What Are Your Employees Doing?

 This question is easy to answer if you manage a factory or other work involving physical effort. You see items coming off the production line, being modified in some way. beingg painted or whatever.  But in an office environment where there is no significant physical output, observation of performance is harder.

You can look out from your office over your domain and see people beavering away at their desks and computers- but what are they actually doing.  You see people holding meetings - but what are they actually achieving.

In recent years, since COVID and the great WFH revolution, many staff have become adept at performative behaviours - looking as if they are working hard, but actually making little positive contribution.

You may have some simple measures in place which attempt to show levels of performance but often these are too simple to be effective.  The most simple - and the most ineffective - is time. Time spent at work - or on specific tasks - is not a good measure of effort or contribution.  I can be at work playing solitaire, or some other more engaging game - but that hardly makes me a star employee.  And of course you may have two members of staff working on broadly the same types of work but one is doing so with talent, skills and commitment whilst the other coasts along making errors.  The time they spend on the same tasks can have very different 'value created' figures.

This common problem - of measuring what is both obvious and easy to measure - leads to a loss of control and poor decision-making. 

Establishing metics is not always simple - but it is always important - to help establish and maintain control.  However it needs a focus on output or achievement rather than on input factors. 

So think carefully about the out come factors of administrative and clerical functions and relate measurement and appraisal to these outcomes - directly if possible, but if not then by using linked or proxy measures.  So, think and then create a basket of measures which balances all the key output factors.  If this is difficult, hire someone with measurement expertise and experience to help.  It is is so important, you can't afford to get it wrong.