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 It's the time of year when I get asked to complete Performance Management Reviews for each of my directs.  This involves working with each of my directs to complete and submit a form.

The setting is education.  We are the IT Services department.  I have 5 directs.  2 do the exact same job.  The other 3 have individual jobs.

Our pay is not linked to performance.  We don't crank out widgets on a production line.  We are technically a charity - there are no profits.  There are no shareholders.

My plight is working out what performance metrics to apply to each direct when non jump out at me as being obvious.  Its also a challenge when the directs themselves are disinterested in the process because at the end of the day what difference does it make to them.  They would have to severely screw up to get fired.

I am seeking advice from anyone who can suggest possible direct metrics or indirect metrics to use.  Or maybe not metrics at all but some other way of describing and measuring someones performance.

Best Wishes in advance

jennrod12's picture

I used to work for a very large company, in a department that had hundreds of employees doing the same thing - tech support. We had some of the usual metrics, such as "Productivity" - number of cases closed or assisted on (scored by difficulty), and "Customer Satisfaction" - results from customer surveys. These two metrics had the biggest contribution to the performance rating, but there were others, will a smaller contribution.

These smaller metrics included "Uplifting self" - how much they completed training that made them better at their jobs, which then lead to, "Uplifting the team" - how much knowledge they contributed to the team by doing training, or presenting something they learned at a class or conference, etc., "Business contribution" - any special project they participated on, or "above and beyond" effort such as a weekend spent on-site at a customer trouble-shooting an issue to help the customer meet a deadline or complete a sale. This department also had an employee survey, in which they surveyed employees about their peers by name - several different categories such as "Is available and helps me when I need help", "provides accurate information", "provides timely information", I don't recall all the questions. It gave a score similar to a customer satisfaction score.

They had a very complex formula, which resulted in a numeric result, whereby hundreds of employees could be ranked and you could tell reasonably argumentatively which were the highest performers compared to their peers. Salary actions and bonuses were handed out accordingly. This "stack ranking" seems very formulaic, but I can see how they felt it was necessary when delivering the department performance stats to the VP.

The interesting part for me, as a line manager, was that when you explained to the staff what they were being ranked on, you could see the light bulb come on regarding how to be successful in the organization. It wasn't all about closing the most tickets and getting the best customer sat numbers, there were additional ways to contribute to the business that would also be rewarded. Suddenly they were interested in documenting systems, giving peer training or taking on extra projects, etc.

I don't know if that helps in your situation, but there it is.

Jenn

RogerL77's picture

Your comments have been most helpful, many thanks.