Employee Needs as Part of the Team's KPIs

Employee KPIs are set based on the team's (department's) goals, and the team's goals are set based on the organization's goals.

The manager works to hit the team's goals because that feeds into the organization's targets and the success of the team (department).

Somewhere along the way, the employee's needs fall through the cracks, or at least never get taken seriously.

So in these lines I'm sharing an idea: reshaping KPIs from their usual pyramid form so that employee needs are built into them, making the manager's job about satisfying both upper management and the employee.

It works in a simple way. The manager puts the organization's goals into the department's KPIs, then adds KPIs for the employees' needs.

What does an employee-focused KPI look like?

You look at the employee's needs with real care, covering several angles: career, financial, family, and mental well-being. Then you set some measures that serve those ends. Here are a few examples of KPIs that serve the employee.

Every employee must enjoy 10% of their annual leave in the first quarter.

The employee must get two remote-work days every month.

The employee must earn a professional certificate during the year.

The employee must complete one training course during the year.

The measures could stretch to touch other areas like family and money, say a KPI for fun or family time, another for supporting investment or saving money, and so on.

What are we trying to achieve with this idea?

The manager cares about the organization's goals while planning the department's objectives, but the manager's success, and the organization's, depends one hundred percent on the team. So the manager's role here becomes broader than the usual planning, and they look at two things:

First, what are the team members' requests and needs: by requests we mean the things the team has talked about and said they want, and needs are things the manager has noticed, along with the benefit they'd bring to the team members.

Second, what can I actually do: the manager acts within the available budget and the authority they've been given. From that point they start spotting what's doable. Some things cost nothing, like remote-work days or leave (almost nothing), and some things may need a budget, like training and professional certificates.

We end up with an employee who's cared for and whose needs are considered, and that's the best hope for a team with high loyalty, real initiative, strong productivity, and a solid sense of ownership.

And if the belief in this idea reaches the organization level, employee KPIs get folded into the organization's overall strategy, and career growth gets shared with employees quarterly or annually.