5.7 Who should carry out the evaluation?
The most common issues that
influence the choice of parties to carry out an evaluation of HR practices are:
·
Cost:
An internal evaluation – that is, one done by existing HR or other employees in
the organisation – may seem less expensive but the cost in terms of using up
staff time when they could be working on other projects has to be calculated.
There are actual resource costs to be taken into account, and also the less
explicit emotional costs of employees feeling that they are, or need to be,
evaluated in what they do.
·
Competency:
The skills required to carry out an evaluation are many. It should not be just
a box-ticking exercise. Competency in using the different evaluation methods
and models is important, as is the recognition of specific organisational,
national and international nuances. A different kind of competence is required
around the potential issue of knowing the people you are evaluating (in the
case of an internal evaluation). This may be an advantage or disadvantage; how
do you disassociate yourself from knowing the people and systems of the
organisation in which you work?
·
Credibility:
Would an evaluation feel more credible or less credible if it was carried out
by external consultants or more senior members of the organisation? Why?
Perhaps the creditability comes more in the process and follow up.
·
Time
urgency: Would it be more time efficient to employ a group of evaluation
specialists from outside the organisation who could come in and perform the
evaluation as a discrete project? How quickly does the evaluation need doing
and why? What type of evaluation is it? The learning in this unit tells us that
a ‘quick and dirty’ evaluation exercise is unlikely to yield the required
results.
All of these criteria are
affected by whether an evaluation is carried out internally or by external
consultants. The next activity will help you to explore some of the issues
associated with both.
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