Keeping score
Key performance measures serve to increase accountability and should include a scoreboard to make the results visible. When I do evaluations for companies, one of my favorite questions to ask is, “At the end of the day, how do you know you did a good job?” The most common answer by far is, “I didn’t get in trouble.” Clarifying expectations for employees is essential to getting them out of this “Avoid getting in trouble” mindset. When a clear plan for the day is in place, employees know if they met their goals or not.
Scoreboards
One client saw output skyrocket after putting up scoreboards in the work area showing the goal for the day and updated actual results every two hours. Quality stayed high as well. At my previous company, I used to post the sales forecast and the actual revenue by salesperson in the sales department. We took the salesperson whose actual revenue most closely matched their forecast out to lunch, and we started getting reasonably accurate forecasts.
In my next post I’ll talk about tracking shipped on time and inventory turns.
© 2012 – Rick Pay – All Rights Reserved
