Staff evaluation

The necessity for evaluating hospital pharmacy department personnel, and the recognized methods for performing such evaluations, including their advantages and deficiencies, are reviewed. Performance appraisal systems using ranking, person-to-person comparison, grading, graphic scales, checklists, forced-choice description, selection of critical incidents and management by objectives (MBO) are detailed, with emphasis upon their use in hospital pharmacy departments. All of these systems, with the exception of MBO, place inappropriate emphasis upon various subjective personality trails while failing to include objective results attained by personnel. Most of these methods (again excepting MBO) deny the evaluate-manager the opportunity to coach staff members in an attempt to improve results achievement. Staff evaluation, when carried out under an MBO system, is more likely to provide the hospital pharmacy department and its director with improved staff performance and development.