Employees “get” their purpose with cascading goals

Employees “get” their purpose with cascading goals

by | Apr 14, 2015 | action plans, performance

The Balanced Scorecard Institute calls it “cascading goals.”

I love this term, because you can visualize how the organization has a strategy and a big goal for the year, and important bits cascade down to departments (sales, customer service, production, even accounting). Then the department manager lets each employee know how they contribute to this department goal.

A great example I heard last year at a seminar was how a chain restaurant made corporate goals tangible and clearly understandable to every employee.

The general manager had a goal of 5% increase in revenue this year (to achieve the corporate goal of 5% increased revenue at same locations.) She then computed what this meant for the hostess, servers, kitchen staff, and even the “busboys.”

The Hostess knew that the team needed to reduce wait time (goal- less than 10 minutes at peak hours) so they did not lose diners due to a long line. She worked with the busboys to clear dishes so that diners left faster after eating (goal- 2 minutes) and clean up tables for a new party (within 2 minutes).

Servers knew that they needed to increase their average sale per diner 5%- which equaled an extra appetizer or dessert for every 3 tables. Servers also concentrated on expediting orders, response to requests (ketchup, please) and rushing food to tables to decrease overall customer time at the table.

I think you get the picture… when employees have simple Key Performance Indicators, they understand their purpose, the results to achieve, and the priority actions that would achieve those results.

Then the restaurant manager would share daily and weekly results (average sale per diner, average time per table, table wait time at peak, etc) so that employees could see if they were on track to meet monthly goals. A simple visual dashboard of these KPI was posted in the employee area, and reviewed with weekly and monthly update and celebration meetings.

Different shifts and days even had a friendly competition going, and servers would stop to ask their KPI results after a shift!

After a few months, revenue increased 10% over the prior year, and better yet, customer satisfaction scores also increased significantly.

After all, those KPI weren’t just good for the restaurant, but also what customers want: no wait for a table, faster and more responsive service, being offered the specials of the day.

Here is a great free guide from Gazelles & Rhythm Systems:
5 Tips All Executive Teams Must Know About KPIs

Learn more about how Expectations, goals and KPI dashboards work as part of your People Plan:
Clarifying Expectations section of our free resources

Image courtesy of Sura Nualpradid at FreeDigitalPhotos.com

Half of managers fail at employee goal setting

Half of managers fail at employee goal setting

by | Mar 10, 2015 | action plans, coaching, performance

If your soccer team cannot see the goal post, and players don’t know what steps they need to take to score a point (can I use my hands?), you can’t expect to win many games. You can always hope the other team is more clueless.

Yet most managers (even at large employers) do not let employees know their expectations for performance or what results or goals are required for the individual to contribute to department and organizational success.

In fact, Towers Watson 2014 Talent Management and Rewards Study found that “Only half of the organizations participating in the say managers are effective at working with employees to set appropriate performance goals for individual performance.”

I have read other research that asked managers and employees to name the top 3 priorities in a job, and they agreed on only ONE! So most employees focus on two main results areas that are not the highest priority.

Basically, employees want to know what does a doing “good job” look like and how I will be measured– but they are usually left guessing.

And who is responsible? The manager….

The solution (simple to say, serious effort to do):

  • Get crystal clear on the activities, results and key performance indicators for each job
  • Share with employees and gain their understanding and agreement
  • Track, monitor, share results with employee
  • Coach performance (and process) improvements with each employee weekly, monthly, quarterly

Then you will often hear (to quote our retired Buffalo Sabres hockey commentator Rick Jeanneret), “he shoots – he scores!!!!”

Article- Employees get their purpose with cascading goals /a>

Learn more about how Expectations, goals and KPI dashboards work as part of your People Plan:
Clarifying Expectations section of our free resources

Image courtesy of Ohmega1982 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Resources- Clarifying Expectations

by | Jan 1, 2014 | Uncategorized

Why Clear Job Expectations Are Important:

  • They get everyone on the same map!
  • Creates a roadmap for each employee to:
    • Clearly understand expectations and standards of performance.
    • Benchmark their own performance (with key results).
  • Tool for managers to select, train, manage
    • Identify causes of performance gaps.
    • Basis to discuss and improve poor performance.
    • Recognize and motivate exceptional work.
    • Determine training and development plans for employees.

Videos

Training 1 – 9 Steps to Build A Fabulous Team

Training 2 – Clarifying Job Expectations 

Documents

Articles

 

To your People success,

-Diana Southall, People Coach and creator of the People Plan™

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If you are ready to create your own People Plan, learn more about our Toolkit resources.