Chapter Eight – Personnel
Evaluation and Supervision
 Understand the difficulty in arriving at goal consensus within
criminal justice agencies.
 Comprehend the importance of organizational structure to
employee supervision.
 Know the differences between the human-service approach to
employee supervision and the traditional model of employee
supervision.
 Understand the difficulty in implementing a human service
model of employee supervision within criminal justice
organizations.
 Explain the guidelines for performance evaluation and
supervision.
 Criminal justice organizations are expected to provide
multiple services to the community.
 Components of the criminal justice system have multiple
goals and functions.
 In some cases these goals and functions contradict one
another.
 Fragmentation and diversity within the criminal justice
system exacerbate this conflict.
 Attempts to reorganize components of the criminal justice
system (monolithically) to reduce goal conflict often fail.
 Organizational structure influences employee
evaluation and supervision.
 Differences exist because of organizational size,
complexity, and mission.
 Organizational diversity forces administrators to
develop creative ways to evaluate and supervise
employees.
 Evaluation and supervision are also affected by
budgets, differing goals, and the level of
centralization.
 Poor evaluation and supervision systems are
characterized by:
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Lack of clearly communicated rules, policies and procedures,
Inconsistent application of policies and procedures,
Failure to address problems and concerns,
Untimely professional feedback and disingenuous evaluation,
Inadequate supporting evidence and lack of documentation,
Inadequate training and lack of employee development, and
The tone set by management in the workplace.
 Models of employee supervision have increased in
recent years.
 Public agencies actively seek improvement in
employee supervision models by attempting to
implement ideas from the private sector.
 Some models have been developed within the
criminal justice system.
 Supervision models are highly influenced by
motivation and job design.
 Stresses a high degrees of centralization,
formalization, complexity.
 Includes the following elements
o A hierarchy that includes;
• An identifiable span of control
• A precise unity of command, and
• A clear delegation of authority
o Rulification, and
o Specialization.
 Key elements
o Span of control – the appropriate number of
employees a supervisor can supervise.
o Unity of command – one person in charge of a
situation and employee.
o Delegation of authority – clearly defined tasks and
responsibilities to maintain organizational integrity.
o Rulification – emphasizes the importance of rules and
regulations.
o Specialization – the division of labor within the
organization.
 Views supervision within the context of both
individual and organizational goals.
 Attempts to integrate employee goals into
organizational goals.
 First step is to determine what employees
want.
 Consistently, employees report wanting
o To accomplish job tasks, and
o To feel fulfilled with their roles.
 Key elements
o Employee ownership – when employees have more
say in how the organization is managed.
o Sharing of power – allows employees to delegate
themselves.
 Controversy
o Human service activities make the officer’s job richer,
more rewarding, and less stressful.
o Criminal justice managers do not have the authority to
share power with their employees. Somebody has to be
in charge.
 Regardless of their approach to supervision,
criminal justice agencies are evaluated on the
basis of their overall performance.
 Conflicting goals, constraints and finite resources
tend to ‘force’ criminal justice agencies into the
traditional model of supervision.
 Accountability, equity, fiscal integrity and
efficiency are possible obstacles to innovation in
public agencies.
 Methods for evaluating employee
performance have been, are, and will always
be controversial.
 No single method works in all situations and
organizational environments.
 Instead, key issues and concepts can assist
criminal justice administrators with the
performance evaluation process.
 Yukl’s (1981) guidelines include
o Defining job responsibilities
o Assigning work, and
o Setting performance goals.
 Oettmeier and Wycoff’s (1998) model offers three
levels of evaluation.
o Individual performance
o Team level
o The organization’s ability to address problems
 360 Evaluations
o Recognizes the importance of multiple perspectives of
employee performance.
o Encourages input from all those (stakeholders) affected
by an employee’s actions.
o Sacramento PD uses four sources of information.
o Other programs use as many as nine perspectives.
 Comprehensive evaluations of officer performance
enable insight into how successful the officer is at
achieving organizational or unit goals.
 Supervision models are just as diverse.
 Here again, there is no ‘one best way’.
 Most supervisors organize work into
four functions.
o Traditional management
o Communication
o Human resource management
o Networking
 Engel (2004) identified four styles of
supervision among police supervisors.
o Traditional – supervisors who expect measurable
outcomes from subordinates
o Innovative - supervisors who encourage officers to be
problem solvers
o Supportive – supervisors who act as a buffer between
officers and management
o Active – supervisors who work actively with
subordinate employees
 Robbins and Judge (2007) identify three
skill sets of effective supervision.
o Technical skills – specialized knowledge or
expertise
o Human skills – the ability to work with and
motivate people
o Conceptual skills – the ability to analyze and
diagnose complex situations
 Criminal justice organizations have many goals and often
these goals contradict and conflict with one another.
 This makes goal consensus difficult.
 Organizational structure plays a major role in how
employee evaluation and supervision will occur.
 The two primary models of employee supervision within
criminal justice organizations are the traditional and
human service models of employee supervision.
 Criminal justice administrators face multiple challenges
when attempting to implement a human service model of
employee supervision (conflicting goals, competing
interests and fiscal/organizational constraints).
 Guidelines do exist for effective employee supervision
within criminal justice organizations.
 These guidelines must fit the needs, goals, and structures
of these organizations.
 Research identifies the primary work functions of criminal
justice managers and the work roles of employees.
 Criminal justice managers use multiple styles of
supervision and no single style is effective in all situations.
 The effectiveness of a supervision style depends on the
types of organizational goals pursued by the organization.
 Captain Jones has just been assigned to command
the Administrative Division of a large urban police
department.
 This division contains a diverse array of line and
staff functions including:
o Crime records
o Crime laboratory
o Special investigations (e.g. internal affairs, public
integrity unit)
o Training
o Human resources
 In some units (e.g. crime records) employee
performance is quantifiable. In others, (e.g.
internal affairs) it is more difficult to measure
employee performance.
 The City Council has just approved a new
employee merit pay system. Employees who
perform meritoriously are eligible for up to a five
percent pay raise.
 Department policy requires that all employees are
eligible for merit pay.
 Using what you have learned about employee
performance evaluation systems, develop a system
that Captain Jones can use to make merit pay
decisions for his diverse employees. This system
should insure that:
o Only meritorious employees receive raises, and
o All employees are eligible regardless of their work
assignment.