LO's and Performance Measurement LO10658

John Constantine (rainbird@trail.com)
Tue, 22 Oct 1996 18:02:37 -0700

Replying to LO10615 --

Sue Inches mentions that she was involved in a retail operation which
implemented incentive programs based upon numbers of favorable comments by
customers. Unfortunately, that system has many holes.

Not the least of which is the customer bias pro or con personality types,
hair and skin color, language patterns, etc., etc. What might have looked
good on paper might have had nothing to do with "performance" at all.

Did the operation work on commission? Was there a base salary? Was there a
job description which was achievable? All these things matter when you
deal with the nasty subject of performance and how you pay for it. The
fact that you screened for selected types only ensures that you hire those
types. It does not ensure "performance" at all.

Did the system base rewards on units?, on dollars?, on gross, on net, on
total annual...????? If it were only on such "subjective criteria" as a
customer's biases, it seems to me to have been a flawed system, period.
Was the numbering system part of any other systemic view? Was there any
other link to the impact of the incentive program on the rest of the
system?

As I happen to be assisting a major retail operation at the moment, all
these questions have been asked and few answered satisfactorily. Beware
the use of the term performance, and beware the connections to such things
as incentives and reward systems. There is only one pie.

-- 

Regards, John Constantine rainbird@trail.com Rainbird Management Consulting PO Box 23554 Santa Fe, NM 87502 http://www.trail.com/~rainbird "Dealing in Essentials"

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