Trainee Evaluation Strategies

TeamOJT Tip of the Month for November, 2003

The old buddy system of OJT, also known as "follow Joe around and do what he does" method of OJT (or unstructured OJT) evaluates trainees in a number of ways. Some organizations favor simply checking the square or box signifying that the trainee has "had" the training. This tells you nothing about the trainee's capability to perform the task, much less whether the trainee is proficient in task performance. Other organizations rate the trainee's performance either "acceptable" or "unacceptable," without any indication of what is "acceptable" or "unacceptable." It depends entirely on what the trainer thinks is acceptable or unacceptable. In other words, there often is no standard or criterion by which to evaluate the trainee's task performance. In any case, an "acceptable" rating is usually the end of training for that task. If "unacceptable," the trainee will probably be told to practice and try again. If the trainee is lucky, the trainer will provide more instruction.

Still others evaluate the trainee by using some type of multilevel rating scale. For example, the trainee's performance is rated on a scale of one-to-five, with one being very poor and five being excellent. But exactly what does a two mean? What is the difference between a two and a three? And does each trainer have the same definition of what each of the numbers indicates about the performance? (If you prefer some type of scale, a better system is to use a simple three-level rating scale, such as unacceptable, acceptable, and excellent.)

Structured OJT (as opposed to the degenerating buddy system) relies on clear, precise performance objectives that are observable and measurable. If you have such, a simple acceptable/unacceptable or pass/fail rating system would be adequate because "acceptable" would mean that the performance meets the specific criteria in the performance objective. An example of a good performance objective is, "Given the appropriate tools, change a flat automobile tire within 20 minutes." Note how the objective is both observable and measurable. The trainee either changes the tire within 20 minutes or does not accomplish the task within the 20 minutes.

December's tip of the month will be "Writing Performance Objectives."

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