organization as popular with employees and beneficial in reducing employee sick days, but the primary benefit is to increase energy, strength, and stamina to help workers withstand high work demands.

Special assistance includes affirmative action programs that provide employment opportunities to women, minority group members, and disabled workers to help them succeed and advance in the organization. To avoid accusations of reverse discrimination, individuals often targeted for special assistance include the needy population or those people who are socially or economically disadvantaged. An employee assistance program (EAP) in an organization helps employees with special problems navigate through their difficulties without negatively affecting their work performance.

Work Inputs, Processes, and Outputs

Work inputs, processes, and outputs are classic elements of general systems theory; they are the center of the WPF. Figure 1-2 presents inputs, processes, and outputs in the WPF.

FIGURE 1-2 Work Performance Framework—Work Inputs, Processes, and Outputs

Work Inputs

People as inputs are presented as a combination of competencies, effort, and power. Within the WPF, competencies are identified as applied abilities once actual work is performed, and are differentiated from potential abilities, which, as explained earlier, go through an enabling process.

Traditional civil service examinations concentrate on competencies, often identified as KSAs. Personal attributes are also sometimes presented as inputs and evaluated by special screening devices such as personality tests, psychological tests, and integrity tests. Competencies are included in the WPF as an input, although they too can go through an enabling process.

For the purpose of developing civil service examinations, KSAs can be broken down into several general categories:

• Professional or technical

• Operational

• Administrative, managerial, and/or supervisory

• Writing and computation

• Computer

• Reasoning and decision-making

• Oral presentation

• Customer service and interpersonal relationships.

These categories are also helpful when linking duties to KSAs during job analysis.

The WPF also includes two other elements—effort and power—as input variables. The reasoning is that a person might have the competence to work, but might not put in the effort. Or a person might properly apply her competence to a work assignment with sufficient effort, but if she is not empowered to act, the assignment may be blocked from completion. Sometimes a person attempts to act anyway by assuming the authority to act, thus having de facto power. When things work out well, this may be a feather in our cap, but if things go wrong, we can be subject to punishment for misconduct.

Effort can be broken down into two categories: intention and energy. There are many HR theories related to employee intentions, such as motivation and self-efficacy. But good intentions are not enough; one must also have the energy, i.e., the strength and stamina for a demanding work schedule. Effort includes both physical and mental energy, particularly when work is performed under adverse conditions. Often, adversities—such as personality conflicts, abbreviated deadlines, long days, or dangerous situations—require a great deal of strength and stamina, and often people decline promotions because they are not willing to take on the burden of these adversities.

Power is divided into three categories: authority, resources, and influence. Authority includes the permission that can come with job title, work duties, span of control, special assignments, and special projects. Power also includes access to the financial, capital, or staff resources needed to complete the work. Influence refers to the capacity to influence others.

While a person may have access to needed resources and jurisdiction over decision-making, to wield power effectively one must be able to influence others to act according to plan. Competencies aligned with influence include interpersonal skills, communication skills, and sound analysis and decision-making skills. These competencies are often evaluated by oral tests and assessment centers. Effort can also be a key part of influencing others. Lethargic leaders are unlikely to inspire or influence staff in a positive way.

Work Processes and Work Outputs

Work processes are the actions that people go through to produce work outputs. To understand and appreciate the processes, one must also understand the outputs. In the WPF, processes fall into three areas: (1) production, (2) behaviors, and (3) improvements and innovations. Production outputs include products, services, and information, although in the public service most outputs are services or information pertaining to the services. Work processes aligned with production include the normal work duties, activities, and tasks that appear in a job description. Performance standards often relate to product or service quality, efficiency, and reliability.

Work behaviors have often been linked with work activities, and some theorists use the two terms interchangeably. The WPF separates these two processes and presents a separate output—interpersonal communication—for work behaviors. Performance standards for interpersonal communication most closely align with trust and affiliation. Some confusion, which is addressed later in the book, arises from the fact that service is a production outcome, and trust and affiliation are important aspects of service quality.

Work processes related to improvements and innovations involve research and development, and the related work outputs are improved products, services, and systems. While some productivity gains can be made by improving work behaviors and work activities, the enormous gains in productivity over the last two decades have come from new and better work systems, particularly information systems. Information that was previously distributed by one person or one document can now be distributed throughout the world instantaneously via the Internet.

Ironically, as these systems do a better job of sharing information, demands and expectations for additional information often increase the workload instead of decrease it. Demands have been placed on computer experts since the beginning of this information revolution, and backlogs have required more scrutiny in tracking and prioritizing workload, budgeting, and outsourcing of work. Overall, we are seeing dramatic gains in work production and quality of life because of the information revolution.

By differentiating work inputs, processes, and outputs, the WPF provides some early indications as to why traditional examinations used to evaluate competencies are insufficient to account for the wide variation in work performance, and why a complete explanation of work performance goes well beyond any quick answer.

Outcomes and Impacts

In general systems theory, the outcomes and impacts of organizations are described as external results in the environment. Positive outcomes might include customer satisfaction or increased product sales, while impacts might be explained as the relative growth of the organization when compared to similar organizations. Outcomes and impacts of public programs might include the number or percentage of clients who entered the job market after completing a training program, and the resulting change in the unemployment rate.

Outcomes and impacts in the WPF are somewhat different from conventional thinking. Outcomes for a person within an organization include rewards (or punishments) that the worker receives from doing the work (or not doing it), and the impacts are the emotional, psychological, spiritual, and intellectual effects that these outcomes have on the worker. Thus psychology is very important to the study of HR management and work performance. Figure 1-3 provides an overview of these outcomes and impacts.

FIGURE 1-3 Work Performance Framework—Outcomes and Impacts

Outcomes

The WPF presents four sets of outcomes: program benefits and unintended consequences, rewards and punishments, obligations and adversities, and performance measurement and fairness. Unless an organization has a fair and accurate method for assessing performance, rewards and punishments will be subject to criticism. Thus, the need for civil service examinations to assess actual work performance, rather than just testing people for competencies, is perhaps the most revealing insight into effective public-sector HR management from the entire WPF.

Rewards are given for job successes and can be either intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic rewards include job satisfaction, i.e., enjoying the work itself, and a pleasant work environment, which might include friendly people and comfortable surroundings. Extrinsic rewards include salary and benefits, promotions, special assignments, work opportunities, and the prestige or status that comes with the position.

Punishments are meted out for failures due to incompetence and for violations due to misconduct. Penalties can also be either intrinsic or extrinsic by reducing job satisfaction, salary, benefits, opportunities, or work status. Unfortunately, punishments are often in the eye of the beholder, so when a worker is not rewarded according to her expectations, she may view the outcome as a punishment. This phenomenon is especially visible where there are few promotions to hand out, and it often results in a person’s transferring to another assignment or leaving the organization altogether.

Obligations are inherent work responsibilities; they are different from expectations, where judgments are made about how well that person is expected to perform in the context of the assignment. Obligations can accompany both rewards and punishments. For rewards, a new promotion may mean that you are obliged to take on additional work or more responsibility. People who expect their work to be easier following a promotion are usually deluding themselves. Obligations related to punishments are those corrections necessary to ensure satisfactory performance, and they may be required as a condition of retention.

Adversities are also likely to accompany promotions and special assignments. The adversity of danger exists in such fields as law enforcement and fire protection, but there are also many less obvious adversities. There are personality conflicts and challenges to authority; there are time constraints from longer days, more deadlines, and a heavier workload that require time-management skills; and there are greater risks from greater responsibilities and potential failures that require risk-management skills. These adversities require mental and physical strength to resist criticisms and attacks. Often, these adversities lead people to believe that they may not be up to the job, so they decline the promotion or special assignment.

Performance measurement is presented as an outcome in the WPF because employers must evaluate how well a program met the organization’s goals, who should be rewarded or punished, and who can be expected to take on additional obligations and adversities.

When eligible lists are used for promotions and appointments in the public service, it is essential that the results are valid, i.e., the top performers appear at the top of the eligible list and vice versa. When eligible lists have low validity and utility, a no-win situation occurs, where managers look for alternative ways to reward the high performers and avoid promoting the low performers. Such actions often lead unions and disgruntled workers to make accusations of special treatment and unfairness. Problems are compounded by pressure for political favoritism to reward members of the political team that won office, further undercutting the credibility of the program managers.

Fair treatment has four components: equity, equality, due process and right to dissent, and the social contract. Equity requires that individuals receive special rewards based on special performance. Equality means that all workers are entitled to good benefits and respect. The right to dissent and due process procedures entitle the worker to present objections to the way she is treated based on claims of inequity—e.g., not receiving special rewards for special work—or inequality—e.g., not being well-treated as a member of the organization. Claims of unfair treatment are generally carried out according to union contracts, and unions may provide legal and technical services to their members to support their cases. Finally, the worker is expected to abide by the social contract—that is, because she has been given the benefits of equity, equality, the right to dissent, and due process, she is expected to be a good citizen of the organization.

Two other concepts go beyond the normal boundaries of fairness—generosity and mercy. Generosity requires us to help the needy and assist the underprivileged, not because they have earned the right for benevolent assistance but because of our humanitarian concerns.

Mercy is redemption; it affords a person a second chance. Some people make blunders that will forever prevent them from recovering under a system of strict merit and fair treatment. Only mercy offers the prospect of someone turning his or her life around and returning to the arms of society as an equal. Without the merciful act of a second chance, he or she may feel forever doomed. Even generosity and mercy have their limits, but the exceptional organization is the one that not only believes in fair treatment but also understands and practices generosity and mercy.

Impacts

Impacts are the emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual effects that work outcomes have on the employee. It takes a great deal of fair and reliable treatment for an organization to gain the trust and affiliation of its workers, an exchange that works both ways. It takes a great deal of productive work and allegiance on the part of the worker to gain the trust and affiliation of the organization’s leaders.

Three impacts in the WPF are emotional, intellectual, and psychological reactions to work; they roughly parallel Freud’s mental structure of the id, the ego, and the superego. The fourth impact is the spiritual reaction that addresses the worker’s overall well-being. In the WPF the dominant impact is intellectual because the intellect takes into consideration our emotions, our judgments, and our well-being in order to develop beliefs about the world we live in. We then apply these beliefs when making life decisions.