Analysis on Performance Appraisal Management System of Small Architectural Design Firm

Transcription

1 Analysis on Performance Appraisal Management System of Small Architectural Design Firm CAI Hong, JIANG Xilong Beijing Union University, P.R.China Abstract: Modern management information is becoming an important way to create competitive advantage for business, the core competitiveness of Small architectural design firm are those knowledge-based staff who have expertise, skills and professional knowledge, therefore, the firm have an urgent need for performance management information system which aims at its designer to motivate employees and improve its competitiveness. This paper bases on theories of performance appraisal, knowledge-based employee performance appraisal, uses the MBO, the KPI, the Balanced Score Card and so on, studies and designs a performance appraisal system and management information system for SM Architects. Keywords: Performance appraisal, SME, architectural design firm 1 Introduction With the fast development of China s building market, it has become the No.3 largest market in the world attracting successive participations of vast building firm including architectural design firm in domestic/abroad, thus the China s small architectural design firm are in face of double competitive pressure from large scale design enterprise in domestic and design firm in abroad. If the small design firms want to survive and develop, they must improve their own competitions. The core competition is the designer owning professional technology and professional knowledge, thus the enterprise needs the scientific and overall performance appraisal system to encourage the employee. 2 Main Characteristics of Performance Management of Small Architectural Design Firm 2.1 Development course of performance management of Chinese small architectural design firms Chinese performance management of small architectural design firms experienced four stages: rewards and punishment regulation stage under the principle of equalitarianism; subjective evaluation stage, morality,, diligence, and quantization evaluation stage, and quantized evaluation and target evaluation stage. At present, the evaluation executed by most design units does not exceed the scope of above four stages. Now most firm in domestic/abroad adopt the balance scoring card (BSC) for the evaluation system, with which the design unit can form more integrated, overall, and long term performance management system instead of the previous circle (simply concern about financial indicator). 2.2 Employee characteristic of small architectural design firm The characteristic of the small architectural design firm is that: The employee number is below 100, the setup of department is small, designer personnel ratio is great. Its core competition is the designer with professional technologies, skills and professional knowledge, and their main characteristics are: They own the knowledge asset, i.e., the knowledge resource and knowledge innovation. They have strong independency. They rely on themselves to complete the work, and do not want to complete the work via the instruction, management and supervision of the other persons. They have higher pursuance. They like the challenge and pursue the perfection to win the confirmation and respect of the other persons, and their fighting target is to realize their own value. The work is innovative. The knowledge innovation is the core work content of the knowledge type 574

2 employee, instead of simple and repeated mechanical physical labor. They have low loyalty degree. They pay attention to self development, when the enterprise does not meet their development requirements, they shall hope to leave the job with strong will of flow ability. 2.3 The problems for performance appraisal of knowledge type employee The main problems existed in the performance appraisal of the knowledge type employee include: (1) The labor process is hard to supervise. The knowledge type employee is mainly engaged in brain work, his labor process is intangible, work time is random, without preset work flow or reference work standard. Thus it is very hard to supervise and evaluate the performance. (2) The work achievement is not easy to measure out. The work achievement evaluation of the knowledge type employee aims at the quality of work instead of quantity of work, while how to fairly and reasonably carry out quantized evaluation of quality is a key problem that must be resolved for performance appraisal of the knowledge type employee. In addition, it is hard to determine their work mistake due to the complexity and the uncertainty of work of the knowledge type employee, thus the work performance of the knowledge type employee cannot be accurately evaluated, and thus they cannot be effectively encouraged. (3) The evaluation stage, evaluation indicator and standard are hard to determine. The knowledge type employee has high knowledge constituent, the high challenge work usually needs a long time to complete, and the work achievement cannot be presented within short term, thus how to carry out stage evaluation to knowledge type employee, and how to set up the evaluation indicator and standard of the work process have become a main issue of evaluation. 3 Work Analyses on Designer of Small Architectural Design Firm As to performance appraisal of designer, it shall not only know about their work characteristics, but also familiarize their work situation, thus it shall be in favor of evaluation operation. The work process of the designer is shown in Fig. 1, after analysis, the post responsibility of the designer is shown in table 1. Project research Concept design Scheme design Primary design Detail design Site service File Fig. 1 Work process of designer Post Table 1 Post responsibility of designer Responsibility of post Document work Construction drawing design Discipline 1. According to detailed work period and time chief person node of the sponsor of project, compile the detailed work schedule of related discipline; 2. Control and master all technical details of related discipline; 3. According to project requirement, and requirement of manager of sponsor of project, cooperate with site service during construction period. 4. Dispatch design task order to designer and Plotting work 1. Make general description of building design; 2. According to location coordinate, and plane, elevation, and section of individual unit scheme determined by sponsor of project, determine the location axial line of each layer of the individual unit; 3. Plot the structural control building structure of the column and wall, etc., of the plane of individual unit, and determine the hole opening; 4. Control the elevation, section and detailed 575

3 design assistant of lower level; drawing. 5. The performance appraisal is done for designer. Designer 1. Performance appraisal is done for designer. 1. According to requirement of chief person of discipline, plot the related construction drawing of project. Design assistant Scheme design Project architect Main designer 1. According to requirement of project manager and project sponsor, make minutes of conference and sort the minutes of conference. 2. Cooperate with the project manager and project sponsor to do the literal type-in work; 3. Carry out performance appraisal to designer. Document work 1. Be familiar with customer requirement of the design element; 2. Cooperate with customer to perfect the design task document; 3. Determine the design direction of scheme; 4. According to the integral framework period and progress, determine the design progress of the scheme stage; 5. Determine the scheme design achievement and design report form; 6. Cooperate with the project manager to exchange ideas with customers; 7. Propose scheme requirement to construction drawing design; 8. Determine the related personnel of scheme design; 9. Coordinate and organize the discipline engineer to provide the discipline support of scheme, and determine the discipline scheme intent; 10. Jointly organize various meetings with relation to project in the scheme stage together with project manager; 11. Dispatch the design task order to main architect and design assistant according to progress of project; 12. According to project requirement, dispatch related personnel for external work; 13. Carry out performance appraisal to designer; 14. After completion of scheme, timely organize the generalization of scheme. 1. According to project progress and requirement of project architect, dispatch the design task order to architect and design assistant of lower level. 2. According to design task document, written requirement of customer, compile the unified technical measures in the scheme stage. 3. Evaluate the performance of designer; 1. According to requirement of project manager and discipline chief person, cooperate with related drawing plotting work; 2. The construction drawing sorting, composition, layout, and dimension label, etc. Plotting work 1. Manually plot the sketch (including combination of computer and manual work); 2. Organize the scheme achievement document. 1. According to the design direction determined by project architect, carry out detailed design; 2. According to requirement of project architect, organize the making of scheme achievement; 3. Compile the scheme design description; 4. Propose the scheme condition to construction 576

4 4. Positively understand the new technology and new material, and propose suggestions to project architect. drawing team, wherein, the control location of general plan shall be accurate, at each individual unit it shall at least ensure the accuracy of one control coordinate point. Architect 1. Evaluate the performance of designer. 1. According to requirement of main architect, carry out detailed design and project plotting; 2. Skillfully operate the skethup and photoshop, and make project representation file according to demand of the scheme. Design assistant 1. According to requirement of project architect and main designer, make minutes of conference and sort the minutes of conference. 2. Cooperate with the project architect and main designer to do the literal type-in work; 3. Evaluate the performance of main architect. 1. According to requirement of project architect and main designer, cooperate with related drawing plotting work; 2. The scheme achievement sorting, composition, layout, and dimension label, etc. 3. Skillfully operate the skethup and photoshop, and make project representation file according to demand of the scheme. 4 Design of Performance Appraisal System of Small Architectural Design Firm 4.1 Determination of performance appraisal indicator system The performance appraisal indicator of designer is divided to two grades: (1) Grade 1 indicator: work performance, work attitude, work. (2) Grade 2 indicator; The key performance indicator of designer, i.e., KPI indicator, as shown in table 2. Table 2 KPI of designer Output indicator completion rate (annual actual output/planned output in the beginning of the year*100%) Timeliness rate of drawing output (total number of drawing output items without delay/total number of drawing output items*100%) Drawing qualified rate (total number of annual qualified items/annual total number of items within the stated scope *100%) Satisfaction degree of customer (total number of satisfied items of customer/total number of completed items of the current year*100%) Completeness rate of the document of project (actually received document number/stated receiving number of document*100%) Utilization rate of drawing (available pieces of drawings/total pieces of papers*100% ) Technical innovation rate (annual total number of drawing output items with technical innovation/annual total number of drawing output items*100%) Error quantity and error extent In the individual evaluation indicator system, the team performance appraisal of the individual person shall possess certain ratio. The balance scoring card indicator of the design team is shown in table 3. Table 3 Indicator of balance scoring card of design team Completion rate of output indicator Rate of return of total asset Financial target Utilization rate of cost Profit rate of project Customer Satisfaction degree of customer 577

5 Internal flow Study and development Market share Awarding rate of bid proposal Retention rate of customer Quality control indicator Innovation indicator Indicator of business management efficiency Satisfaction degree of employee Stability of employee Training of employee The general performance appraisal indicator system of the designer is shown in Fig. 2. General performance evaluation system A of design personnel Work performance B1 work attitude B2 Work B3 Drawing qualified rate C1 Sense of responsibility C7 Team coordination C12 Error quantity and extent C2 Initiativeness C8 Exchange C13 Completion rate of output indicator C3 Moral character C9 Planning and organization C14 Timeliness rate of drawing output C4 Job respect spirit C10 Analysis and judgment C15 Satisfaction degree of customer C5 Completion rate of project document C6 Orderliness and execution force C11 Professional skill of post C16 Study C17 Innovation thinking C18 Fig. 2: General performance appraisal indicator system of designer 4.2 Determination of weighting of evaluation indicator Determination method of weighting: hierarchy analysis method (AHP) According to three items grade 1 evaluation indicator (work performance B1, work attitude B2, work B3) of the performance appraisal indicator system of the designer, and the judgment size, and after mutual comparison of indicators, establish the judgment matrix. After calculation, determine the weighting of grade 1 indicator (table 4) and grade 2 indicator weighting. Table 4 Weighting of grade 1 indicator Grade 1 performance appraisal indicator Weighting Work performance B1 60% 578

6 Work attitude B2 15% Work B3 25% 4.3 Determination of evaluation standard (1)Evaluation standard of work performance According to strategic target of design enterprise, the project management office and designer jointly set up the performance plan of this enterprise, as shown in table 5. The designer s work performance appraisal standard of. Work performance indicator Indicator item Drawing qualified rate Completion rate of output indicator Timeliness rate of drawing output Satisfaction degree of customer Completion rate of project document Table 5 Performance plan of project Target Drawing qualified rate (total number of annual qualified items/annual total number of items within the stated scope *100%) not lower than % Output indicator completion rate (annual actual output/planned output in the beginning of the year*100%) not lower than % Timeliness rate of drawing output (total number of drawing output items without delay/total number of drawing output items*100%) not lower than % Satisfaction degree of customer (total number of satisfied items of customer/total number of completed items of the current year*100%) not lower than % Actually received document number/stated document receiving number *100% not lower than % (2)Work attitude and work evaluation standard Through collecting the behavior information of excellent, good, qualified and unqualified of the designer of the enterprise, extract the work attitude and work indicators from these information as the evaluation standard. The work attitude evaluation standard of the designer is shown in table 6, and the work evaluation standard is shown in table 7. Name of attitude indicator Responsibility sense Initiativeness Table 6 Evaluation standard of work attitude of designer Evaluation standard of work attitude Excellent Good Qualified Unqualified Willingly bear the burden of hard works and strive to complete the task. Positively collect and analyze the information, positively explore the multiple unique modes and channels and take many times positive The one with effort work and can complete the work of his own scope very well Analyze the existing information, adopt the general mode and channel, and explore other unique modes and channels and take many times positive action to complete the work. The one with responsibility sense and can voluntarily complete the task With the help and instruction of other person, adopt the general mode and channel, take no less than one times positive action, and finally the work is The delivery work needs the supervision and instruction; no responsibility sense, negligence The completion of work mostly needs the urge and promotion of other person, and the work is usually delayed. 579

7 Moral character Job respect spirit Orderliness and execution force Related score value Name of indicator Team coordination action to complete the work. The one with fairly high theoretical level, selfless, honesty of words and deeds, and can be regarded as model. Love the work of one s own post, persistent to stated target, and maintain the continual attention to target with of full power devotion. Seriously execute the regulation, rule and organization discipline of the company, stick to principle during work, and obey the decision of organization The one sticking to theoretical study, selfless, good morality, good words and deeds, and easy to approach. The one with strong work interest, and can offer the additional time and power to work without external requirement. Execute the company regulation and rule as well as organization discipline, during work stick to principle fairly well completed. The one with clear division of public and private affairs, with normal morality, and capable of preserving one's moral integrity The one who is willing to pursuing the excellent work result, but has no satisfaction feeling of occupation, and strives to continue to improve his work efficiency and complete the task. The principle can be basically stuck to, and the behavior without conforming to discipline and rule does not incur bad consequence to work The one with general or fairly bad political theory level, fairly bad morality and informal words and deeds. The completed work can only meet the requirement of customer, or the customer requirement is ignored, the work improvement mode is limited, and can only provide the service and design quality required, and is tired to be do this work for a long term. The execution to instruction and statement of higher level is not timely, sometimes the self-restrict requirement is not strict, breach the company discipline and even incur bad consequence. Table 7 The evaluation standard of the work of designer Evaluation standard of work Excellent Good Qualified Unqualified The one who usually does not concern about individual loss/gains, and positively cooperates with other person. The one who can basically strive to help others to resolve the problems when requested by other person. The one who can generally maintain the good relation with and mutual help relation with the colleagues. The one who shall not positively assist the other persons, and is not willing to seek for help of others for his own issues, and do not concern about the non-involved issues, and usually has complaints 580

8 Exchange The planning and organization Analysis and decision Professional skill of post Study Be good at exchange, balance and coordination between high and low levels, and positively cooperate with other persons According to work target, predict the work requirement and unfavorable factor and make pragmatic and feasible plan, and flexibly execute the plan, the organization and execution is strict and reasonable, reasonably dispatch relate resource, and be good at generalization and improvement. Be good at analyzing issues, grasps the nature of issue, and quickly analyze and resolve the issues, and promptly select the method to resolve the problems. The one with wide knowledge scope and having pragmatic professional knowledge of his own post, and can skillfully master the technologies of his own work post, with rich experience. In case of work the knowledge structure and concept can be quickly Be willing to exchange and coordination with other persons, and can smoothly complete the task According to work task, basically predict the work requirement and unfavorable factors and make pragmatic and feasible plan, execute the work as per plan, the organization and execution is basically strict and reasonable, related resource can be basically dispatched, capable of generalization and improvement. Know about the problem analysis, seek for nature and resolution method of the problem, and quickly select the method to resolve the problem. The one who is familiar with knowledge of multi disciplines, and has fairly sufficient professional knowledge of his own post, and masters the technical skill of his own post, with fairly rich experience. The one who can absorb the new knowledge and concept, and finally has Cooperate with other person to complete the work. Make plan as per work target, execution is subject to plan, the organization and execution is reasonable, related resources can be dispatched. The one who can basically analyze the problem and resolution, and can basically select the method to resolve the problem. The one who has professional knowledge of his post, and has certain understanding to related knowledge, and basically masters the technical skill of the work of his post. The one who can absorb the new and is dissatisfied with his own work. The coordination is not good, thus it is hard to execute the work; do not cooperate with other persons, and the work cannot be executed. The pragmatic and feasible plan cannot be made according to work target, the execution is subject to plan, the organization and execution lack the reasonableness, and it lacks the of reasonable dispatching of resources. Lack the of problem analysis and resolution, be in two minds for problems. The one who has certain professional knowledge of his post but the knowledge is not general, understanding to related knowledge is not sufficient, with shortage of experience. The one who can absorb some new knowledge for work, and has the most 581

9 Innovation thinking Related score value updated, through the training, teach the other persons and instruct the other persons to carry out the work. The one who can gradually propose the innovative and breakthrough improvement plans and new clews, and most of them can be adopted and executed. the most frontline knowledge of design of the related discipline, and these knowledge can be applied for actual work. Sometimes the innovative and breakthrough improvement plans and new clew can be proposed for the work, and most of them can be adopted and executed. knowledge and concept as per work requirement, and has some most frontline knowledge of design for related discipline, and can apply these knowledge to related work upon instruction. The innovative and breakthrough improvement plans and new clew can be proposed for the work, and only a few of them can be adopted and executed frontline knowledge of design of related discipline, nevertheless, these knowledge cannot be applied for related work; upon the work, the knowledge cannot be absorbed, it is also hard to have the related frontline knowledge for design of related discipline, during work it only has to depend on the previous foundations. The new clew and new plan can be proposed for the work, most of them are not pragmatic, with lacking of such ; basically the innovative and breakthrough improvement plan and new clew cannot be proposed. 4.4 Evaluation process (1) Compile the performance appraisal plan and performance appraisal standard. The project management office fills in the performance appraisal plan table and performance appraisal standard table, and then it is submitted to general manager for review, after the review is qualified, it shall be issued to all employees participating in the performance appraisal for viewing it. (2) Fill in the week report of work and summary table of individual person item In the end of each week, the designer shall fill in the work plan completion summary of the work report, and then it is submitted to chief person of each discipline for review, if the review is not qualified, it shall be returned to designer to modify it, if the review is qualified, the chief person of discipline shall fill in the plan of next week, and then it is sent to the designer to confirm it, if the designer does not confirm it, it shall be returned to chief person of each discipline for negotiation and modification, after it is confirmed it shall be submitted to office of project management. The project management office shall summarize it on Monday of next week. (3) Performance appraisal Monthly evaluation: in the end of each month, the project management office shall initiate the evaluation, all personnel participating in the performance appraisal shall execute the scoring work, and fill in the performance appraisal table of the designer of related discipline, after scoring, it shall be reviewed and summarized by the project management office, and the monthly evaluation summary shall 582

10 be filled in. Project performance appraisal: every half year the project management office shall initiate the evaluation, all evaluated persons shall fill in the performance appraisal table, and make self-score for the performance of project, after scoring, it shall be submitted to chief person of each discipline for review, after the review is qualified it shall be submitted to project management office for review and summarization. 4.5 Application of evaluation result (1) Hook with salary The salary of designer=basic salary+ performance salary (the performance salary is based on the deduction amount of the project of the designer). Performance salary=prepaid performance salary+ remaining performance salary* performance appraisal coefficient. (2) Regulation of post grade: The enterprise can raise the grade, and maintain the original grade, and lower the grade of the post of the designer according to annual performance appraisal result. (3) Training plan: Including performance appraisal training plan and employee training plan. (4) Development plan of employee: The performance appraisal result includes the scoring of each indicator, and the summarization of comments from other employees. The evaluation result is fed back to employees, so that they can not only have the reference and target to improve the work, but also gradually improve the work, develop the potential, gradually improve and perfect the work mode under the instruction of strategic target of the enterprise, and finally realize the occupational target of individual person and enterprise target. 5 Conclusion The enterprise development needs the general and scientific performance appraisal system, the performance appraisal of the small architectural design firms shall take into account the characteristics of the small firm, and also combine with the characteristics of the knowledge type employee and the post responsibility of the designer, as well as deeply understand the actual situation of the enterprise. The determination of the performance appraisal indicator needs to combine with the development target of the enterprise, work analysis of employee, fusion of key performance indicator method and balance scoring card method, thus the performance appraisal shall be more scientific and reasonable, and be easy to operate. The performance appraisal process is not only the scoring of performance, but also needs the performance feedback and improvement; it shall be hooked with the employee salary, etc., to comprehensively play the incentive role of the performance appraisal. Brief Introduction of the Author Cai Hong, female, born in 1967, native province Zhejiang, associate professor, head of the engineering management department in Management College of Beijing Union University, MA, major in: Construction Engineering, unit address: Eastern Road No. 97, North Forth Ring Road, Chaoyang District Beijing China, and postcode: References [1]. Jiang Dingwei: KPI: Key performance appraisal leads to success [M]. Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2004: [2]. Yin Longsen, Sun Zonghu, Target splitting and performance appraisal of design work[m]. Beijing: post and telecom press, 2006:

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