KPIs & Goal Setting

Why do you need it?

You may be wondering whether your people are actually performing or not.  Or else you have some areas of the business that aren't quite achieving what you would like.  But how do you hold people accountable to something they don't know about or you can't even measure?

Who is it for?

Everyone needs to know what is required for success.  We work with you, your management team and your staff directly (if you would like) to help engage and embed the right performance measures for your team.  We specialise in working with small-medium businesses who want a system that is relevant, engaging and easy to manage.

What do we offer?

As opposed to developing a long list of unachievable and unmeasurable tasks, our approach is based on finding the key measures and goals that will assist in driving performance of the company and be motivating for your people.  We work side-by-side in developing the right measures and then supporting both your managers and staff in following up with any reviews, tweaks and development actions.

Step 1: Define and document priority areas

Many performance systems have a long shopping list of measures that are unmanageable or else vague descriptors that can't be measured.  Getting everyone on the same page as to what is most important within a particular role is an essential first step towards developing KPIs and Goals.

Step 2: Agree goals, KPIs and action plans

Simply measuring what is easy is not only ineffective, it can be damaging for the business and employee.  Gaining agreement to a few key ongoing measures, looking at what could result in step-change for each person and identifying the actions to make it happen provides a clear pathway forward.

Step 3: Review, coach and evaluate

A big trap in KPI and Goal setting is to take a set-and-forget approach and this is the downfall of many efforts.  We work along side you, your managers and you staff to help guide and coach them to develop a rhythm of performance towards their new KPIs and Goals.

What are KPIs?

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator and is a measure of performance against a particular goal. That goal could be in relation to an employee’s overall performance, a KPI for project management, a team’s performance or a company’s performance. They should relate to the company’s strategy, business progress, as well as its operational goals. When considering KPIs for managers or employee KPIs, their key performance indicators should link back to a company KPI. Without KPIs, many small and medium businesses find performance management very difficult, as it is left to subjective judgements of performance. This can lead to an avoidance of addressing issues, leaving them to fester and turn into larger problems.

A good tool for ensuring that KPIs are tight enough is to use the SMART KPIs principle.  SMART stands for “Specific”, “Measurable”, “Actionable”, “Realistic” and “Time-based”. Very often you may not come up with the SMART KPIs straight away, but that should be the ultimate goal.

Why you need to set KPIs and Goals in the right way

The KPI setting process is not always easy.  Often a company may not have the data or reporting tools that it needs to measure what it wants. A trap many businesses fall into is to measure what is easy to measure, rather than identifying the right KPI metrics. This can be more detrimental to performance than having no measures at all. Many businesses will also be monitoring what is called “lag indicator” measures such as sales against sales targets. Whilst this is important, measuring only financial KPIs and then wondering why those financial KPIs are not improving is missing a beat. To stay in that same example, business developing KPIs should involve more lead indicators that measure activity, as well as looking at sales technique. Also when looking at business overall, taking a balanced scorecard approach whereby each category of finance, people, customer and process are taken care of, will provide a better chance of covering all important areas.

Another trap that businesses fall into is to have too many KPIs, which makes KPI management very difficult. Small business owners should consider the management of KPIs and in particular KPI measurement as a key factor when developing and implementing KPIs. Business owners should have readily available a KPI scorecard that provides KPI targets, KPIs and metrics on a regular basis.

Finally, a KPI strategy should form part of an overall organisational design approach that enables the company strategy. A good organisational design should align people, systems and process.

Download our FREE KPI Implementation Guide

Looking for more information on how to set and implement the right KPIs for your team? Leave your details using the "Free Consultation" form at the bottom of the page to receive our guide: How to Implement HVAs and KPIs with Your Team. Just ensure your details are correct and you'll be sent the link to download your copy.

Why you should work with Beyond HR Consulting in setting KPIs and Goals

We have seen many instances where KPIs setting have gone wrong and have helped many to get it right. We also know what the KPI development process involves and how to gain buy-in from the employees - which is often a missed area by businesses.  It is imperative that managers and employees take personal accountability for their KPIs, otherwise the new approach won’t work effectively.

Whilst we are located in Melbourne, we work with managers across Australia, including Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.