The Employee Performance Metrics Every Brand Should Track
According to a well-known business maxim, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
After all, you wouldn’t start a hiking trip without a map and destination in mind—so why would you run a company without having goals to measure? How can you stay on track if you’re not sure where you currently are?
That’s where Employee Performance Metrics come in. Keeping tabs on how your employees are performing—and, by extension, the performance of your organization as a whole—is the best way to move forward in today’s highly competitive market.
Not sure where to start? Here are some crucial metrics worth tracking.
Work Quality
The quality of your team’s output is one of the biggest markers of success. After all, you can’t expect clients to keep buying inferior products or services for long! Small business owners will track both the output quality of each employee as well as the overall output quality of the brand as a whole.
Subjective Metrics
Most workplaces use a few subjective metrics to measure each employee’s quality. Tools like 180-degree feedback—meaning feedback from an employee’s peers and supervisor—or 360-degree feedback—meaning feedback from peers, supervisors, customers, and subordinates—are common. Other subjective metrics include regular quality assessments from managers and supervisors.
Objective Metrics
Objective metrics aren’t as easy to coordinate in some industries, but they can be a better indicator than subjective tools. Tracking the number of errors, product defects, and poor client reviews can be a good start.
Work Quantity
Metrics based on quantity are among the easiest for most workplaces to set up, though they aren’t always as useful as quality metrics. You may want to track more specific metrics related to your industry, but in general, here are some quantity metrics most smart management strategies prefer:
- Number of products produced or services rendered
- Number of sales or active leads
- Number of phone calls or office visits
- Number of missed calls
- How long customers wait on hold
- Average handling time
- Customer ratings after contact
- Number of projects an employee has
Quantity measurements like these are also great options for establishing individual, team, or office goals. They tend to be easy to visualize, whether you’re using a chart on an office whiteboard or a dedicated online tracking system like the one at www.mesh.ai.
Efficiency
Efficiency is a measurement of how well your company manages and uses its resources, including its time management. It helps you understand how much output you’re getting based on the work that you put in.
Companies that have higher efficiency sometimes produce better and more products and services, but too much efficiency can also make it hard to keep quality high. It’s crucial to find a balance between efficiency, quality, and quantity if you want to succeed.
Though there are several ways of measuring efficiency, the ones below are common for most organizations:
Time Management
Employees should be able to manage their own time well, including juggling deadlines and several projects at once. This can be a difficult quality to track, but time tracking software can help you understand where your employees spend most of their time—as well as identify any potential time sinks.
For your business’s time management overall, it can also help to track absenteeism rates and the average overtime per employee.
Revenue Per Employee
For your workplace or certain teams as a whole, calculating the revenue per employee can help you understand how much money each individual team member comes in. Having a higher revenue from fewer employees is always preferable.
Satisfaction and Engagement
Among the trickiest metrics to establish are those around workplace satisfaction and engagement. Employees who like their organization are more likely to be productive and motivated, and they’re also more likely to stick around, so these metrics are well worth the effort of tracking.
Let’s take a quick look at the most useful things to track. Like some of the metrics above, these metrics will tend to be subjective.
Surveys
A great way to get an ongoing look at employee happiness is through annual surveys. This can help you track year-over-year changes in satisfaction, engagement, and more. As a follow-up approach, sending out pulse surveys on a more frequent basis can help you keep tabs on engagement from week to week or month to month.
Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)
This score asks employees a simple question: would you recommend this company as a workplace? Your team will answer anonymously based on a sliding scale from one to ten, and the resulting score can help you understand how supportive and dedicated your team is to your brand.
Quantitative Measurements
A few quantitative measurements can also help you track employee satisfaction. Absenteeism rates, for example, can help you pick up on disengagement trends, as can voluntary turnover rates.
Regular Check-ins
Setting up regular meetings is a great way to check in with employees about their work experience, which gives you an opportunity to start a conversation about any changes or improvements they’d prefer. One-on-one interviews are an ideal way to get this feedback, and stay interviews can also help you build trust and identify what’s working and what isn’t.
Keep Tabs on Your Employee Performance Metrics
Keeping tabs on your organization’s employee performance metrics can mean the difference between investing in smart strategies and making blind, hit-or-miss decisions. Though it can be hard to establish metrics around some of your organization’s biggest challenges, the effort to do so can be well worth the trouble. Don’t forget to check out online tools that can help make the road a little smoother!
Want more tips to help you make the most of your brand? Be sure to take a look at our other content for additional guides.
