Evaluating the personnel department's internal functioning

Much has been written of late about auditing the personnel department--particularly in terms of its cost effectiveness, the time allocated to its various functions, and the extent and nature of expanding services. R. Bruce McAfee, assistant professor of management at Old Dominion University, takes up a different kind of audit--one that evaluates the effectiveness of personnel staff members in delivering and implementing personnel policies and procedures. Logically enough, he points to those who avail themselves of such services--the other employees in the organization--as being in the best position to perform such an evaluation. Thus the first step in his "personnel internal functioning audit" is to design a questionnaire for the purpose, and he takes it from there--citing along the way the experiences of a large midwestern hospital that conducted this kind of simple, inexpensive audit.