Unit 7
Evaluation: What Are We Looking At and How Should We Measure It?

Overview

Unit 7 examines the importance of evaluation in terms of personnel and the police service generally. Employee performance evaluation plays an integral role in providing superior service to the community. Public services are obliged to evaluate and improve performance continually—on both the organizational and individual levels. Although the task of evaluation is undertaken service-wide, it is implemented and defined by managers. Merely implementing standardized criteria for assessment does not represent effective and innovative management, however. Managers must find new ways to assess their employees, and these methods must capture the changing nature of police work and the expectations of the community.

Learning Objectives

When you have completed Unit 7, you should be able to achieve the following learning objectives.

1. Recognize various methods of evaluation.
2. Critically assess the shortcomings of specific methods of evaluation.
3. Analyse the need for flexible evaluation criteria.
4. Illustrate the role of external bodies in guiding police evaluation.