This article throws light upon the top six techniques used for rating the performance of worker. The techniques are: 1. Speed Rating 2. Skill and Effort Rating 3. Westing-House System of Rating 4. Synthetic Rating 5. Objective Rating 6. Physiological Evaluation.
Technique # 1. Speed Rating:
Speed of the movements of a worker is the only factor in speed rating. Rating personnel observes the speed of the movements of the worker against a standard expected pace or speed and notes the relationship between them as a rating factor. Rating can be applied to different elements.
Technique # 2. Skill and Effort Rating:
This rating system was suggested by C.E. Bedaux in 1916. The units of work are expressed as B’s. If a worker acquires 60 B’s in one hour, it would be standard performance. While timing the elements the operator is rated for the speed of his movements and his skill. An efficient worker earns points in excess of 60 B’s and a poor worker-below 60 B’s. B-points for a job can be calculated by adding the same (i.e., B-points) for each element involved in the job.
B-points for an element are equal to:
Relaxation factor depends upon the nature of the work and may vary from 1 to 3 for light to very heavy duty works or jobs.
Technique # 3. Westing-House System of Rating:
It is based upon four factors, which are further divided into sub-factors and have numerical values attached with them.
The various factors are:
(i) Skills,
Similarly other three factors named below are sub-grouped and each subgroup has a numerical value.
(ii) Effort,
(iii) Conditions (of temperature, noise, smoke, fumes, etc.), and
(iv) Consistency,
A worker is rated on the basis of the above four factors. The following example will clarify the system.
Example 1:
Let the observed time for an operation be 0.6 minutes and a worker while being observed, is estimated as follows:
which indicates that the worker is 13% above average, or his pace rate is 113%. If a worker gets negative numerical figure he is considered below average. The rating factor in this case is 1.13 and thus normal time for the operation = 0.6 x 1.13 = 0.678 minutes.
Technique # 4. Synthetic Rating:
In this system the speed or the pace rate of an operator is evaluated with the help of predetermined motion time standards (PMTS). Various elements are timed in the usual way and their values are compared with the time values as existing in predetermined motion time standards.
P.M.T.S. are compiled as a result of large number of observations on each movement (and generally) through micromotion (i.e., frame by frame) analysis. Such studies are carried out for a wide variety of jobs with male and female workers under different working conditions.
Technique # 5. Objective Rating:
This system involves, first, rating the speed of the worker against a standard pace, independent of job difficulty and then adding an allowance depending upon the job difficulty.
The job difficulty is decided from the following:
(a) The amount of body used,
(b) Foot movements involved,
(c) Eye-hand co-ordination (if any),
(d) Weight moved or lifted, and
(e) Handling requirements, etc.
Technique # 6. Physiological Evaluation:
Performance level of a worker can also be estimated physiologically, because heart beat rate increases with the muscular activities and amount of oxygen consumed by a worker increases with the severity of physical labour.