We hear so much today about performance management. The Human Resources community has developed entire performance management systems to track the growth and development of our staff and yet there are still serious business performance issues within the organization. Often I am confronted with this fact when brought into a client engagement.
The scenario goes something like this – I know I have a well-trained and dedicated team of employees and I believe my leadership team is engaged in their growth and development, but I can’t seem to put out the daily fires that distract us from our core mission – WHY? Obviously there is no one simple answer to this question.
The basic principles are always the same however. How are you monitoring the success of your business? Are you using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)? Are these KPIs aligned with the key processes that impact the success of your business? Is there a better way to move product and/or information through your organization?
Having just watched the winter Olympics I can’t help but to think about how the success of the athletes are measured so carefully throughout an event. They know ahead of time what their performance needs to be to get them to each transition point (KPI). 30 seconds to turn one, 45 seconds to turn two ……. Imagine if you monitored your business that way and better yet, your employees understood what it meant if they didn’t make it to each checkpoint on time.
Good workflow is the foundation of your organization. The processes that deliver your product or service to your customer at or above the commitment levels set at the time of the sale will either stop the daily fires or fuel them. In most cases people, when properly managed, are not the issue.
Organizations lose sight of the importance of workflow management because as they grow this gets left up to the day to day managers and in most cases people don’t like change. If I had a dollar for every time I have heard the expression we have always done it this way I would never have to work again. I have yet to find an organization in which everything stays the same – at least not a successful one!
Good work flow management that incorporates well developed processes leads to better overall performance every time. KPIs are an important part of this process as well. The only way I know to monitor the effectiveness of our workflow is through properly monitored KPIs. These monitoring points should be measuring operational performance not just financial performance. An organization can be profitable while losing market share due to poor performance. Operational KPIs will allow for better management of staffing levels and result in a stronger line level appreciation for corporate profitability.
Your business, like everything else should always be improving the level of service it delivers to its customers. Better products and better service will always deliver happier customers. If you find yourself asking how to put the fires out and increase service delivery – go back to the foundation of the organization and review the workflow that your daily operation is based on. This will put the fires out and might even lead to high financial performance as well.