What are some example criteria to describe work?

• Taskwork reflects work-related activities performed by employees that contribute to the technical core of the organization, such as the creation of the products and services (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993). These are behaviors most likely think of when they hear the word 'work.'
• Organizational Citizenship Behaviors reflect activities performed by employees that help maintain the broader organizational, social, and psychological environment in the organization (Organ, 1997), such as helping a fellow employee, maintaining enthusiasm about the job, sharing information even when doing so is not an explicit expectation, etc.
• Adaptive Performance reflects an employee's adjustment to change. Pulakos and colleagues (2000) describe this with 8 dimensions, including handling stress and solving problems creatively. As you read these and other research in this area of your chapter, consider how these dimensions might reflect your current work as well as requirements of your performance in courses like this. It is my hope that your college experience allows 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 expect frustration at times. When you do, ask yourself "How you I demonstrate adaptability?"
• Counterproductive Work Behaviors - negative behaviors that might occur in an organization, including damaging property to purposely producing low-quality work (Sackett, 2002). Your textbookprovides 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, both in terms of lost work and other damage but also legal costs. But, most importantly, research suggests employers may be able to control CWBs 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 to measure operformance, as well as 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 HOW we can understand work via job analysis.