Developing measures of job performance for support staff in housing services for people with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Background There is an absence of research concerning the assessment of housing support worker job performance, particularly in the development of job performance measures that reflect the priorities of people with intellectual disabilities and their families. Method A worker-oriented job analysis method was used to develop four short job performance measures for direct housing support staff, from the perspective of people with intellectual disabilities (n = 82), family members (n = 38), support staff (n = 122) and service managers (n = 115). Results All four job performance measures showed adequate internal and test-retest reliability and showed very few associations with staff and resident characteristics, although there were no associations between the job performance measures. The service user and manager-rated job performance measures showed the widest range of associations with aspects of staff well-being, service quality and service user choice and satisfaction with life, and show the most promise as short, practical measures of the job performance of direct housing support workers. Conclusions These methods of developing job performance measures show promise, and further investigation of user-defined staff competencies is warranted. © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.