Patent Publication Number: US-2006020509-A1

Title: System and method for evaluating and managing the productivity of employees

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION  
      This invention relates in general to evaluation and management of employees and, more particularly, to a system and method for evaluating and managing the productivity of employees.  
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
      Outsourcing is a process by which a company arranges for a third party to implement and/or manage a specific department or business process of the company. One reason for outsourcing is that the company lacks in-house resources or expertise to handle a particular business process. Cost may also be a factor along with the inability to handle new technologies. Companies that provide outsourcing services may have hundreds or even thousands of employees that perform many different types of tasks, depending on the type of work being outsourced. Managing and evaluating these employees can be a major undertaking. In addition, responding to proposals and scheduling considerations may also be difficult.  
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
      According to one embodiment of the invention, a computerized method for evaluating and managing employees includes storing historical production data and historical quality data for a plurality of tasks, determining benchmark production data and benchmark quality data for a first task based on at least some of the historical production data and historical quality data, receiving current production data and current quality data for a plurality of employees for the first task, comparing the current production data to the benchmark production data for the first task to determine an efficiency of each employee, comparing the current quality data to the benchmark quality data for the first task to determine a quality of each employee, and determining an incentive for each employee for the first task based on the efficiency and the quality for each employee.  
      Some embodiments of the invention provide a number of technical advantages. Certain embodiments of the invention may include all, some, or none of these advantages. In one embodiment, an employee management application analyzes production transaction data, quality sampling data, and internal historical benchmarking in a set of mathematical processes. In some embodiments, the application is a solution for production shop management including, but not limited to, tracking production and quality statistics, work force scheduling, tracking, calculating, and paying incentives, and pricing and supporting customer proposals. The application may systematically calculate standard production rates for historical work performed or calculate average rates for production teams based on historical data, both flat average and average-weighted by production volume.  
      In other embodiments, a performance reporting tool uses standard rates and lapsed time to measure productivity in efficiency percentages, which are independent of type of work being done. This allows comparisons between work of dissimilar types. A performance plan tool creates performance plans based on an efficiency percentage and a quality percentage per worker and allows payments to be based on productive time; pieces produced, or pieces produced above a standard. An automated import tool may be utilized for loading production data from other applications or databases. In addition, data management schema may lock down past period data, isolating it from adjustments and updates, and allowing regeneration of past payments. The employee management application may also have the ability to schedule teams against defined delivery schedules based on the historical performance of the team members.  
      Other technical advantages will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art from the following figures, descriptions, and claims.  
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      For a more complete understanding of the present invention and for further features and advantages, reference is now made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:  
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram of a computer system storing an employee management application for use in carrying out one embodiment of the present invention;  
       FIG. 2  is a functional block diagram of an employee management application according to one embodiment of the present invention;  
       FIG. 3  is a flowchart illustrating an example method of evaluating and managing employees according to one embodiment of the present invention; and  
       FIG. 4  is a chart illustrating a performance plan for a task according to one embodiment of the present invention.  
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
      Example embodiments of the present invention and their advantages are best understood by referring now to  FIGS. 1 through 4  of the drawings, in which like numerals refer to like parts.  
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram of computer system  100  for use in evaluating and managing employees according to one embodiment of the present invention. In the illustrated embodiment, computer system  100  includes an input device  110 , an output device  112 , a processor  114 , a memory  116  storing employee management application  200 , a data repository  120  storing evaluation and management data  122 , and a network interface  124  that couples to one or more networks  126 .  
      Input device  110  is coupled to computer system  100  for allowing a user to execute employee management application  200 . In one embodiment, input device  110  may be a keyboard; however, input device  110  may take other suitable forms including, but not limited to, a mouse, a stylus, a scanner, or any combination thereof. Output device  112  may be any suitable visual display unit, such as a liquid crystal display (“LCD”) or cathode ray tube (“CRT”) display, for example, that facilitates visualization of information relating to employee management application  200 . Output device  112  may also be a printer for the purpose of printing any desired information. Information and data may also be sent to a storage location, such as data repository  120 , or sent to and utilized by another computer program.  
      Processor  114  comprises any suitable type of processing unit that executes logic. One of the functions of processor  114  is to retrieve employee management application  200  from memory  116  and execute employee management application  200  to allow a user to evaluate and manage employees. Other functions of employee management application  200  are discussed more fully below in conjunction with  FIGS. 2 through 4 . Processor  114  may also control the receiving and/or storing of information and other suitable data, such as historical and current production and quality data as further described below.  
      Employee management application  200  is a computer program or set of computer programs written in any suitable computer language. According to the teachings of one embodiment of the invention, employee management application  200  is a .NET browser-based enterprise business application. One example function is to provide an employee productivity management system for document imaging, scanning, and data entry business process outsourcing (“BPO”) operations.  
      In one embodiment, employee management application  200  permits operations management to track employee productivity, balance that productivity against quality levels, establish performance benchmarks for specific types of tasks, and establish incentives for employees that are consistent with business objectives and direct labor cost allowances on customer jobs. Employee management application  200  may also provide a fair and consistent set of standards for paying employees either piece rate pay or base pay plus incentive for task performed, independent of the type of task performed. Employee management application  200  may be flexible enough to accommodate many different operating companies and data interfaces with many different types of existing production equipment. Employee management application  200  may perform other suitable functions, some of which are described below in conjunction with  FIGS. 2 through 4 . In the illustrated embodiment, employee management application  200  is logic encoded in memory  116 . However, in alternative embodiments, employee management application  200  is implemented through application specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”), field programmable gate arrays (“FPGAs”), digital signal processors (“DSPs”), or other suitable specific or general purpose processors.  
      Memory  116  and data repository  120  may comprise files, stacks, databases, or other suitable organizations of volatile or nonvolatile memory. Memory  116  and data repository  120  may be random-access memory, read-only memory, CD-ROM, removable memory devices, or any other suitable devices that allow storage and/or retrieval of data. Memory  116  and data repository  120  are interchangeable and may perform the same functions. In the illustrated embodiment, data repository  120  stores evaluation and management data, such as production and quality data, performance plans, employee data, job and task data, and other suitable information that allows a user to execute employee management application  200  when evaluating and managing employees.  
      Network interface  124 , in one embodiment, is a network interface card; however, network interface  124  may be other devices suitable for transmitting and receiving signals to and from network  126 , such as a modem. Network  126  may be any suitable wireline or wireless network, such as the Internet, an extranet, an intranet, a virtual private network, or other suitable network or multiple networks. For example, network  126  may be a private network of a corporation, such as a local area network or a wide area network. In the illustrated embodiment, network  126  couples to a plurality of modules  128  that may or may not be geographically distributed. Modules  128  represent any suitable software applications that possess information and data useful to employee management application  200 , as further described below. As one example, a particular module may be a statistical application that captures production and quality data for particular task of a particular job.  
       FIG. 2  is a functional block diagram of employee management application  200 . In the illustrated embodiment, employee management application  200  includes five functional components: a data importer  202 , a performance plan configurator  204 , a performance calculator  206 , a benchmarker  208 , and a reporter/data exporter  210 . The present invention contemplates employee management application  200  having fewer, more, or different functional components than those shown in  FIG. 2 .  
      Data importer  202  generally functions to receive and store data in data repository  120  ( FIG. 1 ). The data may be received from any suitable source, such as modules  128  or users that input the data manually. Data may also be in any suitable format, such as XML, so that several types of data may be received by data importer  202 . Some examples of the type of data are current production data, current quality data, employee data, customer data, job and task data, and performance plans.  
      Current production data may be received from any suitable scanning, image, capture, and data entry systems. The current production data may identify the employee that did the work, the job type that the work was performed on, the task type that the employee was performing, the elapsed time for the task to be completed, and the unit of work produced, such as images scanned, number of keystrokes, etc.  
      Current quality data may be received from an external quality control module or may be manually entered into employee management application  200  by users. In one embodiment, the current quality data identifies the employee, job type, size of sampling, number of errors in sampling, and severity of each error. Other suitable quality information may be associated with current quality data.  
      Employee data may include employee demographics or identification data and may be received from either production modules or from a suitable Time and Attendance system or payroll system. The demographics data may identify each employee by unique id number, badge number, team, and job location.  
      Customer data may includes customer ID, name, address, and other suitable descriptive information. Job data may be a listing of jobs that are associated with a particular customer, and job task data are valid tasks assigned to particular jobs. Each task is attached to a particular job and, in one embodiment, includes a unit of measure for productivity, a target unit of work, a time frame, effective date for the task, quality type, and user identification and time stamps.  
      Other types of data that data importer  202  may receive and store in data repository  120  are benchmark production data and benchmark quality data, performance plans such as incentive grids, error types, ramp factor tables, trend reports, and other suitable types of data.  
      Performance plan configurator  204 , in one embodiment, is an administrator-level module that allows sites to configure site-specific performance plans. Performance plan configurator  204  provides functionality for allowing a plan to be established for incentive-based compensation and employee or job productivity evaluation, for example. If the usage at a site is for incentive-based pay, for example, the system may allow for definition of the criteria for calculating the incentive structure. Performance plans, an example of which is shown and described in  FIG. 4 , may be based on efficiency percentage and quality percentage per employee.  
      Performance plan configurator  204  may also store job tasks and their expected performance standards or benchmarks. Performance plan configurator  204  may permit managers to run “what if” pay scenarios using real data. For example, it may allow for preview calculations based on a select base of a users performance or configured test data. In one embodiment, after data importer  202  has captured current production and quality data for a particular job, the performance plan configurator  204  receives historical data from benchmarker  208  (described below) to reset pay structures based on the current production data and current quality data.  
      Performance calculator  206  is a module that performs statistical functions and returns employee evaluation and management data. In one embodiment, performance calculator  206  uses a performance plan and operational statistics generated according to data from data repository  120  ( FIG. 1 ) to determine incentives for employees. This module of employee management application  200  may store information on the production target for each task worked for each employee. This allows payments to be based on productive time, pieces produced, pieces produced above a standard, or other suitable criteria.  
      In one embodiment, a process of performing an employee evaluation includes comparing current production and quality data against pre-established benchmark production and quality data. The following table is an example of driving factors for their respective services.  
                                       Service   Throughout Productivity Driver   Quality Detractors                  Doc. Prep   Boxes, Batches, Documents, Pages,   Rescans           Hours   Breakdowns       Scanning   Boxes, Batches, Documents, Pages,   Rescans           Hours   Breakdowns       Data Entry   Gross Key, Net Key, Documents,   Double Key Fixes           Pages, Hours   Audit Errors                  
 
      To establish production targets, performance calculator  206  may exclude predetermined top end and bottom end performance data when calculating a target rate of throughput per hour to reduce statistical skewing. For example, for Data Entry, the following table represents a subset of the summary performance calculation data that might be stored by performance calculator  206 :  
                                                                       Bill   Bill-                   Keystroke   Keystroke   Rate   ing   Target           Applica-   Bench-   Per Clock   Per   Hrly   Labor       Code   tion   mark   Hr   Keys   Rate   Rate                                                            ADV   Credit   6300   6300   0.00457   $28.8   $8.5           Apps       Amer   Stud Files   7000   7000   0.01000   $70.0   $8.5       Univ       AnacO8   OB/GYN   2500   2500   0.01000   $25.0   $8.5                  
 
      This example is simplified to show Gross Keystrokes entered by each data entry operator, but the system may accommodate gross versus net keystroke calculations as well as a document per hour metric for data entry. A sample for scanning throughput is attached below:  
                                                                               Billing   Billing   Target               Images   Hours   Benchmk   Rate   Per   Labor       Code   Application   Tested   Tested   Image/Hr   Per Image   Hour   Rate                                                                AAGH   Human Res   25000   28   893   0.070   $62.5   $7.62       AAPW   1187&#39;s   3000   3   1000   0.085   $85.0   $7.62       Aberdeen   Loan Apps   114000   164   695   0.157   $109.1   $7.62                  
 
      Various tiers of incentive pay may be stored for each task. For example, in the scanning example above, for pure piece rate, the average production for AAGH human resource documents is 893 images per hour. Based on a three range piece rate, 0 through 893 images per hour would pay the employee 0.00854 per hour. If the employee averaged between 894 and 1000 images per hour, their piece rate may increase to 0.0102 per image an hour. And if they averaged 1001 or higher per hour, their piece rate per image could jump to 0.0122. As described above, other incentive structures are contemplated by the present invention. The target labor rate is the typical hourly rate that a certain type of skill would command in a particular local job market.  
      There is no cap on the pay rate. If a site chooses to pay on a tiered percentage of throughput for a task, then the calculation approach may be different. In this approach, each employee in a task is striving to be in the next higher quartile, for example. Using the scanning example above, the top 15% of the scanning staff may be paid $10 per hour, the next 25% may be paid $8.5 an hour, the next 40% may be paid $7.25 per hour, and the bottom 20% may be paid minimum wage. In addition to the performance plan, there may be a current quality data structure stored in the data repository  120  for each task. A structure for the throughput detraction impact for each type of category and the volume of each type of error allowed may be stored in data repository  120  as well.  
      Another aspect of the present invention may be a scheduling mechanism that allows performance calculations to be run at predetermined time intervals. Reports on employee rankings in a particular team or a particular task and employee scorecard reports (individualized by employee) may be generated and distributed as desired by each operating unit. Historical production and quality data may be utilized to schedule a team of employees, for example, for a new job. In addition, proposals for new jobs may be priced more accurately using the historical data.  
      To account for inexperience of a particular employee performing a particular task, a ramp factor manager (not illustrated) may be associated with employee management application  200 . This ramp factor manager may provide for adjusting expected performance for a specific employee over time and may provide for effective dating and expiration so that a specific ramp factor with a defined start and end date may be assigned to an employee.  
      Performance calculator  206  may also permit managers or other suitable personnel to adjust for non-productive time, such as vacation time, training time, sick time, and uncontrolled down time. For example, a default for vacation time may be the average between base rate and last month&#39;s piece rate hourly equivalent.  
      Benchmarker  208  is a module that, in one embodiment, maintains baseline statistics for employees, job type, task type, and locations. The baseline statistics may include a scorecard of data points, and may provide a history of events identified as important to the evaluation process. Benchmarker  208  keeps data such as all the job types that an employee has worked on, the last date worked on, and a trend line of performance history, such as throughput and error rates. Statistical data generated by benchmarker  208  may be based on closed time periods. For recordkeeping purposes, this shields the historical data against later adjustments. Benchmarker  208  may also maintain statistics on training history, exceptional performance, and low performance for a particular employee. In addition, benchmarker  208  may also provide individual site performance histories so that site administrators can configure their own data points for benchmarking and report trending.  
      Reporter/data exporter  210  functions to provide a series of reports for performance analyses and employee pay. For example, reporter/data exporter  210  may generate and transmit approved incentive or payment data to a Time and Attendance system or payroll system for calculation of guaranteed minimum wage, overtime, and adjustments. For review of employees&#39; performance, reporter/data exporter  210  may transmit historical reports to managers or supervisors in any suitable manner, such as email. In addition, reporter/data exporter  210  may function to rank employees by, for example, their relative efficiency or relative quality. This ranking may be on a per team basis, a per task basis, or other suitable basis. This is described in greater detail below in conjunction with  FIGS. 3 and 4 .  
       FIG. 3  is a flowchart illustrating an example method of evaluating and managing employees according to one embodiment of the present invention. The example method begins at step  300  where historical production data and historical quality data for a plurality of tasks is stored. As described above, this historical data may be stored in data repository  120  ( FIG. 1 ) and may be received from any suitable source, such as directly from production module  128  via network  126 . Based on at least some of this historical data, benchmark production data and benchmark quality data for the tests are determined at step  302 . This benchmark data may be utilized to determine the efficiency of various employees. This benchmark data may be adjusted because of secondary factors, as indicated by step  303 . These secondary factors may be such things as the difficulty of a particular job, the size of a particular job, the setup time for a particular task, and the stop time for a particular task. Other suitable secondary factors may be utilized to adjust the benchmark data. This adjustment may be manually input by a user of employee management application  200  or may be automatically determined by employee management application  200 .  
      The example method continues at step  304  where current production data and current quality data for a plurality of tasks are received. This current production and quality data is stored in any suitable storage location, such as data repository  120 , at step  306 . It may also be utilized to update the historical data stored in data repository  120 , as indicated by step  308 . Since the current production quality data are for many employees performing a plurality of tasks, this current production and quality data may be adjusted, as indicated by step  310  to account for non-productive time for the tasks or for a particular employee. For example, non-productive time may include such things as vacation time, sick time, training time, and uncontrolled down time. This prevents the production rate, quality rate, and/or efficiency of a particular employee from being reported or calculated inaccurately.  
      This benchmark production data and quality data may be processed into a performance plan, an example of which is shown in  FIG. 4  and described below. According to  FIG. 4 , a performance plan  400  is illustrated by a screen print  402 . In the illustrated embodiment, performance plan  400  is in the form of a chart; however, other suitable forms for performance plan  400  are contemplated by the present invention. The performance plan  400  illustrated in  FIG. 4  is for a particular task of a particular job. The rows of performance plan  400  illustrate a plurality of efficiencies  404  and the columns of performance plan  400  illustrate a plurality of quality standards  406 . The rows of performance plan  400  may also illustrate a plurality of relative efficiencies and the columns of performance plan  400  may also illustrate a plurality of relative qualities in other embodiments. Efficiencies  404  represent how efficient a particular employee performs a particular task and the quality standards  406  illustrate the degree of quality that a particular employee exhibits on the particular task. Within any particular combination of efficiency and quality standard reveals an incentive  408  within the performance plan  400 . For example, a particular employee having an efficiency of 130% and a quality standard of “silver” will have an incentive of 1.32, which in the illustrated embodiment represents an additional $1.32 over their base rate. Although the incentive illustrated in performance plan  400  illustrates an additional payment beyond the base rate for a particular employee, the present invention contemplates other suitable incentives to be associated with performance plan  400 . Performance plans may also be adjusted on a periodic basis based on updated historical performance data.  
      Referring back to the flowchart of  FIG. 3 , the current production and quality data are compared to the benchmark production and quality data for the tasks at step  312 . This results in the determination of efficiencies and qualities for each employee. Then, at step  313 , the efficiencies and qualities for the employees are compared to determine the relative efficiency and relative quality of each employee. This allows a ranking or other suitable evaluation of employees based on the relative efficiency and/or relative quality, as indicated by step  314 . This ranking is independent of the type of task performed, which may lead to a more fair assessment of a particular employee&#39;s skill.  
      Based on the ranking, an incentive for the employees may be determined, as indicated at step  314 . For example, the performance plan  400  illustrated in  FIG. 4  may be utilized to determine the incentive. Or another suitable incentive system may be utilized. The incentive is then sent to a payroll system, as indicated by step  318 , so that the particular employee may be paid appropriately. The incentive may also be stored in a suitable storage location for recordkeeping purposes. Various reports may also be generated, as indicated by step  316 , for any suitable purpose. For example, employee reviews may benefit from having reports generated by employee management application  200 , or staffing decisions may also be made easier by having generated reports from employee management application  200 . This then ends the example method outlined in  FIG. 3 .  
      Thus, employee management application  200  is a performance reporting tool that measures the productivity of many employees that are performing many different types of tasks. Employee management application  200  may be particularly suitable for large outsourcing companies that employee hundreds or even thousands of employees performing many different types of tasks on many different jobs. Responding to proposals and scheduling considerations may be made easier by employee management application  200 . Employee management application  200  enables an outsourcing company or other suitable entity to become more profitable because the logistics of handling many different employees handling many different tasks at many different jobs is easier and more efficient.  
      Although embodiments of the invention and their advantages are described in detail, a person skilled in the art could make various alternations, additions, and omissions without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims.