Ultimate Performance: Measuring Human Resources at Work

Certifications as Benchmarks

Some industries use benchmarks, where if a person has some X, say a certification, then you can say that a person can achieve a certain level of performance. This is true of computer programmers who, once they possess certain certifications, are considered to possess certain skills, and thus they are competent to have certain jobs and to perform the tasks associated with those jobs. Recent years have seen a rise in demand for IT security certifications and an increase in the number of certifications being offered. This rise in demand has also been accompanied by a shift in the type of certifications available. Certifications were originally developed to sell professional services and were offered by vendors or resellers and thus driven by vendor interests. The job market is clearly the major driver behind certifications. Individuals seeking employment find it easier to get a job in the information security field if they hold a certification. Additionally, many employers offer pay bonuses for certificate holders. Certifications are basically Yes/No binary operators which function as metrics; either you have the certification or you do you do not. This is one of the ways that performance is measured in the IT industry.

However, it is possible that IT certifications do not measure performance and actually only measure how someone has done on a test. There are two potential routes we could take here. We could say (1) that other metrics of performance should ...