Introduction
High performance for your business is about more than just making the right decisions. It’s about having the right KPIs in place to measure success, and rewarding employees for doing their job well. The key to building high-performing teams isn’t merely having good people on board – it’s understanding how KPIs work, what drives them and how to use them effectively
What does high performance look like for your business?
High performance is different for every business. It’s not just about making money and it’s not just about growing your sales. High performance is also about building great customer experiences, providing excellent service, increasing employee engagement and satisfaction, improving customer retention rates and overall quality of life for employees.
High performance can be measured in a variety of ways: conversion rates (how many people convert), average order value (how much they spend), social media follower count or likes per post/statement etc.
These measurements aren’t always easy to come by but they’re definitely worth tracking if you want to know where your business stands against competitors in terms of their KPIs
Align KPIs with Accountabilities
One of the most important things you can do to build great KPIs is align them with your company’s accountabilities.
- Align with individual accountabilities: If someone has a job title that includes “accountability,” it’s likely they’ll feel responsible for achieving specific goals set by their boss or manager. In this case, aligning your KPI with their personal responsibility can help motivate them to go above and beyond what’s expected of them.
- Align with business strategy: While some companies may have multiple KPIs aligned with their business strategy, others only have one or two—and if yours doesn’t match up well enough, then chances are high that employees won’t know why certain things need doing or where improvements could come from (or even where improvement needs to come from). Consider adding more detail into what exactly each goal means for your organization; this will help ensure everyone understands how everything fits together and gets done efficiently!
Identify the right metrics that drive high performance.
Once you’ve identified your KPIs, it’s time to get down to business. The first step is to determine what metrics are important for each department or team. For example, if you’re a marketing department and want more visitors on your website, then we need information about how many people visit our site but don’t convert into leads (an event).
Next, identify the most important metrics for each individual within that department or team: What does their performance look like? Do they have any weaknesses in their current process? Is there anything different about how they approach solving problems that would help them reach their goals faster and more effectively than other members of staff? Once these questions have been answered, consider adding some additional variables such as location (or region), age bracket or gender into the mix—these attributes might be relevant now but won’t always be so important in future years when other factors come into play again.”
KPIs must be indicative of longer-term performance.
KPIs must be indicative of longer-term performance. You can’t measure a KPI without knowing how it will help your business in the future, so it’s important that you make sure that the data is telling a story about what’s happening at your company as opposed to just showing how things were at a specific point in time.
It’s also important to monitor KPIs regularly—at least once per quarter or once per month—to ensure that they’re still accurate and relevant. If a KPI isn’t changing over time, then either there isn’t an issue with its underlying assumptions (such as not enough traffic) or there are other sources for increased awareness which need attention before this one does (such as improving customer satisfaction).
Make the KPIs clear and understandable.
- Make the KPIs clear and understandable. The purpose of a KPI is to provide a way for managers to monitor progress towards an objective or specific set of goals, but it must be easy for employees to understand what they mean. This means that you should use words that people understand and that can be easily measured (e.g., “sales”).
- Make sure your KPIs are meaningful for your team members. It’s important not only for them but also for their managers—and ultimately everyone else in your organization—to know how well or poorly they are doing at their jobs (and thus how much effort needs improvement). Your key metrics should reflect what matters most to different groups within your company; this will help ensure all staff members feel supported by their boss/co-workers when making decisions about changing direction or improving processes around certain aspects of day-to-day work activities related directly back into those same areas where improvements need made first before moving onto something else altogether which might require more time investment upfront due
Set the right targets, based on ability and stretch.
Setting targets is an art, not a science. It’s important to know what you’re trying to achieve and how your goal will help you achieve it. However, when you set your KPIs, make sure that they are challenging but not impossible.
If they are easy, then they won’t motivate people enough to work hard on them; if they’re difficult but possible (and achievable), then there will always be people who don’t do their best because the task was just too hard for them; and finally if the target is based solely on past performance (e.g., “If I am able to increase my sales by 10% this quarter,”), then no matter how hard everyone works at achieving this goal over time…
Reward good performance, ignore bad performance.
When you reward good performance, it’s more effective than punishing bad performance. This is because rewarding people for doing their jobs well will encourage them to continue in that vein, whereas punishing them for failing to do so will discourage them from trying again. If a team member makes an error on your site, don’t punish them by giving them negative feedback; instead take steps towards rectifying the situation so that it doesn’t happen again (e.g., provide training).
In addition, if you punish one person for making mistakes but not others who make similar errors at their own workplaces—or worse yet if others just ignore such issues altogether—you’re sending mixed signals about what constitutes “good” behavior: both praise and criticism can be seen as positive or negative depending on how they’re received by those receiving said messages respectively!
Base rewards on success, not effort or availability of resources.
Base rewards on success, not effort or availability of resources.
When you give out rewards, it’s important to make sure they’re based on results rather than how much effort was put into achieving them (e.g., “I’m going to give you a bonus this month if you finish all your work by 9am”). This can be tricky because there are many different factors that determine success at work—and some people may want their bonus regardless of whether their work was completed within an agreed upon deadline or not! It’s important for managers and leaders at all levels of an organization (from CEO down) to understand what type of performance-based incentive system will motivate their staff members best; this knowledge will enable them not only lead efficiently but also ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals together as one team!
Get the right support in place to ensure success.
As you’re working on your KPIs, it’s important to ensure that everyone at your company has a clear understanding of what success looks like—and how they can help you get there. That means giving them the tools and resources needed for them to succeed as well. It also means providing training on how these metrics work and how best use them, so that everyone knows what data is available from each source, when changes need made in order for things like trending analysis or data quality checks (e.g., identifying outliers), etc., along with tips on what kind of incentives might motivate employees if they don’t feel like their efforts are being rewarded appropriately by their managers or C-suite executives
Using KPIs correctly is key to encouraging high performance and driving profitability
KPIs are a great way to measure performance and drive profitability. They help you see what is working, and what isn’t, so you can make adjustments before it’s too late.
You can use KPIs both to motivate people to perform better, as well as reward them for good performance.
Conclusion
Good performance is the result of hard work, dedication and commitment. It’s not easy to achieve sustained high levels of performance, but it can be made easy by making sure that your KPIs are right. If you want to make sure that your business is performing at its best then make sure that all of your KPIs are aligned with Accountabilities and then identify which metrics will drive high performance.