Get a Promotion 3: Identify How They Measure Results

This continues our series on actions that can help you get a promotion

You need to know how management measures your success to successfully complete the job they want you to do, . You cannot graph your progress to expectations and goals unless you know what to include on the graph. Most companies and industries, today, establish specific metrics for almost all jobs or tasks.

Metrics Quantify Almost All Work Today

Companies evaluate almost all jobs today based on certain metrics. Some metrics include the following:

• Productivity per hour measures time efficiency of work
• Cost per placement measures financial efficiency of work
• Transactions per hour measures efficiency of cashiers and customer service agents
• Clients serviced per month measures productivity in medicine, law, dentistry, & more
• Months of clean and sober measures the effectiveness of addiction recovery
• Keystrokes per hour measures clerical and data entry production

Benchmarks Compare Performance to Best Practices

The Internet and global collaboration simplified the ability for companies to share and compare benchmarks. Wikipedia defines benchmarking “Benchmarking is the process of comparing one's business processes and performance metrics to industry bests or best practices from other industries. Dimensions typically measured are quality, time and cost. In the process of benchmarking, management identifies the best firms in their industry, or in another industry where similar processes exist, and compare the results and processes of those studied (the "targets") to one's own results and processes. In this way, they learn how well the targets perform and, more importantly, the business processes that explain why these firms are successful.”

Most industries provide benchmark metrics for their industry. For example, education professionals can find benchmarks through Project 2061, CPU designers and manufacturers to PassMark, and child welfare workers from BenchMarksNC.

How to Discover Your Important Metrics

You may use several methods to find the metrics for your job:

• Study benchmark research for your industry or job title
• Contact your union, trade, business or professional association
• Ask your mentor, network of contacts in the company, and supervisor

Monday we will discuss how to identify the value of your work to management