Performance indicators - KPI

Many organizations around the world use performance indicators or key performance indicators (KPI). This is just a simple type of performance measurement with many areas of application and can be used to evaluate a global success or to evaluate the success of simple and smaller activities.

Big companies and small business around the world have in common that every year or half year they establish strategic goals, some more serious than others… but the effort for improvement or financial success is lined up for all workers to see. The success, of course a very subjective topic, can be measured thru the progress or achievement made toward these goals. Although that is possible to be done, we must always pay attention that in a globalized world everything changes and when we pick these more generalized performance indicators can be that in the end of a year the changes that happened make them horseless. The main objective of performance measurements is to make us able to take conclusions in the end… without that is just a number, a pretty thing to say in management meetings or monthly brochures.

The thing is, and what I want to present here, is that every goal is achieved by the conquest of certain smaller tasks that are made every single day in the 9 to 5 job. Periodic, repeating tasks is what lead us toward a bigger goal.

Example of how a strategic goal can be divided in small tasks.

The factors that can be measurable and are good candidates to become performance indicators can be summarize, for example, in the next categories:

Type of Performance Indicators

What then if your company doesn’t use this performance indicators? We don’t need a management order to start using KPI’s in our work! Can be a private effort that helps us to measure our performance, our improvements and also to keep us motivated! Is my personal opinion that in the end of a working day if you feel that you made your part, maybe your motivation would be the same and you still hate that job but the feeling of mission accomplished will be there! And also you will have tools to prove to others, or at list have an idea how your work developed during the last month and how many tasks you handle and how many time you took.

Presenting numbers that prove your work and achievements is totally different then saying to your manager that you worked “allloooooottt the last days!!!”

So for example you can by yourself establish KPI’s like:

• Answer 10 clients’ e-mails per day.
• Have my week report finished at 13h Friday…

Make an Excel sheet and start to track your performance. The system of a crux can be good but even better is if you point out the e-mails that you answer or what time you really finished your week report. That can help you track your improvements but also establish new goals. What is the point to have a goal of answering 10 clients’ e-mails when you easily answer 30? The opposite situation is also true.

When I was searching for a new job I made my own KPI’s. I established that I would send 40 applications per week! So guess what? Almost all the times I wasn’t capable to do it… and the reason was very simple, this goal was too much above my capacities. OK I know that happens all the times! Who haven’t set up goals that didn’t accomplished in work but most of the times in personal life?  One thing is to fail a generic goal… another is to fail a very objective one like a performance indicator. You don’t only fail… you fail and have numbers to prove it!!

So I just felt bad… all the time… I could never get that number of applications or because I didn’t have time (or patience), was too tired, there was not available opportunities to apply for… Then I change it for a more reasonable number… 10 job applications per week! The number made the trick! I just focus to try to find 2 open jobs and make the best application I could and sometimes I even came above that number! And that made me feel great, keep active, motivated and made me able to find a job keeping a healthy mind.

The missing interpretation of these indicators can happen (and happens allot) especially by management. Nowadays, the “Crises days”, what happens is that sometimes the worker establishes himself that he can make 10 reports…  and what the boss understands is that if he can make 10 reports he also can, when really focus and if he really was a hard worker, do 100! That is not a very smart strategy although very common management attitude. That leads to never achieving the numbers proposed… because they are not realistic… and leads to very unhappy workers. But, I think if using performance indicators for the staff morale was possible they would use it for sure.