The STDEV Function in Excel

WPS Spreadsheet could be an alternative to Microsoft Office Excel. It includes 100's of built-in formulas, pivot tables, and more.

· Description:

The standard deviation is a statistic to explain how widely values are dispersed from the mean.

It can help company do a risk assessment, higher standard deviation in the individual performance might indicate higher volatility.

· Syntax:

STDEV(number1,[number2],...)

· Arguements:

Number1: First reference in the sample; Number2: Second reference [Optional]

· Example:

1. Open your table in WPS Spreadsheet.

2. Place your cursor in cell F3 where we want to add a STDEV Function. Head to Formulas > Insert Function. Enter STDEV in the edit box. Enter B3:E3 in the edit box, then click OK.

3. Hove over cell F3, and drag it all the way down. Now we get the Standard deviation of employees’ performance. It shows Logan’s performance is relatively the most stable.

4. If we want to get the standard deviation of the performance of all employees. Return to the Function Argument window, enter B3:B12 at Number1 ,C3:C12,D3:D12 at Number2, E3:E12 at Number3, then Click OK.

We can use the standard deviation of all employees' performance (Cell F13) as an indicator to further evaluate the performance of each employee, and the company can choose to interview employees who have an more unstable performance than the general level.

Let's set the conditional formatting: Head to the Home tab > Conditional Formatting > Highlight cells rules > Greater Than > enter cell F13 in the edit box  > OK.

Now it is clearly that James, John, Christian, Andrew, Ryan and Hayden are underperforming in maintain stability.