Work Group Performance: Evaluation by Day of the Week
| Date | 01 April 1993 |
| Published date | 01 April 1993 |
| Pages | 42-46 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425459310043315 |
| Author | Joyce I. McQuilkin |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Employee
Relations
15,4
42
Work Group Performance:
Evaluation by Day of the
Week
Joyce
I.
McQuilkin
University of Central Florida, Brevard
Campus,
USA
Improved productivity has been particularly important in the defence industry
in
the United States. The
1984
Competition in Contracting Act requiring competitive
obligations for military contracts[l] was passed to encourage contractors to
improve cost containment and overall
productivity.
In service
contracts,
the focus
of the present
study,
there is a
set price for
the
work effort expended and an award
fee,
i.e.
the contractor's "profit".
To
maximize the award fee
the
contractor must
show good productivity and/or positive work performance trends. Using the
heuristic that the first and last days of
the
week
will
reflect
the
poorest levels
of
performance, contractors
in
the present study typically try
to schedule
their
work
on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Performance Measures
Contractors
who
can
devise a
new,
imaginative
way to
measure and present their
productivity
may
increase their chances of being perceived as providing outstanding
performance.
But,
a review of
the
productivity/performance literature indicated
that very little attention has been given to how work performance is measured
or evaluated. Often productivity has been evaluated subjectively because of the
difficulties and
problems
inherent
in
developing objective
measures[2].
However,
productivity measures that
have been
investigated include planned
versus
actual
progress of an overall project[3], statistical process
control[4],
absenteeism and
accident
rates[5-8],
and long work days[9].
Although typically performance
indicators
were recorded
on a
weekly,
monthly,
or yearly
basis,
one study reviewing performance by day of
the week as
an aside
found that performance in general was poorest during the middle two or three
days of the week
(2).
These findings are the antithesis of the prevailing belief
that Mondays and Fridays would reflect the poorest
levels
of performance. This
particular way of showing performance indicators,
i.e.
day of
the
week,
may be
particularly relevant to government contractors in scheduling their work since,
as mentioned previously, their percentage of the award fee is based on their
performance. If performance is higher
on
particular days of
the
week,
these are
the days when contractors would want to schedule their work. Therefore, the
purpose of the present study is to investigate whether there are performance
trends relative to day of the
week.
Specifically, it is proposed that performance
does
vary
by the day
of
the week
but,
contrary
to the
aforementioned findings[2],
Employee Relations,
Vol.
15
No.
4,
1993,
pp. 4246. © MCB University
Press 0142-5455
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