Key Performance Indicator [KPI] - Unseen risk at workplace

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR

Something that everyone tries to run away from? Well, not if the key performance indicators (KPI) are set realistically. But how many of us over here do have realistic targets every month? The number of employees leaving their job due to amount of workload & not practical targets is still crazy. From the management's view, their aim is to actually push their employees to go beyond their capabilities in order to increase the productivity of individual. In other words, give their 100% commitment to the organisation.


Everyone would want to not work hard and yet earn same either higher. Oh well, even I do! But on a serious note, it is necessary for organisation to implement KPI into every functionality? At least not to stress the employees but surely for many other good reason's too.


Besides having a clear job description, employees should be given the expectation of the role so that they will be all clear on what should be delivered. Having KPI(s), you always know what are your goals for the month. We tend to start the month with a certain checklist to be ticked by end of the month. With that, the goals you want to achieve becomes clear. Very often, employees become very stress with their workload and tend to burst out. Having a clear indicator of the expected performance, employees will be able to plan their weekly or even daily plans at work which will be able to result in excellent performance.


For example, a hiring manager opens a Customer Support role handling APAC region focusing on the China market. Target for a HR personnel could be to fill up the position within 1 month of the project given. With this, HR personnel could set days they would want to interview the candidates for 3-4 rounds and hire the individual within 1 month. Being clear with the goal of 1 month to fill the position, HR personnel will be able to work simultaneously with other positions that comes from other department. Without a realistic target, hiring managers would be expecting potential candidates from HR personnel within 1.5-2 weeks which sometimes could be pretty stressful for the recruiter.


Just for the sake of providing candidates to the hiring manage who demanded quick candidates, the chances of the hiring manager interviewing candidates that are not equally good is very high. Hiring manager will waste hours of his time just trying to interview low quality candidates. With the duration set by the HR manager for the HR personnel, it ables them to plan their work accordingly and also increases the quality of candidates submitted to the hiring manager.


With this being said, managers surely plays an important role setting target for employees. Many driven employees leave their organisation due to the unrealistic target given to them. KPI works for many other departments too. Number of position to be filled in by Quarter 1, number of marketing catalogue to be design in 1 month, number of tickets support & satisfactory score level, total sales to cover in a month, number of unit production produced in a month. It works in every way!


What would be the effect of unrealistic targets by supervisor?


Turnover rate. Look at your company's turnover rate. People tend to leave when they feel they are not equally good for their organisation. When they often see themselves not being able to consistently achieve their KPI, it leads them to stressful moments thinking they are not performing well.

Demotivated employees leads to unhealthy office environment. Coming to office being so demotivated, having to speak with a friend and spreading around about how the management kills the sales department with high targets. Stories do go around. Perception of employees changes and they don't tend to look at the awesome management no where like before.

The quality of employee reduces! What is more disappointing to know that employees no more longer focuses on producing quality work and now focuses more to the quantity of work done just to achieve the targets their manager sets for them ? Customer's satisfaction some how links a lot to the quality of work done by the employees. When quality drops, it becomes domino effect to why the organisation can fail.

Employee's low morale, low self-esteem, productivity drops, absenteeism increases, overrunning cost becomes high and many more! The list could just go on and on and on. Employees being the largest asset for every organisations, it is very important to ensure that they are well taken care off. This does not mean that we should be spoon feeding the employees with everything. Having the employees to know that the management care for them is already a good step to developing a healthy environment.

With more good than harm KPI can actually be, it is now known how it can actually cause more harm than anything ever. This hidden risk is something that does not speak much when exit interviews are done but it somehow does contribute to employees leaving the organisation. If targets are set very high, discuss with together with managers and see how could both parties come up to a mutual understanding.