The Personnel Evaluation Standards

The Personnel Evaluation Standards was published in 1988. Fourteen professional societies in the United States and Canada, collectively representing about 3 million professionals, appointed and sponsored the standard-setting efforts of this 18-member group. Although designed for application in evaluating education personnel, the resulting standards have proved useful for personnel evaluations in other sectors.

The Personnel Evaluation Standards provides a valuable example of principles and guidelines and standards development processes for other groups to consider should they undertake to develop their own personnel evaluation standards. Basically, these standards require that evaluations meet four basic requirements. Propriety standards require that evaluations be ethical and fair to the affected parties, including beneficiaries as well as the service provider. Utility standards require that evaluators issue results that are credible, informative, timely, and influential. The results should help individuals and groups improve their performance, help supervisors make needed personnel decisions, and guide staff development and other personnel actions. Feasibility standards require that evaluation procedures be efficient, politically viable, relatively easy to implement, and adequately funded. Accuracy standards require that evaluations provide sound information about a person's qualifications and performance. The results should be grounded in an up-to-date position description, take account of the particular work environment and institutional or societal mission, be based on systematic collection and analysis of data, and be validly interpreted and reported. In explicating these requirements, the Joint Committee developed and illustrated detailed standards, with input from national and international review panels.