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Strategy and Performance, SimpleStrata | read

Results vs. Efforts and the Communications Gap

Written by Hanadi Saidawi
Nov 25, 2018 8:48:37 AM
Written by Hanadi Saidawi

If you are a manager, then you’ve had at least one difficult and uncomfortable conversation with an employee regarding their performance.  Usually, the conflict arises because of the different perspectives you and your employee may have, concerning what an acceptable performance is.

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As a manager, you are result-driven. You look at dashboards and focus on quantitative progress depicted by numbers and percentages. Employees, on the other side, are more effort-driven. What they know best is how much effort they have put, the amount of pressure they have handled and the number of extra hours they have invested in their work to allow their tasks to be completed in a timely and appropriate manner. If the results are not achieved, the employees cannot be blamed. The problem is, for sure, somewhere else.

A Simple Story

Before digging deep into this dilemma, let us have a look at a simple real-life example:

Peter and John work as part-time translators. They are paid on weekly basis, based on the number of completed hours (Rate= $10/hour). One week, Peter submitted his timesheet, showing 15 hours work for 30 translated pages. John’s timesheet showed 25 hours for the same count of pages.

Based on their reports, Peter was paid $150 while John was paid $250. Although the payment aligned with the initial agreement with both employees, their manager was hesitant about it. He was actually more satisfied with Peter’s speed and productivity, since he has been producing better results in a shorter time frame. Although his colleague, John had a slower production level, he was receiving a higher pay.

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The source of unreasonableness in the above example is clear: The appreciation was connected to the EFFORT being exerted (time of hours spent at work), not with the RESULT produced (the count of translated pages).

The issue is very clear and, in this example, could be easily solved, because it is one dimensional and straightforward. However, the situation can get vague and the boundaries become blurred in more dynamically complex situations where multiple measures are evaluated, several parties contribute to the same result, and other external factors must be considered.

The Problem

There is a severe disconnect between employees’ and managers’ views of achievement; between what employees consider as recognition-worthy efforts and what managers call getting the job done. This is a major cause of endless arguments in the workplace, most notably seen during performance reviews. Usually, managers focus on the results, disregarding of the amount of effort involved. They see results as a proof that the JOB IS DONE, a means to an end. 

On the other side, employees feel oppressed. At the end of the day, they have used their maximum ability to produce masterpieces in their own rights. They have gone out of their way, worked extra hours, and dealt with a variety of conflicts and dependencies in addition to handling crippling levels of stress. Yet, that was not taken into consideration when the end result was evaluated.

As this disconnect of expectations grows between managers and their employees, the communication gap widens as well. Managers will continue to grow frustrated and eventually, employees will feel under-estimated and trapped, prompting them to eventually look for other jobs.  


You May Be Interested In: Twelve52 Management Approach


The Solution

An effective formula emphasizes the correlation between results and efforts and establishes the right balance between them. However, the final accepted performance should be always linked to the achievement of results, not the amount of effort exerted. I can hear a sigh of relief coming from managers reading this, while I am also sure employees would debate the merits of putting significant amounts of effort into a task, only to have it disregarded. It doesn’t seem worth it, right?

Wrong. Effort leads to results. For this reason, it cannot be ignored. In fact, effort constitutes a large portion of the success formula. However, defects exist when the focus is aimed solely at executing efforts, while remaining ignorant on defining them first, before acting on the said effort. 

What Are Results and Efforts?

Sometimes, the line distinguishing results from efforts is very blurred, allowing them to overlap significantly. Falling into this trap results in focusing on the less important aspects, and measuring outputs as opposed to measuring outcomes.

The Definitions Given Below, Should Help In Clarifying The Concepts:

  • Results are outcomes. They describe the jobs that the employee was hired to do. Results must be S.M.A.R.T and should be defined in terms of targets that can be clearly measured. If the targets are achieved, the results are accomplished, and the job is done.
  • Efforts are actions. They specify the plan that must be executed to achieve the results. The right efforts should drive and impact results.

In Summary

Results

Efforts

Outcomes – Goals with defined targets and timelines

Actions – Activities that drive the achievement of results

Conclusive – Inform if a job is done

Predictive – Indicate moving towards getting the job done

Non-influenceable – Not moved by will

Influenceable – Moved by will

Fixed – shouldn’t change very often

Adjustable – can change and be refined more frequently

Lagging - By the time we get them, they have already happened and cannot be changed

Leading – Executing them will eventually lead to attaining the results

Long Interval Measurement – Measured across long intervals, to allow achievement of targets

Short Interval Monitoring – Monitored within short intervals, to ensure progress and easier adjustment

 

So, Now What?

Your next step should be to have a deep look at your employees’ performance measures. Are they separating results from efforts or mixing them? Are they focusing on outcomes or outputs? Are you rewarding achievement or activities? Are you summing up completed activities to indicate achieving a result?

Create a table where you list the results you aim to achieve in one column, and your plan to achieve them in another column. This will be your first step towards effective execution.

In the coming articles, I am going to walk you through a simple execution methodology, that accounts for your results and efforts and helps you to establish a common agreement with your employees on the expected results to be achieved and the actions required to achieve them.


In the meantime, download our FREE "Twelve52 Management Approach" Guidelines.

In this guide you will learn to set up: 

  • Results Measurement (12 monthly Key Points)

  • Efforts Planning (52 weekly Check Points)

  • Task Management (Daily Tasks Reporting)
    Twelve 52 approach

DOWNLOAD HERE


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Originally published Nov 25, 2018 8:48:37 AM, updated December 2, 2019

Topics: Strategy and Performance SimpleStrata

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Meet the Experts – Hanadi Sidawi, Product Manager, SimpleStrata

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You see the  end product  but we’re bringing you closer to the people behind it! 

We sat down with Hanadi Sidawi, product manager of one of our most popular solutions “SimpleStrata” to get to know her more and understand her journey to becoming  SimpleStrata’s product manager. 

Hanadi graduated from Abu Dhabi University with a degree in computer science and a minor in business administration. Her professional career was kicked off when she became a trainer for basic computer courses. She then shifted into another company, where she worked as a legal assistant for 1 year and then got promoted to senior legal assistant, maintaining that position for 2 more years.

With that kind of experience under her belt, she was able to join Exceed as an HR Coordinator where her focus was on internal policies and labor law compliance in Exceed’s different branches. After some time, the bulk of work was getting more focused on employee performance. To familiarise herself with its methodologies and the system handling it, she began the process of self-teaching and read books to study the main frameworks that formulate the basis of Employee Performance Management and Strategy Execution.

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That way, she become proficient in the language that provisions the performance solution that Exceed was developing and was working as a performance specialist implementing the methodology of employee performance in Exceed. As she worked more closely with SimpleStrata, she became proficient in it, which lead the way for her to become the product manager. 

By getting more exposed to customers, Hanadi and the team came to know that the challenges that Exceed faced internally were common across almost all organisations from different industries. 

Exceed had the methodologies but faced a challenge in communicating, implementing, and executing them the right way, as did the other organisations. 

These challenges included: 

 Strategy execution challenges

 

After the system had reached the desired level of maturity, it was launched in Exceed first then to the market and was able to resolve the 99% of the challenges of many organisations, regardless of their size/industry. 


Want to know more about the methodologies behind  SimpleStrata?
Click here. 

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Success Stories 

One of our larger customers, SCAMAF (Social Care & Minor Affairs Foundation) were using excel sheets to manually monitor and execute their strategy, which was not only very time-consuming, but it was also exhausting the efforts of employees involved who can be utilising their time in other more efficient tasks. Not only that, but the end result would usually have inaccuracies as human error is guaranteed with repetitive tasks such as this one. 

What the SimpleStrata team did was they helped them migrate all their data, which was a huge number of excel files, into the system. They set up the system according to SCAMAF’s execution process, and they provided them with the required training to be able to understand and use the system.

 

They immediately were satisfied with the system as it had created the perfect environment for them that does not require human intervention. After using the system, they had clear visibility on individual performance as well as organisational performance. Whereas they previously had a full department dedicated to strategy execution, they now had only the Head of Strategy monitoring everything via SimpleStrata. 

Statement from the SimpleStrata team: 

Since we launched it to the market in 2019, we reduced the time and efforts of  20+ organisations with 3,000 employees across numerous industries:  50% decrease in the time required for collecting performance data & 40% increase in employees’ awareness on their goals and KPIs.

 

Intrigued? Click here for a FREE trial! 

 

 

Six Benefits of KPI Reporting Dashboards

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KPI reporting can clearly communicate the progress of a company towards its performance goals. Not only the managers can access key results in an instant and transparent manner, but also make informed strategic decisions. 

Here are the top benefits of investing in a great KPI reporting tool for your organisation and management.


benefits of KPI reporting dashboards

 

1. They Let You Measure Results

Measuring is an important part of KPI reporting. It is the primary key that informs you about the success or failure of your work. You need to measure the progress made towards the achievement of your target: the number of sales increased (sales performing), the number of new customers or anything in your business you want to measure.

KPIs provide actionable information because they are always measurable and quantifiable. For example, if one of a hotel company's identified CSFs maintains a high level of occupancy throughout the year, a KPI would be the percentage of occupancy of rooms, measured on a weekly basis, using the previous year as a benchmark.



2. They Help You Set Business Goals 

You need to set a target and aim to reach it in a set period. You can set more than one targets and create different keys for each of your targets to ensure you measure your progress and then try to achieve your goals.

It's often difficult to keep all departments or teams within an organisation aligned and working toward common goals. Once an organisation's Mission, Vision and CSFs have been written into a strategic plan, KPIs break down complex information into understandable metrics and provide feedback on the organisation's progress. Communication of progress toward KPIs keeps everyone moving forward in the same direction.

 


You May Also Like: Guide to the Must-Have KPIs for Service Companies


 

3. They Offer Incentives to Your Team 

KPIs are often linked to incentives. Teams or individuals are offered an incentive to improve their KPIs to a particular level during a specific time period. In order for this to be successful, the KPIs have to be clearly understood and quantifiable, and reporting must be accurate. The information provided by KPIs empowers people to improve their own personal performance along with that of the organisation.

 

 

4. They Help Your Find Issues in Your Business Strategy

Managers can use KPI to identify any issues present in the construction of business. Any type of problems such as labor productivity issues, danger to employee safety and failures to meet the expectations and needs of customers. KPI enables businesses to recognise these issues to take appropriate action to rectify these problems. Companies can also resolve customer’s issues and concerns with the help of KPI by analysing feedbacks from clients to check whether the expectations of clients are met or not. This approach also helps in eradicating future potential issues that may occur in the future projects.

 

best KPI reporting dashboards

 

4. They Let Your Discover Strengths in Your Strategy

With the KPIs, companies can easily unearth potential strengths to use any opportunities that you can use to enhance the performance of your business. Businesses can easily find the strengths whenever a post-project review shows a high score and this score indicates your performance in your performance. Companies can follow the same procedure to upgrade the performance of their company if your post-project review shows high score.



5. They Align Your Marketing & Sales Efforts

With help of KPIs, companies can easily measure and calculate all efforts that also includes marketing spend and sales department so that all departments can work in a harmonised way. When goals are decided by companies, team members start work in collaboration. This approach brings two departments closer for better insight.



6. They Save Business Expenses

With KPIs, you can easily recognise any cost saving prospects related to the project construction and also craft ways to curb any extra costs that may occur in future. KPI basically include tracking of uncommitted costs and also upsurges committed costs as and when required. Business can easily add factors like contingent costs and price escalation into the committed costs to restrict financial exposure. The knowledge that is gained from the audit can assist companies to manage all labor and material costs when they do bidding for construction in the future.

 

Are you considering getting your own KPI dashboard?

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SimpleStrata provides a complete solution which enables organisations to communicate and execute their strategy in an effective way, by helping them:

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Manage efforts
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Must have KPIs for businesses

SIX Reasons Why You Need KPIs For Your Organisation

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The growth and ultimate success of any company is determined by the consistency of results. These results can only be achieved if the team consistently meets the desired goals and targets. KPIs are the means of setting and measuring the success of these goals. In this post we will briefly take a look at what exactly KPIs are and why an organisation needs them. 

Must have KPIs for businesses

What Is a KPI?

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are measurable values that show the effectiveness of a company’s business objectives. A company will set High-Level KPIs that measure the overall performance of the business towards achieving its strategy. Low-Level KPIs measure the performance of departments, units and individuals.

 

KPIs Are Different From Goals

Although the terms “KPI” and “goal” are often used interchangeably, they are not really the same. A company’s goals define the outcomes that it desires to achieve, in a form of measurable results. KPIs, on the other hand, are indicators on the performance that tell whether the company is on track to achieve those goals.

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So, why should you have KPIs for your organisation? Here are the top 6 reasons:

 

1. Transparency around performance 


Without knowing what the goals of the organisation are, there is no way to gauge a team or individual performance. Therefore, no ability to guide the team to improve or optimise. With clearly defined KPIs it is easier to give accountability to the specific team members and achieve transparency. Teams can collaborate better when they know exactly where to focus their energy.

 

2. Accountability within the team


Numbers do not lie! It is easy to answer the status update related questions when KPIS are clear as day. Performance analysis and making personal decisions is all easier. Work is not measured by irrelevant benchmarks such as hours at work or number of emails sent per day. KPIs let team members take responsibility of their time on the job and making sure that they align efforts with goals. 

 

3. They help with decision-making


This is logical. When you implement KPIs, you will automatically need to develop systems/processes to measure them. With this information, the business intelligence gained will allow management to make more informed decisions. 

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4. You Can Measure Your Targets


Though they may be easily confused, KPI’s are not exactly an organisation's goals themselves, but they’re a measurement of them. 

A KPI can indicate that your sales team is only generating 30% of the targeted number of leads that you have set as a goal. As a manager in this situation, you are instantly aware of your sales team’s progress and the reason for not hitting the desired numbers of leads.

When you’re able to measure your goals this way, it gives you the opportunity to see where the gaps in your efforts might be and subsequently make decisions that help you reach your goals faster.

 

5. To analyse patterns over time. 


If you measure the same KPIs quarter over quarter, you can begin to detect patterns in your numbers. These patterns can help you optimise your business strategies.

This can allow you to make predictions about the slow or high performing quarters. Or identify over or under performing team members and help them improve their efforts. 

 

6. You’ll get an integrated overview


One of the main reasons to invest in a KPI software is integration. The data flow from different sources can be a big complication if no integration methods are applied.

Using a KPI software allows all your departments to enter their data manually into one big system, or the program can connect to different data flows automatically. Whichever method is used, you can be sure that the integrated connection will boost your business management.

 

Now that you know why KPIs are significant for your business, here is a handy guide to help you in defining KPIs for your organisation. 

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