Setting Targets can be the key to successful business strategy

Mal Pancoast once said that ‘The odds of hitting your target go up
dramatically when you aim at it.’ So, how can HR professionals and business
leaders ensure that everyone within an organisation is aiming towards the same
goal so that it’s achievable?

Key Performance Indicators or
KPIs can have the ‘Marmite effect’ when mentioned in the workplace. Even so,
they have a crucial role in the performance management and business strategy of
many organisations.

Companies
are often clear about an overall goal, such as improving customer service,
reaching an annual turnover of £10 million or increasing market share. But,
even the best laid plans can often come unstuck if the focus is only on the
bigger picture. Emphasis must be placed on the smallest cogs to ensure that
every one is turning at the right speed and in the right direction to hit
company targets.

Armstrong and Baron – authors of the
CIPD book, Managing Performance – make clear that, at its best, performance
management is a tool to ensure that managers manage effectively, enabling
people or teams to know and understand what is
expected of them. Breaking
targets down into KPIs for individual staff members and departments help to define
the role and responsibility of each employee. This obviously encourages
productivity and gives each person a clear goal to strive for.

For
HR professionals or heads of a company, KPIs provide a quantifiable system to
measure performance. After all, an appraisal that tells an employee that they
must do better is little use if they don’t know where they started in the first
place.

Every employee must be clear
about what the overall objective is so that the organisation can work in
harmony. KPIs are clearly not an all encompassing solution, but set a roadmap
for the clear direction of your company. The most successful KPIs will encompass
every aspect of the organisation.

The proof is in
the pudding; Health Shield –
one of the UK’s
leading corporate health cash plan providers – has improved customer service levels with staff hitting KPIs across the
organisation. The friendly society has grown significantly and has recently hit
a membership milestone of 100,000 members.

Health Shield set out
performance standards alongside the company’s objectives and spelled them out
in quantitative terms – for example, speed of response or percentage of member
satisfaction. By doing this, it has created a culture in which the teams and
individuals take responsibility for continuous improvement of the organisation
and their individual skills and input.

In 2009, the Society processed
89.6 per cent of claims within two working days, whilst also maintaining a very
high level of member satisfaction. According to Health Shield surveys, 99.15
per cent of members stated that they were happy with service levels regarding
claims payments.

In the last year, Health Shield – a non-profit making friendly society –
also continued to pay out nearly 80 per cent of its contributions back to
members in the form of benefits.

Phillip Wood, executive director
of sales and marketing at Health Shield, commented: “Customer service is at the forefront of everything
that we do at Health Shield. Our surveys speak for themselves, with over 99 per
cent of our members stating that they are happy with our level of service.
We’re extremely proud of our reputation but we recognise that there’s always
room for improvement.”

Last year, the number of new members also increased significantly by 63
per cent to 40,311, compared to 24,656 in 2008. The number of new company paid
group schemes also rose sharply by 145 per cent to 147.

Health Shield’s exceptional business
performance comes one year into an ambitious five year growth strategy plan.
The Society – which specialises in the corporate market – intends to double
annual premium income by 2013 as part of the comprehensive strategy.

Wood added: “As Health Shield continues to grow and evolve, we are
confident that our professional and dedicated team will remain committed to
high levels of customer service when delivering our comprehensive range of
benefits and products.”

Health Shield is exhibiting at this year’s CIPD
HRD conference which will take place from 21-22 April 2010 at London Olympia.This year’s conference programme is built around
five key areas of learning and organisation development. This includes: learning and talent development,
organisation development, coaching, leading and managing the learning and development function and leadership development.

11 May 2010