Rhythm Blog | KPIs & Dashboards

If you want to set compelling and achievable goals for yourself, your teams and your company, drop everything and invent a time machine. OK—not literally, but metaphorical time travel is a key component of effective goal setting.

Why time travel? To paint a picture of success. Why is this important? Why do you need to know what success looks like?

In their classic book Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard, Chip and Dan Heath describe the importance of what they call “pointing to the destination” with a destination postcard. They argue you need “a vivid picture from the near-term future that shows what could be possible” to rally the troops behind your goal. Visualizing success in detail is motivating to the team and actually helps you achieve it.

We are thrilled to host our 5th Annual Breakthrough Conference once again in Charlotte, NC, this October 24th and 25th, at the Charlotte Marriott City Center. Charlotte is Rhythm Systems' home base, and we want you to enjoy it as much as we do. Here are some recommendations to enhance your stay once the conference is wrapped!

Food:

1. Dine at 5Church, in walking distance of the Charlotte Marriott City Center, for sophisticated southern cuisine.

Measuring the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is vital to the health and success of your business. However, when we onboard new clients, we find that some of them are uncertain about what they should be measuring and how they can use these powerful tools.  They often ask "Why do we need KPIs?" or "Why use KPIs?" as they think their way of doing things isn't broken.  Effective KPIs are important metrics to make sure that you can accomplish any business objective.

KPIs are more than numbers you report out weekly - they enable you to understand the performance and health of your business so that you can make critical adjustments in your execution to achieve your strategic goals. Knowing and measuring the right KPIs will help you achieve results faster.

I really enjoy learning during client interactions. When I’m working onsite in planning sessions, coaching executives 1-to-1, or working with teams virtually through Zoom, I am often learning as much as helping. Working hand-in hand with smart people and fielding their questions give me the opportunity to guide participants while expanding my knowledge, understanding, and ability to communicate.

It is no secret that your people are instrumental to the success of your business. In order to have a great company, you not only have to hire the right people and get them in the right seats as Jim Collins says, you also have to work to retain and engage those people once you have them.  The best companies use key performance indicators for employees to make sure that they are getting the most out of their most important investment - their employees.  Having the right set of quality metrics can greatly improve your performance management in creating a high-performing team.

I previously wrote a blog titled 21 Production KPI Examples to Improve Manufacturing Performance, and many people were interested in learning more about how to measure and improve on-time delivery, one of the specific KPIs I mentioned. I am often asked how to improve on time delivery in manufacturing companies.  The on time delivery KPI time as one of their most important Key Performance Indicators as it is directly related to customer satisfaction and repeat orders.  So, let’s dig a little deeper into effective ideas to improve on time delivery.

CEOs and business leaders spend a lot of time and energy working to hunt down important data and make the right decisions to grow the business based on what they find. The hunt requires time, skill, effort, and consistency. Often teams of people are involved whose whole job responsibility is to collect data and present it in a way that can be understood and acted on.

Understanding and acting on the right data is where things get very difficult and often complex. I've been in countless meetings where stale data is presented in pretty charts. Most of the team in the meeting doesn't understand it and in no way acts on it. Most in the room are embarrassed to speak up for fear they will look stupid, so they nod and go along with the presentation hoping to get out of the meeting as fast as they can so they can get their large pile of work done.

Leadership 101 tells us that it’s important to set clear and specific goals for ourselves and for our teams in order to achieve business goals and objectives. In other words, all of our business goals should be “SMART” (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely.) In order to craft a good smart goal, you need to take a couple of steps back and look at the whole picture - why are you doing this? The best SMART goals always start with “why.” Are you taking an educated guess at what you think a good goal is going to be that will equate to business success? Are you confident enough in defending that guess to someone else? If you fully understand the “why” behind the project, it is much easier for you to define your time-based goals. Goal setting theory clearly states that the better you write your SMART goals, the better your team will perform.

"Spectacular keynote speeches, incredibly, relevant, informative breakout sessions. Thank you!"

“Loved the human element of business that these sessions brought to the conference”

“Very powerful speakers on Breakthroughs… keep it up!”

“Just kudos. I really enjoyed the speakers. Great insights!”

"The registration/check in process was fantastic! Easiest and friendliest group of people. Thank you!”

The secret’s out - our attendees love our Breakthrough Conference. We have some clients who have attended and brought their teams every single year. Want to know what you’ve been missing? 

At Rhythm Systems, we work with clients to ensure they are measuring the metrics that matter to allow them to achieve their dreams and goals. Our strategy execution software allows you to create KPI dashboards to ensure team accountability, alignment, and execution-ready quarterly plans. The staffing industry KPIs for recruiting that we have compiled below represent many of the metrics that can be measured. However, make sure that you pick the top recruiting KPIs that work for you and your team.