(Originally entered 5/25/2006)
I don't think very many business owners would disagree that when you hire an employee you expect them to do or produce something of value. In effect, as a business owner you are investing in the new employee and want a return on your investment. You evaluate employees on a regular basis and so are in fact evaluating the return on your investment.

But most businesses do NOT think that way when they buy technology assets - computers, networking and communications equipment, telephones, software, etc. The asset is purchased, and typically written off, if not on the books then at least in the minds of owners and management. Very rarely is a formal review made of the return on the investment of technology assets! Worse, since it is essentially people, the aforementioned employees, that use the computers and other technology, their evaluation has buried within it an implicit evaluation of the technology - the tools that the employee is using to do the job you hired them to do.

Consider the following scenarios and ask yourself if any of them might be occurring in your organization.

1. The employee is performing well and the technology is performing well. You rate the employee highly and give them a raise, possibly promote them ... performance has been improved even from what it would have been ... Promotion may lead to a position where the employee will no longer have access to the technology tools they were using. Should some of the money used to give the employee a raise be used to improve the technology or extend its use to more employees?
2. The employee is performing well, but the technology is a problem. The result could be:
   1. The employee's performance still looks good to you and you rate them highly, not knowing that they could be doing a better job if not for the computer or communication problems.
   2. The employee's performance doesn't look so good. Worse, they're probably getting frustrated by the technology or other problems. You have a good employee, but you don't know it ... and you may not care when they decide to leave your company.
3. The employee is only average and the technology is great. You give the employee a high rating and give them a big raise, not knowing that you should have taken some of those investment dollars (the raise!) and put it into more technology to help more employees.
4. The employee is just average and the technology causes problems, too. Things are probably a mess and you may fire the employee. You go through an expensive hiring process and end up with at best a good employee that gets frustrated with the bad technology ... and then leaves. (See #2a)

The only solution is doing an evaluation of the technology directly. Obvious, but not so easy!