What Are Some Sample Criteria That Describe Work?

• Taskwork reflects work-related activities performed by employees that either involve transforming raw materials into goods and services that the organization provides (e.g., completing an assembly task on an assembly line) or directly supporting such processes (e.g., planning coordination or supervision). These activity directly impact the creation of products and services (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993). And, these are behaviors most people likely think of when they hear the word work.
• Organizational citizenship behaviors reflect activities performed by employees that influence the broader social, and psychological environment in the organization (Organ, 1997). These activities can include helping a fellow employee, maintaining enthusiasm about the job, and sharing information even when doing so is not an explicit expectation.
• Adaptive performance reflects an employee's adjustment to change. Pulakos and colleagues (2000) describe this with eight dimensions, including handling stress and solving problems creatively. As you read about these dimensions and other research in this area of the chapter, consider how they might reflect your current work and your performance requirements in courses like this. It is my hope that your college experience will allow you to develop some of these skills, as the purpose of college should be growth. That means it should not always be easy. You should experience frustration at times. When you do, ask yourself, "How can I demonstrate adaptability?"
• Counterproductive work behaviors are negative behaviors that might occur in an organization, including damaging property to purposely produce low-quality work (Sackett, 2002). Your textbook provides some examples.

Why would we consider defining work according to such negative terms? As we learned in PSYCH 281, these behaviors are prevalent and costly in terms of lost work, other damage, and legal costs. But, most importantly, research suggests that employers may be able to control counterproductive work behaviors to some extent if they understand the individual differences and environmental factors that predict them (Elliot & Jarrett, 1994).

Your textbook provides examples and specifics related to these models of work performance. What is important to point out here is the range of different conceptual criteria that can be used to describe performance. Keep in mind that how we define work changes how we choose to measure it and, therefore, what we focus on to predict performance.

Choosing the best criteria on which to focus depends on a number of things, including the data available for measuring performance and how well the criteria meet standards of individualization, relevance, measurability, and variance. We look at these issues in the next pages. In the next lesson, we will look at the ways we can understand work via job analysis.