Public Employee Productivity: Can Outcomes Be Validly Measured at the Jurisdictional Level?

Abstract

As public attention increasingly focuses on productivity improvement for public services, the personnel management profession must develop creative approaches to motivate employees and to improve their performance. Such efforts are hampered, however, by the perpetual and perplexing problems involved in validly measuring service outcomes. This article explores the issues involved in measuring employee performance at the jurisdictional level. That is, it focuses on measuring the end-products of services—those most important to citizens. The major issues discussed include multidimensional outcomes, community environmental influences and factors exogeneous to the community which affect delivery system performance. Conclusions and policy recommendations are presented in final section.