A friend of mine is a sales manager in a large retail store and recently he came up to East Putney to meet me for some lunch. Following on from our usual discussions and a random sighting of Greg Wallace from Masterchef (being his restaurant, maybe it was not that random) we began talking about his recent frustrations at work.
It seems his company has a rather different outlook to how KPIs should be implemented, and this in particular seemed to be his biggest cause of recent frustration. “I have been given 16 KPIs and not one of them is related to the sales”
I was very surprised with this statement. There were so many things wrong with it, it was genuinely difficult to know where to begin. After a few moments to gather my thoughts, I pointed out the following observations:
16 KPIs?! Nobody ever should have this many KPIs; 7 at most. They are designed so you focus on what really matters, so how can anybody focus on and manage 16 KPIs simultaneously to improve performance? It can’t be done and most of his time will be used (and wasted) in reporting.
No sales KPIs? Hang on…I thought you worked in a sales retail store? I found it incredible that in a retail store where it all about sales that there cannot be a single sales KPI. KPIs measure the key processes of your role to improve what you already do. In no circumstance should it conflict with your day-to-day work.
Given to you? Anybody who understands KPIs will be able to tell you that KPIs should never just be ‘given.’ For a manager to take full ownership of their KPIs, they need to feel engaged and accountable. Therefore they need to be involved during the KPI Implementation process. If this part was considered, it may have even stopped the other 2 situations occurring.
My friend agreed with my observations and even offered his own. Despite this, and as we all know, changing policies in large companies is certainly not an easy process. Therefore as it stands, he will continue to manage his not-so-key performance indicators.
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