Basic Corporate Metrics

A trend I’ve seen within the last couple of years as been to measure performance of employees through a series of metrics, which are numerical representation of performance, service, quality, etc. A couple of thoughts have come up as I’ve spoken to a few business partners:

  1. You will always have a couple of people who want to have high numbers – and while that may appear good on the surface, make sure that they are not sacrificing unmeasured areas to make the measured numbers look good;
  2. Make sure that you’re using sound statistical calculations – when your numbers don’t appear to correlate to real life, there is a problem – don’t trust the numbers of themselves, make sure they make sense in real life. Have a good idea of what the numbers should be saying, and if there is a divergence between what is observed versus what is measured, be sure to reconcile those two – which might be to find a better way to measure the results, or that might be to come to the understanding that the measured results are more accurate;
  3. Have a combination of public and confidential metrics. That is, have a series of measurements which are published and discussed. These are areas where team members can strive to achieve and improve. Then hold a second set of metrics you use to measure your own management of these employees. Keep those measurements private. Do not disclose to the employees how you’re measuring in this area. Simply address problems as they occur, but kept your actual measurement system private;
  4. Your business goals, including customer service and profitable should be measured. Again, keep disclosed and undisclosed numbers.

Also, in the context above, everything is referencing “within the company” — an even smaller set of numbers (if any) should be published to the outside world.