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The first PGI survey, issued to over 600 subscribers via email in September 2004, revealed a PGI of 34. This means respondents as a whole believe their workforces are falling 34 percent short of meeting their full expectations. This Gap reflects the challenge facing every employer in the region – the need to raise the performance of their employees to meet the expectations leaders set for their organization. As a first-time measure, a PGI of 34 is only a data point. It is a snapshot – one that shows significant differences between what leaders know is necessary to succeed in today’s world and how well their organizations are doing. It does not attempt to assess why performance is falling short of expectations, nor does it indicate whether the difference is because of low performance or high expectations.
What this number does is establish the baseline for tracking and evaluating changes in the Performance Gap over time. Tracking the PGI over time allows business leaders, workforce development professionals and policy makers to know when the region’s workforce is improving or falling back in terms of the expectations of the people who run the organizations.
While the change in the PGI over time may be its greatest value, some interesting conclusions can be drawn from the initial responses. The PGI is a composite number reflecting the combined responses from all industry sectors to 12 questions pertaining to three different drivers of performance: competence, commitment and focus. Please go to the PGI Survey link to review the questions that comprise the survey that will be employed quarterly to monitor changes in the Performance Gap.
When the responses are broken out by individual question, some interesting results become evident. For example, the item with the smallest Gap (28) asks respondents to rate how well employees “know what is expected of them.” While the item with the largest Gap (41) rates how well employees “speak up and effectively discuss situations important to the organization.” It appears that respondents believe they are communicating more clearly to their employees than the employees are communicating to them. Our conclusion is that finding ways to encourage employees to become more engaged in discussions about the important things will have a greater impact on overall performance than investing more time in fine-tuning top-down communications.
Additional evaluation of the inaugural PGI can be found in other articles in this newsletter. We encourage you to review the data directly and draw your own conclusions. We welcome your input and analysis.
The Center for Business and Industry at Northampton Community College was created to build the human capital needed for Pennsylvania to be successful in the knowledge economy. The PGI survey is another tool to help the Center understand its market and better serve the region. It is also intended to be a tool for anyone interested in helping eastern Pennsylvania’s employers achieve the highest possible levels of performance.
“As Pennsylvania employers compete globally under ever-increasing competitive pressures, we at CBI continue to focus our energies on those management development and employee training programs that will allow companies to perform at the high levels their leaders demand,” says Paul Pierpoint, Ed.D., dean of community education.
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