(Photo by Cathryn Lavery on Unsplash)
Lockdown and WFH have heralded in a host of challenges, one among them being how to monitor performance when a team lead is not able to literally ‘keep an eye’ on her or his team.
Measuring performance using authentic indicators or criteria has always been a challenge, and now more so. However, many companies are ahead of this game and have for some time been using KPI scorecards.
In its simplest form, a KPI is a type of performance measurement that helps you understand how your organization or department is performing. KPI scorecards, however, are only as good as the criteria that are set, and developing a high-quality scorecard still eludes many.
A good KPI scorecard should act as a compass, guiding you and your team along the best route toward your strategic goals. It is about setting up effective KPI performance measurements. Then measuring and holding difficult convos where needed.
In the tech space, setting viable, well-defined, and quantifiable competency-based criteria and managing key-performance areas is our mainstay, as sound recruitment and HR project management are intrinsically linked to effective performance measurement.
This exercise is not as difficult as it may sound, but it is very easy to miss the mark. The Crucial Conversations model that we train on is great for this; and we are supporting several companies with reworking their performance scorecards.
The Crucial Conversation model is based on the premise that most ‘defining’ moments in life come from having crucial conversations (as these create significant shifts in attitude and behaviour). The model teaches skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topics – between and within all levels. Enabling all members of your team to speak and be heard, will bring to surface the best ideas, the highest-quality decision making, and actions with unity and commitment.
Using this model, the advantages of an intimate understanding of all members of a team, in the context of the company’s strategic goals, are evident – as is the need for ongoing staff well-being and development.
The full suite of services that we offer our clients is therefore pivotal to an effective and sustainable translation of KPI metrics into the workspace. These services comprise recruitment, HR operations support, psychometric assessments, and specialised training based on these assessments – best conceived together as full Talent Lifecycle support.