Discussion Post Consider performance measurement in a department that you work in or are familiar with. Do you use a balanced scorecard? What are the key performance indicators that you drive towards? What type of behaviors do they drive? Are they discussed extensively and have become part of the corporate culture? If you dont use them, do you think they could be useful? What types of KPIs would you choose for your department or area that you are familiar with that would drive employee learning & growth, customer perceptions, internal processes, and financial growth? If you currently are using them, which of these 4 areas are your KPIs mostly focused on? How are they measured? If you arent using KPIs yet, how would you measure the ones you have chosen? How easy are these to find?I will send 2 peer post later for responses:Kylah LarsonSince Ive started working Ive held a variety of positions and jobs, however at every point at least one job was related to the food-service industry. In this field the balanced scorecard is likely utilized by the major companies but on a corporate level rather than the service level. By definition the balanced scorecard, is a strategic management performance metric that helps companies identify and improve their internal operations to help their external outcomes (Tarver, 2023). Looking at past performance the corporate office would perform inspections and provide feedback on operations, efficiency, sales, and performance metrics quarterly to direct management within the company. Often these performance reviews would reflect things found on the balanced scorecard as corporate would adjust procedures or make changes in attempts to boost sales and net profits over time. There are a few KPIs that the balance scorecard was looking to drive towards and promote. While quite a few were monitored and adjusted overtime in response to other changes, some closely tracked KPIs include financial and operational. The primary financial KPI that was closely monitored revolved around labor costs. When sales were low it was important as a company to track the labor cost percentages and adjust the shifts staffing as necessary in response. Labor was tracked by management every hour or so on slower days with the corporate expectation of labor costs remaining below 17% by closing that day. If the labor was above this percentage it was flagged in the closing system and affected the managerial bonuses and reflected in upcoming inspections and reports, as corporate looked for reasons as to why the labor costs were allowed to remain so high without sending home staff to reflect sales volumes. When looking at operational KPIs an article by Spider Strategies Inc. highlights the importance of monitoring both waste percentages and inventory turnover rates (2023). The inventory and waste percentages were impacted alongside each other in the method used to track them. Weekly inventory counts were done and orders placed that showed which ingredients or supplies were being used in higher or lower quantities than normal. Sometimes when product usage was higher than anticipated it showed that product was either being wasted or overused to make menu items, resulting in additional training and other techniques being enforced by corporate to keep product quality and servings not only consistent but at a sustainable level to reflect the product pricing.These KPIs help drive the minimization of waste that could result in a loss of net profits overtime, especially if left uncorrected for extended periods. By ensuring both labor and product costs remained at an appropriate and efficient level the company is able to boost profits and better track future performance, helping to more accurately predict future needs. The ease of finding and monitoring these KPIs was relatively easy through our primary computer system and operations, it could be accessed within about a minute at any point throughout the day if some areas needed more monitoring as changes or corrections were being made. While the understanding of the KPIs may have varied the management understood the positioning that corporate provided and was looking to promote. The spread of the culture throughout all levels of company management helped to easier track and promote changes and expectations, since explanations were provided and goals were kept to manageable expectations. Timothy AllenThe balanced scorecard is a concept that was first introduced by David Norton and Robert Kaplan in 1992 to identify, improve, and control a businesss various functions and resulting outcomes(Tarver, 2023). It is a tool that many companies use to monitor what exactly it would like to accomplish. This is done in four categories; learning & growth, internal process, customer, and financial.AAA is a company that does use a balanced scorecard regarding their key indicators being sales and claims. This will allow them to understand whether they are reaching their desired goals and have a balance between their drivers and outcomes(Jackson, 2023). This is done in a few different ways, the first is the sales cycle with percentages by step, the second is training and how it rates to claim ratio. The first goes from the percentage of calls that move to leads, which are customers who have been contacted and spoken to. After that, the percentage of leads that turn into meaningful conversation, which is a conversation talking about a specific product. Then the percentage of meaningful conversations that become sales is calculated. With this information, variables can be added that will change the outcomes during the sales cycle. Will more training lead to more meaningful conversations or would calling at different times lead to more contacts? These are numbers that are compared month to month to make sure that agents are using their limited time in the most productive manner possible.Another aspect of the balanced scorecard that AAA uses is claim ratios. The less claims that are made, the more money that AAA would make. This has led to more hours of training. When I started with AAA, there was a three week training cycle but now it is six weeks. This is done so that customer representatives are able to identify clients who would have the least chances of having a claim. These will lead to higher costs for clients that will have a higher risk of having a claim, such as young drivers or people with multiple accidents in the past.
