Intraday/Daily Reporting on KPIs

The main KPIs are reported 24/7 or daily. Exhibit 19.1 shows how KPIs should be reported on the intranet. Some form of table giving the contact details, the problem, and some history of performance is required. Another benefit of providing senior management with daily or weekly information on the key performance areas is that the month-end becomes less important. One government department had a 9 o'clock news report every morning covering the processing of benefit payments by each office around the country. Regional management teams were able to compare their service levels and achievements on a daily basis. In other words, if organizations report their KPIs on a 24/7 or daily basis, management knows intuitively whether the organization is having a good or bad month.

Intraday Exception Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer on Human Resources Issues

It is vital that key exceptions are reported to the chief executive officer (CEO) immediately when they occur. The following issues need to be addressed in private and public organizations:

• All job offers that are more than three days outstanding should be personally followed up by the CEO. The lack of acceptance means, in most cases, that the candidate is still looking around. A personal call from the CEO, saying, “I understand, Pat, that we have offered you the position of ____________. I believe you will succeed well in this role and I will take a personal interest in your career. What do we need to do to get your acceptance today?” could help convince the candidate to accept. This 10-minute call could well save over $20,000 of recruiting costs, a return of $120,000 per hour!
• Some in-house courses are poorly attended because staff members think that daily firefighting is more important. If this is the case, the CEO should phone the managers who have not registered staff in the workshop and make it clear that this is not good enough.
• Staff members who have been ill for over two weeks should have an activated back-to-work program—the CEO should phone the HR advisers responsible for setting up the back-to-work program, visits to the company doctor, and partial return planning (e.g., a couple of half days in the office each week).
• Most CEOs treat accidents or safety breaches seriously and, therefore, these are reported—an acceptable report-back time would be within an hour of the incident.
• It is imperative that the CEO follow up on all crucial staff members who have handed in their notice. This would be reported within an hour of resignation. A personal phone call might be enough to turn around the situation or, at the very least, open the door for a return in the future.

The aforementioned issues are set out in a suggested intranet-based report (see Exhibit 19.2). This report should be accessible by HR staff, the senior management team, and the CEO.

Weekly KPI Reporting to the CEO

Some KPIs need only be reported weekly. Exhibit 19.3 is an example of how they could be presented. Note that while all the KPIs will be graphed over time, at least 15 months, only the three KPIs showing a decline would be graphed. The other two KPI graphs would be maintained and used when necessary.

Weekly Human Resources Update to CEO

There are some HR issues that the CEO needs to focus on weekly. They are not as critical as the intraday or daily HR exceptions, and thus are not considered KPIs.

The following HR issues need to be addressed in most organizations:

• It is not uncommon for new staff to miss out on the planned induction program. This can have a negative impact on their performance over the short- to medium-term. It is the CEO's job to make it known that there is an expectation that staff will attend induction programs and that phone calls will be made to follow up on exceptions.
• In-house courses should be held within the next two months and highlighted weekly.
• Higher-than-average sick leave in a team may indicate a problem with leadership. It is important the CEO follow up on excessive sick leave when exploring inter-relationships within that team.
• The CEO needs to keep a weekly focus on the recognitions planned for the next week or two weeks. Peters and Waterman² and Jim Collins³ have emphasized the importance of celebration as a communication tool and a way of inspiring staff to exceed normal performance benchmarks.

The suggested intranet-based report that should be accessible to the HR staff, senior management team, and CEO is shown in Exhibit 19.4.

Weekly/Monthly Updates to Management and the CEO

There are endless ways these can be shown (see Exhibits 19.5 and 19.6), through icons, gauges, traffic lights, and so on. There are many reporting tools available that are more robust than a basic spreadsheet. It is highly likely that your organization has the license to use at least one such reporting tool.

Stephen Few has introduced a new concept called bullet graphs. These are particularly powerful when combined with Edward Tufte's⁴ sparkline graphs (see Exhibit 19.7).

A sparkline graph looks like a line graph without the axes. Even with this truncated diagram you can still see the trend. The bullet graph shows different details about current performance. The shades used range from dark gray (to indicate poor performance) to lightest gray (to indicate good performance). The dark vertical line indicates a comparative measure such as a target or last year's result.

Stephen Few is very cautious about the use of color. He points out that many readers will have some form of color blindness. In Exhibit 19.6, the only use of color would be red bullet points indicating the exceptions that need investigation and follow-up.