The BrightGauge Blog

Managing employees and gauging their success is a fundamental part of a business’s success. While you’ve likely got a team of managers, or team leaders, overseeing employee utilization and day-to-day performance, how you’re tracking employee performance over the long term is essential to determining whether employee development goals are being met, both individually and across your organization. In fact, 74% of employees suggest they’re not working up to their full potential and so it should be any business’s goal to learn how to develop the assets they have in their employees. It’s one reason why employee performance dashboards should be included in your employee development strategy. Quick Links What is an employee dashboard? How can employee dashboards be used to measure employee performance and utilization? 5 ways HR departments can use employee performance dashboards to assess talent needs and set employee development goals How BrightGauge data dashboards can help What is an employee performance dashboard? Employee dashboards are a management tool that enables you to track, over the short and long term, employee success across multiple KPIs. That data is then presented to you in a single display allowing you to assess entire teams or individuals and drill down on specific metrics. With BrightGauge’s data dashboard solutions, you can tailor those reports and dashboards to match your strategies and goals. While each of your teams may have different KPIs for their specific departments, your HR department will likely want to track different metrics, particularly as you create an employee development strategy. How Can Employee Dashboards be Used to Measure Employee Performance and Utilization? At the end of the year, most businesses develop strategic goals for the next year, typically in terms of growth. While those goals are often discussed in higher level terms, any successes your business has are largely determined by the success of your teams, and in turn, the success of the individuals on those teams. While performance reviews are valuable, once a year is likely not enough to nurture and build your team to support your overall business goals. In fact, many businesses are moving away from this model and employee performance dashboards are the perfect tool to enable that evolution. More specifically, your team leaders, in setting their goals and strategies, will want ways to determine whether employees are hitting benchmarks, where employee utilization can be improved, and whether employees are performing at their peak. Being able to measure these means being able to address employee issues before they impact teams or, worse, customers. While one can certainly track revenue generation KPIs for employees, including revenue or profit per employee, and billable hours, when it comes to using metrics to create an employee development strategy, you’ll likely want to look at other metrics. Employee performance dashboards can, and should, be used to measure: employee capacity, average task completion rate, overtime hours, absenteeism, customer contact, contact quality, and many other metrics, often dictated by your industry and by the employee’s job function. In comparison, these metrics on an employee performance dashboard are far more likely to help you, and team managers, understand, develop, and initiate employee development goals. 5 ways HR departments can use employee performance dashboards to assess talent needs & set employee development goals As noted above, there are valuable metrics that can help you gauge employee performance, but the use of that data should go beyond performance reviews and team meetings. In fact, a record 94% of employees would stay with a company longer if the company invested in their learning and development. Anyone looking at churn rates can tell you that employee retention should be important to any leadership team. However, using an employee performance dashboard can address employee utilization issues and let you see where employees need more support or when they are capable of performing at a higher level. 1. Analyze the metrics It’s not enough to just have the data. You have to take a look at what the data means. For example, if your company experiences a high churn rate, which in turn costs you money, looking at an employee performance dashboard may reveal valuable information. As we all know, numbers are just numbers until we apply them. More specifically, if you notice employees leave when they are underutilized, it may be a good time to introduce training options to use their time and prepare them for a promotion or a move into a new role. When paired with employee performance reviews, you should have a sense of an employee’s individual goals and can match them with your organization’s needs and appropriate training programs. 2. Hire (or promote) who you need Often we don’t see weak spots in our teams until we see the consequences, like a lost customer, or decreased sales, or decreased revenue, or even employee churn. An employee performance dashboard allows you to track, daily or weekly, performance and address issues as they arise. Further, it allows you to develop a long-term strategy to see weak spots in teams and hire to fill those gaps or even promote from within to fill a gap. 3. Assess your on-boarding and training programs It’s not enough to have an on-boarding or training program in place. In fact, only 12% of employees say their organization does a good job of on-boarding. Employee performance dashboards can reveal quite a bit of information about how long it takes for an employee to be running full tilt in their position, and may even provide data regarding where training should be ramped up. Similarly, if you’ve currently got a training program in place, employee performance dashboards allow you to assess those programs. If you offer a training that targets customer satisfaction and yet you don’t see the customer satisfaction rates going up, across the team, it may be time to invest in or analyze the training program. 4. Up the chain analysis Not only do employee performance dashboards allow you to assess an individual employee’s performance, but they can also reveal quite a bit about an employee’s manager or team leader. If, across the board, you see the same performance issue within a team, it may be time to address the training needs of their team leader or manager. For example, if a team regularly fails to meet sales goals, you can address the issue with each member or you can train the team leader in management and sales strategies. That leader can then deliver it to their team. In the long run, this saves you money on training while also developing individual team members. This type of investment makes employees feel seen and valuable. On the other hand, this metric could also reveal if a leadership role isn’t a good fit. 5. Moving up or moving on When you have open positions, is your organization able to fill those from within and promote individuals? Tracking upward or even lateral movement in your organizations may reveal quite a bit about how well prepared your employees are to take on new roles and responsibilities. If you have employees who’ve been with your for a reasonable length of time, but they’d be unprepared to step into a new role or be promoted when the position opens (and you know the opening is coming or growth is inevitable), employee performance dashboards may provide the reason. Similarly, when employees move on, their skills/proficiencies and recommendations are reflective of your business. Gauging metrics regularly and aligning them with an employee’s career goals position you within an industry, and with the right management and oversight can build your reputation. How BrightGauge’s data dashboards can help Very few companies have a single department and each department has specific needs. Further, some employees have different goals and different needs as well. You need a solution and a service that can accommodate those needs and still provide you with a robust display that you can share with team members and team leaders. BrightGauge’s data dashboards are fully customizable with features that allow you to both drill down into the data detail and take snapshots that provide for analysis over the long-term. If you’re ready to maximize your employee’s potential and drive your growth strategy from the ground up with your biggest asset, get in touch with us today.

In just about every business meeting, webinar, training, or retreat, the topic of goal setting is on the slate. It’s no secret that specific and measurable goals, especially a business’s financial goals, are important. For that reason, it’s even more important to understand key performance indicators (KPIs) and the business KPIs you should be using to track your progress on those goals. Furthermore, analysis of key financial metrics allows you to be responsive to any areas where you may be coming up short and help you understand where to build. Why MSPs should be tracking financial metrics Businesses, particularly in the tech industry, try to focus on a lot of different KPIs, but they often miss the important metrics. While there’s much to consider regarding the scope of your business, from IT and customer service to marketing and sales, there are also a lot of KPIs to look at to make strategic business decisions. However, one of the most important areas to analyze includes the several key financial metrics. These metrics help you assess your current position and provide insight into where improvements can be made and how to leverage your successes to continue your growth. The 6 key financial metrics your MSP should track While this is not, in any sense, an exhaustive list of financial metrics worth considering, as your metrics should always align with your specific goals, these are a few of the most important metrics you might need to examine closely to meet profitability and growth goals. 1. Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) Your MRR is the income you can reliably count on each month. This is based on subscriptions, renewals, and contracted services. MRR should be a predictable number and one that informs your growth. Utilizing this data allows you to strategically scale your business based on established income streams. To determine your MRR, simply multiply the number of accounts you have by the average recurring revenue per account. Why not just total the value of all your recurring revenue? Because, finding the average value of each account’s recurring revenue can help with determining the impact of customer attrition on MRR. 2. Managed service agreement/contract profitability This is the profit you make on each service agreement you hold with a client. The temptation exists to simply look at the income, but to really understand this metric, you have to break it down and dig a bit deeper. There are, essentially, two ways to look at this metric. The first method requires that you look at how much you make from a specific client less the cost of attaining said client. This is known as the client contribution (CC). In other words, exactly how much is an individual client contributing to your gross margin? You can also look at your client effective rate (CER), which analyzes the value of a client based on how much you earn from them divided by the amount of time you dedicate to their service agreement. Being aware of how each service agreement is impacting your business allows you to adjust those agreements as needed and, perhaps, determine what clients you target for acquisition. 3. Customer lifetime value (CLV) For the duration of your relationship with this customer, how much value will they bring? Acquisitions being what they are, in terms of cost, client retention is typically quite a bit less costly than winning new clients. That said, part of your growth strategy should absolutely be creating new or more revenue from existing clients through upgraded service offerings. CLV is factored by subtracting the cost of acquisition from customer revenue. 4. Revenue growth rate Perhaps one of the most overlooked financial metrics is revenue growth rate, which looks at the change in sales revenue between two periods, whether that be month to month, quarter to quarter, or year to year. How you decide to measure this growth (or lack of) depends on your short and long-term strategies and goals; however, the key variable is that the time periods you choose to analyze must be equal in length. One important element that must be factored in here is churn rate. The immediate response to flagging growth is, typically, to invest in methods and efforts that will earn back lost business, but strategically, the stronger, more balanced response is to focus on reducing the churn rate rather than increasing the revenue growth rate. Again, you’ll want to look at all the numbers here, but stability is generally preferable to paying for new customer acquisition. 5. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) While there’s some debate over the value of this key financial metric, it’s a fairly standard assessment of a business’s profitability and performance overall. It’s important as it provides insight into profit margins without factoring in any deductions. For that reason, it provides a clear look at a company’s cash flow and potential for stability and growth in the future. There are two ways to calculate EBITDA. The first method is to add operating income to depreciation and amortization, and the second method adds net profit, taxes, interest, depreciation, and amortization. One of the biggest uses here is that it acts as a point of comparison between businesses and, in a sense, levels the playing field to compare profitability and performance. 6. Gross margin Finally, but perhaps most importantly for managed service providers, another essential KPI is gross margin. This key business metric determines just how much revenue a business is generating to cover its overhead. The higher a company’s gross margin is, the more it can invest in strategic growth. For that reason, it’s a good key financial indicator of a company’s health and potential for growth. There are multiple ways suggested to calculate gross margin, but one method is to subtract cost of services from total services revenue and then divide that by total services revenue. Ideally, a healthy percentage for this calculation is 50%, with 60% suggesting industry leadership. When the number falls, it could lead to cash flow issues. The primary goal of tracking key financial metrics is to spot potential growth issues before they happen, which allows you and your team to respond in a strategically appropriate way. Successful businesses are monitoring key business metrics regularly and making analysis part of their goal setting strategies. Again, without understanding where your company is making progress or falling behind, it’s difficult to achieve any benchmarks your team sets. Track the right financial metrics with ease through BrightGauge’s KPI dashboards Let’s be honest. That’s a lot of numbers and a lot of data and a lot of work if you don’t have the right tools. That’s where BrightGauge’s KPI Dashboards come in. All accounts come with a number of "out of the box" preset gauges, and dashboards are fully customizable, allowing you to select and filter for the data you want and need. Not only do you get the data, but you can analyze it side-by-side and then deliver it to your team or customers so everyone has full visibility into performance and critical metrics. When it comes to the key financial metrics that help you determine the direction your business is headed in, you want the right tools by your side, the tools that help you grow.

When businesses look at their own key performance indicators (KPIs), one of the primary measurements to gauge customer service is the customer’s satisfaction and revenue expansion (their willingness to purchase additional products or services). What, though, are the mechanisms to drive those metrics? And what drives customer satisfaction? When asking what customers want, the clear and obvious answer is a return on investment (ROI). They want to know, and expect service providers to show, exactly how the service provides value and drives or supports their business objectives as well. The most effective and efficient way to provide that is through report automation. Quick links: Challenges of showing value to clients on a regular basis 4 ways to quickly show your value to clients through report automation How building strong client relationships through reporting leads to increased sales Drive revenue and boost customer service rates with BrightGauge's client reporting capabilities Challenges of showing value to clients on a regular basis When clients are looking at their own metrics and determining what adds value to their business, particularly during the budgeting process, they’re hoping to see exactly how your service is beneficial. If it’s clear, and you’ve provided tangible, visible results, then the challenges of demonstrating your value are certainly surmountable. Your client is looking for consistency and reliability. No one wants to chase down a service provider for the data they need to justify the expense. No one wants to have to translate complex reports that are delivered differently every time. While delivering the same product or report in the same fashion at the same time is key, if it’s not the data the client is looking for, it can be a huge misstep. Not only would unnecessary data create more work for the client, and you, but it can also suggest a lack of transparency, both of which are damaging to the customer relationship. If your competitor is offering the same services, at the same price, failure to deliver on promises or an ability to show how your service is supporting your client’s goals will likely impact retention. It’s one of the reasons that robust client reporting tools are essential to you. 4 ways to quickly show your value to clients through report automation The truth is, if your service is running effectively and smoothly, chances are your client isn’t spending much time considering your value, at least not until there’s a problem or a question about the expense. Regardless of if clients are looking closely at their ROI of working with you, there are plenty of ways you can showcase the value you deliver when using reporting automation. 1. Your automated reporting provides a valuable touchpoint Simply put, this deliverable reminds your client that you’re there and working for them. It’s a great way to initiate interactions and conversations with a client in a way that builds your relationship and positions you for future sales. 2. You're offering your expertise Reports, and customization of those reports based on KPIs, allow you to demonstrate your knowledge. But this expertise is not just of the service you’re providing. You're also showcasing the strategies your client can use to leverage your service to build their business. 3. You're building trust and a positive rapport Trust is as good as the coin of the business kingdom. It’s not just about the touchpoint; it’s about your ability to respond consistently, agilely, and reliably to the client’s needs. Without being present, automated reporting makes you visible, and your ability to deliver what a client needs through a solid client reporting solution makes them feel heard. 4. You're demonstrating accountability Along with building trust, regular consistent reporting shows that your business is accountable to the client. In a competitive market, the winner is often the providers whose customer service includes addressing client needs. Regular automated reports show your client that they’re a priority and when they have questions or needs, you’re willing to answer. How building strong client relationships through reporting leads to increased sales As noted above, regular reporting provides a valuable interaction with your client. Not only does it address their immediate needs, but it also opens the door for discussions regarding what needs aren’t being met, where their opportunities for growth are, and, perhaps most importantly, what role your business can play in that growth. Consistency, reliability, responsiveness, and expertise all build trust. Trust builds relationships. Relationships drive sales. If your client is already impressed with the services you're providing and sees demonstrated value, when they look to grow, they want to grow with someone they trust. Client reporting tools that provide automated reports on the KPIs they care about put your service in the position to make that sale. Drive revenue and boost customer service rates with BrightGauge's client reporting capabilities! When looking at your own organization’s metrics, you’re likely looking at ways to drive revenue, retain customers, decrease acquisition costs, and boost profit. Providing the services your client’s need and reporting on the KPIs they care about help build the kind of relationships that lead to future sales and, even better, referrals. BrightGauge’s client reporting tools allow you to build customizable reports that get delivered right to your client. There’s no time spent pulling the data, organizing it, and forwarding it; our tools do it for you. Reports are on time and organized where they need to be, freeing up your time to build your business with no sacrifice of customer support. Satisfied customers are customers who stay with you, and report automation ensures you keep delivering the same quality to the necessary stakeholders when they want it.

The start of the new year gives us all the opportunity to gain a fresh perspective and formulate a strategy for accomplishing the goals we have set for ourselves. This is applicable to our personal and professional lives alike. Many managed service provider (MSP) owners use the start of a new year to understand their current financial posture and to see where tweaks need to be made in order to close the year in a really healthy place. A great way to keep an eye on an MSP's financial health is by displaying critical metrics in a visible, easily-referenced dashboard that updates automatically. So, this month, we're sharing a Financial Health dashboard, with high-level metrics that any executive will want to keep her or his eyes on. Financial Health dashboard - view here The metrics covered in this dashboard include: EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Deprecation & Amortization) MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) Margin % Churn % Lifetime Value gauge: insight into the potential total revenue each customer can bring, taking into account average MRR, churn rate, and margin. To recreate this dashboard for your own team, check out the links below: Financial Health Dashboard (Public view link) Financial Health Dashboard Buildout Key Please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions you have!

There's no industry, across the globe, that's been unaffected by the coronavirus pandemic. With complete shutdowns and supply line obstacles, there have been a lot of challenges. One of the most notable changes has been companies being forced to shift to a fully remote workforce. However, technology has us uniquely positioned to enable a smoother transfer than many of us deemed possible. From IT infrastructure advancements to applications and software, many companies, with the help of service providers, are ready to meet the challenges of remote work head on. Quick links: Technology challenges caused by the shift to remote work How individual data dashboards can help your team overcome remote work challenges Create custom filters to monitor remote employee performance through BrightGauge's data dashboards Technology challenges caused by the shift to remote work Since March of 2020, a vast majority of organizations worldwide have shifted their workforces from a corporate office space to a remote setting, which often consists of working from home. With many business leaders and executives suggesting that remote work is likely here to stay, one of the primary challenges is ensuring that technology for remote workers is efficient. It should keep teams in communication and allow team leaders to monitor employee and team performance from a distance. One of the primary issues that many have already experienced is that simple technological needs of employees are not met. In fact, one study suggests that executives are already recognizing that employees need better hardware and equipment; items that were often provided in the office must now be shifted to the home office. Not only does hardware present an issue, but any industries that require monitoring of technology, teams, and individual performance through business data dashboards are running into very real challenges as well. For managers and leaders who supervise multiple teams or even multiple individuals across multiple clients, there is a lot of monitoring required. Typically, in-office workstations for those individuals included multiple screens and the ability to monitor each of those independently. However, having shifted to a home office, many do not have the equipment, nor the space to satisfy those needs. Even before COVID-19, technology issues were a problem in office, from connectivity to performance; these issues often result in productivity impacts that are avoidable. In fact, with workers more productive than ever in their new remote situations, more and more organizations are looking for ways to capitalize on these positive remote work trends and keep employee performance and efficiency levels high. How individual data dashboards can help your team overcome remote work challenges Whether you’re monitoring machines or employees, being able to monitor and measure work across segments, clients, and teams and analyze performance issues before they become client or team issues is significant. It’s one of the reasons that data dashboards are one of the most valuable assets during this workplace evolution. Not only do data dashboards help you monitor and visualize key performance indicators (KPIs) across departments or business units, but they assist in real-time remote management of all of these assets. Once you’ve set your team goals, your KPI dashboards help your team stay focused on those goals and allow you to monitor them remotely. Further, utilizing business data dashboards, you can set team and individual goals and communicate effectively with people as you monitor successes and areas of weakness. Again, real-time data and shared dashboards ensure you and your team members are aligned on performance, metrics, and goals. Create custom filters to monitor remote employee performance through BrightGauge's data dashboards Even before 2020 shifted the work landscape under our collective feet, BrightGauge’s technology was in place to help workers manage the challenges being thrust upon today’s workforce. What were once in-office tools designed to keep team leaders abreast of employee performance are now invaluable remote work tools for all organizations across a variety of industries. Data dashboards themselves are, as noted, helpful for visualizing and aligning teams, but BrightGauge’s dashboards allow custom filters that allow you to determine what data you want to see and how you want to see it. Not only does this help you monitor team performance, but those same filters allow you to see individual employee performance and develop strategies, goals, and plans that align with employee strengths and address performance shortfalls. If the past year has taught us anything, if the world of data teaches us anything, it's how quickly things can change. It's why one of the greatest tools of BrightGauge's dashboards is the ability not only to individualize and filter dashboards, but to also create a playlist. This enables you to choose which dashboards display, in rotation, on your screen. Set time increments anywhere from from 30 seconds to 5 minutes and you can conveniently monitor all your dashboards from one screen, as if watching a slideshow. 2020 has presented us all with challenges but it’s also shown us how to use the tools available to meet them and continue our successes moving forward. If you’d like to learn more about how BrightGauge’s dashboard can help you meet the challenges of remote work, sign up for our webinar today.

It’s traditional to set resolutions at the beginning of a new year. These are simply goals we’d like to see ourselves achieve over the next 12 months. Any life or business coach will tell you, setting goals without any mechanism in place to track them is a recipe for failure. It’s why the gyms clear out by March and savings accounts fail to grow. Not only do most folks struggle with setting specific goals, but they fail to establish a method for measuring them. Without metrics, there’s no way to celebrate success and keep you motivated and no way to realign and adapt when falling short. Quick Links How Can KPI Tracking Help Your Business Achieve its Goals? Key Performance Indicators Your Business Should be Tracking to Meet its 2021 Goals Set Your Business Up for Success in 2021 with BrightGauge! How can KPI tracking help your business achieve its goals? For many, goal setting is a struggle in itself. Arguably, one of the reasons it’s a struggle for individuals and businesses alike is because no one has identified the metrics associated with the goals they’ve set. Without understanding the best way to measure success, it’s hard to analyze the landscape; it’s difficult to figure out where to set your sights; it’s a struggle to determine what’s attainable and relevant. You have to understand where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’d like to head in order to set appropriate goals. The only real way to understand all of those elements is to determine what key performance indicators (KPIs) are the best measurements for your goal. These help you collect the right data, monitor it, and analyze it over time. The first real step is to determine the business objective, break it down into specific and time related goals, and then determine which KPIs will best help you measure your success on that path. Key performance indicators your business should be tracking to meet its 2021 goals The KPIs you choose to monitor will, of course, depend on the goals you set. That said, it’s important to identify and segment the key business areas where goal setting can help determine your path, grow your business, build your teams as units and as individuals, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Some of these KPIs will obviously overlap as integral business systems interact with and depend on one another. For example, employee satisfaction will likely have a direct impact on customer satisfaction and retention. When analyzing the metrics over the year, it’s important to keep that in mind as you adapt strategies to meet your goals. Employee KPIs When we discuss employee KPIs, business minds naturally turn to employee productivity and performance. But before getting into those metrics, there’s one that’s more important as it is costly to your business in time, money, and productivity loss. Churn rate Perhaps one of the most important indicators is churn rate. While that rate is typically customer turnover, it can, equally, be applied to employee turnover. As noted, the two may be related so it’s a good idea to keep track of both. When factoring in the amount of time it takes to find a suitable candidate and get them trained and up to speed on business needs, your business has likely lost time, money, and work. If you’ve lost a lot of employees over the past year, it’s a good time to make some changes and track the success of those efforts. Revenue or profit per employee Depending on the structure of your workforce, both of these provide valuable information regarding just how much each employee is bringing in and ensures your company’s profitability. Your workforce should never be the reason you’re not making money. For businesses that rely on contractors or freelance workers, profit is a better indicator as it excludes expenses, something you likely have less of for those employees. Average task completion rate How long does it take your team to perform tasks they do often? Not only does this help you measure their efficiency and perhaps determine areas for improvement, but it is also incredibly helpful for project management by helping them determine how long tasks will take. Employee capacity By examining an employee’s weekly capacity and subtracting the hours they’ve logged, you can determine what an employee’s capacity is to better manage your team. Not only that, but by measuring this KPI, you can also see who on your team can handle more and who cannot. When employees are consistently overwhelmed and overburdened, satisfaction goes down. When satisfaction goes down, productivity is impacted as well. Keep your team running smoothly, efficiently, and happily by monitoring their capacity. Additional KPIs for this group might include sales quotas, production goals, and customer retention. Again, KPIs will largely be dependent on your organization’s business goals. Business growth KPIs For many organizations, growth is the goal, but what that growth looks like depends on where a business is in its own lifecycle, what goals are attainable in the market, and what strategies will be employed to hit those goals for the upcoming year. Still, there are a few very important metrics that may help an organization align those strategies. Cost of customer acquisition (COCA) How much does it cost your business to acquire new customers? How much is being invested in marketing efforts? This business KPI, to be a useful, must be compared with lifetime customer value to help your team determine if you’re over spending. If you realize this cost is too high, one strategic goal may be to focus efforts on your customer service team and support them in hopes that improved customer satisfaction and retention can increase referrals from existing customers. This word of mouth can actually drive the COCA down. Simply put, this is a good metric for any business to analyze to determine marketing strategies. Lifetime customer value (LCV) How much will a single customer spend at your business over their lifetime? Ideally, you can keep this number growing through more product or service offerings, but at a minimum, organizations should be tracking this to ensure that customers come back. If they’re not returning customers, why not? It may be time to look at customer service metrics. Revenue growth rate This is the best way to measure whether your business is growing or not. Are you bringing in more revenue now than across a previous similar time period? You’ll want to make sure you’re comparing month to month or quarter to quarter to ensure accuracy. If you’re seeing this number slip, it’s a good idea to investigate why and analyze it with other metrics. While there are certainly other KPIs here to consider, such as conversion rates, customer attrition, cart abandonment (for online sales), average order value, number of subscriptions or subscribed users, number of active users etc., these are all largely dependent upon the type of business and industry. Ideally, business KPIs that focus on revenue, profits, and balance against costs and expenditures are going to be the best indicators of your organization’s health. Customer success KPIs The health of your organization depends not just on your team, or your leadership, but it also depends on the happiness of your customers. So, keeping track of business metrics associated with your customer satisfaction is just as essential as any other data you collect and analyze. As with many of the other metrics, there’s crossover here. Lifetime customer value is something you’ll want to keep track of in terms of customer success as well, not just for your business growth. Churn rate This metric shows up for key segments of your business. Across the board, you should be keeping track of where you’re losing leadership, team members, and, of course customers. Not only does this business metric include customers who leave, but it also includes customers who decrease their service level. It’s typically an indicator of service quality or value. Customer satisfaction This one is simple to measure: Survey your customers. How satisfied are they overall? Surveying your customers is one of the best ways to track how your team is doing. This number will impact several others down the line. Net promoter score When you survey your customers (not if, but when), how likely are they to recommend your product or service to others? When we look at decreasing COCA, your current customers become a very strong asset. This score ensures you’re keeping track of how they’re marketing for you. Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) While churn reveals how many customers are leaving, MRR is a good indicator of the health of your existing customer base. Growth in this area is a financial indicator of customer satisfaction and success. Revenue expansion A direct result of customer satisfaction and a key component of LCV, this metric reveals how existing customers are purchasing additional products and services from your company. Are your customer service and sales teams working together to upsell these customers on other offerings? Further, if they’re spending more, you can be certain that customer service satisfaction and product or service values are high for your existing customers. Much like other areas, KPIs for your customers will depend largely on your industry or business, but keeping track of these metrics will help you determine how to best address customer service needs and explore areas for business growth and improvement. Leadership KPIs A good number of the KPIs used to measure a leader’s success will depend on the success of their team and some of the KPI examples mentioned above. How effectively your organization is meeting sales, service, support, production, and growth goals is largely an indicator of how successful your leadership team is in seeing that your team delivers on larger strategic goals. However, there are certainly some other metrics worth investigating. Employee engagement and satisfaction How effectively is the leader managing their team, keeping them invested in team and business goals, and ensuring churn rate stays low? How satisfied are the employees with their jobs and understanding where they fit within an organization, and how does that translate to their job performance? You can determine this by measuring engagement and satisfaction rates throughout your staff. Team retention and training dollars While two separate metrics, they can be closely related. If training spending is high, it may suggest issues with quality of hires or retention. As noted above, is a team leader retaining top talent? That said, you’ll want to balance this number with any promotions that may suggest a leader is effectively mentoring employees and ensuring business continuity and growth. Promotions may also impact training dollars spent as training may be better preparing team members for other roles within the organization. Of course, much of your leadership KPIs will be visible in other metrics, but perhaps it's most visible in company culture KPIs. How is your leadership team fostering a culture of growth, success, and engagement? Company culture KPIs Company culture KPIs are closely tied to your employee KPIs. Your organization is only as strong as your team, and your team’s satisfaction is reflected in their productivity, engagement, and happiness. Utilizing some of the top business KPIs above to get an overview of whether your company culture is indicative of growth and team investment, you’ll want to look at both employee KPIs and leadership KPIs. These metrics will provide valuable information. Another metric to measure your culture includes the following: Utilization rate This metric, not noted above, provides information about how your team is using its time. How productive are individual employees? Happy employees are productive employees. They're not feeling overwhelmed or underutilized, either of which can impact overall job satisfaction and performance. Ultimately, the more satisfied employees are, the more likely they are to buy in to company culture and objectives. Set your business up for success in 2021 with BrightGauge! For many organizations, yearly goal setting is reliant upon the data from these important business KPIs. Without this information, it’s hard to set goals that are specific, relevant, and attainable. These are, of course, the tools that make progress measurable, but they’re also how you adapt and ensure alignment across the organization throughout the year. It’s a lot to manage, no doubt. As you probably noted as well, it requires being able to customize and segment metrics across teams or departments as well as individual employees. Further, it requires the ability to compare different KPIs to one another to get a better understanding and complete picture of your business. BrightGauge’s customizable dashboards allow you to keep all of your KPIs in one place and visualize them as you set strategic goals for the future. No more switching applications or monitoring tools – all your data is accessible with robust reporting tools and visualizations of that data tailored to your needs. BrightGauge’s dashboard provides the ideal solution for your tracking so you can focus on growing.

2020 was a banner year for dashboards. As workers shifted from the office to home, having access to vital information, valuable data, and important metrics at their fingertips was more important than ever. Across multiple industries, many platforms, and varied job roles and responsibilities, dashboards were invaluable for keeping tabs on systems and KPIs. While good dashboard design is meant to keep things simple, they should improve efficiency, save time, and still provide all the data a user needs. For some users, particularly in the age of big data and with an intense focus on tracking metrics, that’s a lot of information. For that reason, knowing how to design a dashboard with the end-user in mind is key. The bottom line is a properly executed dashboard has to be both useful and usable. Quick Links 2020 Data Dashboards Roundup Top Data Dashboard Best Practices Effective Data Dashboard Examples Transform Your Use of Data Dashboards in 2021 with BrightGauge! 2020 data dashboards roundup In much the same way as radio stations, tv stations, fashion influencers, restaurants, and even individuals reflect on the year that has passed to make a plan to look forward, our blog is doing a bit of the same. Why do we all participate in this time honored tradition? Because reflection is good. Because analyzing what we’ve done right, where we’ve been successful, allows us to recreate those wins. There’s no reason why, as businesses, as managers, as strategists, we shouldn't do the same. And, if our dashboards would do it on their own, we’d let them. Instead, let’s take a look at what went right this year. Top data dashboard best practices As noted above, the goal of any dashboard is to be both useful and usable. Keeping that in mind there are a few best practices, some familiar, some new, to consider when designing dashboards for business use. 1. Consider the end-user- First and foremost, any dashboard should be designed with the user in mind. What information is relevant to these specific user or user group? What information are they monitoring regularly and what’s the best way to deliver that information? Should it focus on operations (what’s happening now)? Analytics (performance trends)? Or strategy (KPIs)? Always design with the end-user in mind. 2. Keep it high level- On first glance, your user should see the data they need. If they need to drill down and dig deeper to get more specific information, provide an easy way to do so, but avoid cluttering a dashboard with too many cards. 3. Consider data representation elements- Not all data needs a number. Some data, particularly as you move into performance analytics and KPIs, may be better represented by a chart or a graph or a meter. For example, when considering network performance, a meter that shows a slow down in red rather than a number which measures user traffic may be more useful. 4. User design and information architecture principles- When structuring the layout of your dashboard, remember design principles and consider the importance of information. If design principles say lead with the top left corner and move in a “Z” direction, the most important data/metric should go in the top left corner and lead from there. Similarly, the temptation exists to fit as much as possible on a single screen and to use bright colors, and a lot of them, to help differentiate data sets. However, this actually runs contrary to design principles. To make a dashboard most useful, keep it simple. 5. Create context- It’s great to have charts and graphs, but label them or consider allowing a user to drill down to comparison through a simple click. Some data isn’t nearly as useful if there’s no framework around. Consider again a user traffic metric. If a dashboard reports 54 current users, that information is data and might seem useful on the surface. However, if it’s noted that bottlenecks occur at 56 users and traffic is heavy, then the context of 54/56 becomes important. 6. Consider multiple layouts- Your main dashboard should have a different appearance than dashboards that drill down or represent different users or systems. You want your user to be able to, at a quick glance, determine which “view” they’re looking at. It doesn’t have to be complex, but simple layout changes will indicate where in the dashboard a user finds themself. Applying filters to your dashboard which you can toggle on and off can help you achieve the view you're going for. 7. Optimize for accessibility- If your workers are remote or there may be need to view dashboards on a mobile device, make sure you’ve designed with that layout in mind. This may have been a tough lesson learned in 2020, but moving forward in 2021 and beyond, remote workers will need those dashboards and desktops or laptops may not be their device of choice. 8. Measure performance- We likely spend a lot of time talking about metrics, KPIs, and data regarding our businesses, we should be doing the same when it comes to a dashboard. Is it functional? Is it working? How are the end-users actually using it? As with any tool we use, we should regularly be evaluating if it’s the right tool for the job. Dashboards are no different. Effective data dashboard examples Over the course of 2020, we highlighted a few standout dashboards to share with you. Clever Ducks, an MSP out of San Luis Obispo, California focuses on clients who want to strategically use IT to cut their costs. They built a client success overview dashboard that allows them to effectively manage their customer relationships. Blending visual and informational architecture design strategies, they achieved a clean and clear dashboard that not only simplified their CRM duties, but also improved the efficiency of client meetings. Check out their dashboard view here. If like many companies, you’re managing a remote workforce, then you likely understand the struggle of keeping track of where team members are on important objectives. At the start of the pandemic, in April, we shared our Managing to Green and Managing to Zero dashboards. As discussions of remote work continue, these are still incredibly valuable. Further, in BrightGauge, you can filter those dashboards for individual team members and share with them to ensure alignment on key objectives. Another remote work management dashboard, this time from Network Doctor based in the Northern U.S., demonstrates how a dashboard can manage a team members workload and time utilization as well as how that fits into a larger strategic picture. Not only are they managing team members and utilization, but it’s helping them handle trouble tickets in a way that fits into current team availabilities and needs. Check out their dashboard view here. While BrightGauge dashboards are great for team management, they’re also versatile enough to give a high level overview of essential KPIs and financial insights for a CEO. As demonstrated by Premier One, a dashboard like this keeps all important data in one place providing enough data for an assessment of what’s impacting a businesses revenue and what strategies will be best moving forward. Check out their dashboard view here. The final dashboard we shared with you in 2020, the Agreements Dashboard, is a great way to assess whether your Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is hitting the mark. It’s a great tool for sharing a lot of key data points with executive team members regarding that MRRs as well as customer value. If your executive team and even CRO need a quick look at the customer landscape, this is a great option. Check out that dashboard view here. Transform your use of data dashboards in 2021 with BrightGauge! 2020 was full of challenges and, for some, being able to adapt your business to meet them head on may have been one of them. For many, it just meant finding the right tools, like BrightGauge dashboards, which allowed managers to keep remote teams working together and achieving team objectives. As you move into 2021, and as we adjust to this new work landscape that no doubt will continue to include remote work, stay on top of your business and team member needs with digital dashboards. To talk to someone about how we can help you inform, analyze, and strategize with BrightGauge’s customizable dashboards, get in touch today.

Employee accountability can be a crucial part of ensuring that everyone in an organization is putting forth their best effort—driving productivity and results. While many organizations use goal setting and management to drive accountability for product development, customer service, and other “front line” staff, it’s also important to track human resources department goals and hold HR teams and leaders accountable for their responsibilities. While human resources teams are usually in charge of enforcing accountability—tracking employee performance to monitor whether employees are meeting goals or falling behind—they also need to be held accountable to help ensure that HR department goals are met. Goal management can be an integral tool for ensuring HR teams are able to demonstrate high accountability. How does goal management improve employee accountability? What are some example goals of HR managers that should be met? What about HR team goals? How goal management improves employee accountability Goal setting and management can help any team create (or improve) employee accountability in several ways: Creating a shared purpose among HR teams. Having common goals for a team helps to foster a culture of responsibility and accountability. Nobody wants to be the one person who let the department down. With shared HR goals, some HR department staff may be more motivated to help out those who are struggling with specific tasks. Enforcing individual responsibility for specific metrics. Individual employee goals help people take ownership of their work since they’re being held to a set standard. This can be just as important for HR teams as it is for “front line” employees. Giving HR professionals measurable progress targets. Sometimes, it can be hard for employees in any department to feel motivated when their goals are too big, far off, or reliant on others. Effective goal management helps create smaller, specific, and achievable goals to motivate employees that they can be held responsible for. This helps to foster accountability in all departments—including HR. 7 leadership goals of HR managers to track What types of goals should be tracked for HR leaders? What overarching human resources department goals will help increase accountability for HR leads while helping move the needle for an organization’s overall business goals? This can be tricky, since many HR goals may not be directly controlled by HR managers/execs. However, tracking these strategic HR goals can be important for identifying issues within the organization and creating strategies to improve them. Here are a few HR manager goals to consider: Cost per hire. How much does the business spend on employee acquisition per hire? HR leadership should be providing strategies for minimizing employee acquisition costs while improving retention. Voluntary employee attrition. How many employees are willingly leaving the company per month, quarter, or year? High rates of employee attrition can be indicative of a systemic problem in the organization, issues with specific managers or job roles, or flaws in the employee retention strategy. HR managers should watch for high voluntary employee attrition and devise strategies to prevent it. Time to productivity. How long after a new employee is hired does it take for them to start being productive? While there will always be some variance in how long it takes for employees to start being productive based on their job role, if the time to productivity metric for employees falls well behind the industry average, it might be time to reconsider the organization’s onboarding and employee training processes. Time to hire. How long does it take to hire an employee? While hiring timelines will vary depending on how strictly employees need to be vetted for a given role, if the time-to-hire is too long, it can hurt productivity in departments that desperately need personnel. Tracking time to hire helps HR managers stay on top of potential issues that may cause delays in the hiring process so they can suggest solutions and keep hiring timelines short. Employee satisfaction. How happy are employees with their work? Do their job responsibilities and rewards align with the expectations set during the hiring process? Tracking employee satisfaction helps HR leaders determine if there are issues that may be affecting employee retention. By creating fixes for these issues, HR managers can help increase employee retention so the organization can maintain higher productivity and minimize recruitment expenses. HR expense to revenue ratio. How much money is being spent on HR needs in comparison to the company’s total revenue. While HR is important, spend on human resources shouldn’t exceed what the organization can afford. An organization’s overall size and budget will be the primary criteria to determine what their HR spend should be. HR staff to employee/worker ratio. The Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) highlights this statistic as a “way to compare HR staffing levels across and within organizations.” While the ideal HR team to worker ratio may vary from one organization to the next, it should be high enough to allow employees to avoid serious bottlenecks in any given HR process, but not so high that HR team members are sitting idle. 5 goals to track for HR professionals If HR managers are mostly concerned with strategic-level goals and ensuring they can be met, what kinds of employee goals should HR team members keep track of an be accountable for? Some examples of goals that can help drive HR employee accountability include: HR service tickets closed. How many employee service tickets do members of the HR team handle each day? How frequently are employees able to get resolution for the issues they bring to HR? Tracking HR service tickets closed helps businesses keep track of how effective their HR teams are at providing important employee support services (which can help drive employee satisfaction and prevent voluntary turnover). Time to resolution for service tickets. How quickly can an HR team member resolve specific types of employee problems? Are employees going in circles getting redirected between different HR team members? If reporting issues to HR is too much of a hassle, employees may opt to avoid making reports—they’ll just quit instead. So, tracking how long HR staff members spend on resolving calls or complaints from employees can be vital. # of new hire interviews conducted. In organizations where HR team members are part of the interview process, tracking how many interviews HR personnel are part of can be an indication of how dedicated they are to supporting the hiring process. However, this metric may be less valuable for organizations that aren’t consistently brining on new employees on a regular basis. # of recruitment calls. How frequently are HR personnel reaching out to potential employees to bring in fresh talent? This is a recruitment activity metric that can help establish how much HR team members are working towards hitting recruiting goals. New hire quality. When new employees are brought on board by the HR team and have been able to become productive, how do their managers and fellow team members rate their performance? New hire quality can be an indicator of how well HR team members are vetting job applicants and preparing them for integration into the company’s culture and work processes. Need help tracking HR performance metrics and other internal statistics? Reach out to BrightGauge today to discover how you can create custom data dashboards that make tracking any department’s (or employee’s) performance fast and easy!

Many managed service provider (MSP) owners often ask themselves one pressing question: How profitable is my business? Tracking profitability is generally a good way to understand how well a company is doing. If you have a consistent profitability ratio, it likely means you're a resilient business, you're doing a good job of balancing your costs, and you're succeeding in generating meaningful revenue. This month, we're looking at a Profitability Analysis report, which helps MSPs understand where they are by looking at important metrics such as: Hours spent on user tickets Agreement Health Effective Hourly Rate on Agreements Margin Percentages Other tickets details Profitability Analysis Report - view here Viewing an updated Profitability report on a consistent basis can help MSP owners and managers identify trends, course correct where needed, and implement new strategies to optimize the way business is done. To recreate this report for your own team, check out the links below: Profitability Analysis Report (Public view link) Profitability Analysis Report Buildout Key Please feel free to reach out to success@brightgauge.com with any questions you have!

Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) has long been a standard business practice for monitoring and improving employee performance. However, KPI tracking can also be a tool for improving an organization’s “company culture.” As noted by Builtin, “a winning corporate culture has been shown to improve levels of employee engagement, productivity and performance.” Specifically, Builtin states that companies with the best culture enjoy “72% higher employee engagement ratings” than companies with weaker cultures. So, how can KPI tracking be used to help improve your company culture and drive employee performance? Which company culture metrics should your business track? What are some of the best ways to use business KPIs to improve corporate culture? How KPI tracking can strengthen company culture There are a couple of ways to use KPI tracking to strengthen company culture. One method is setting business and employee KPIs that push employees to achieve excellence—creating a corporate culture that emphasizes personal achievement and results. Another method is to track cultural KPIs in the organization to measure the strength of the company’s culture. Using the data collected on these business culture KPIs, organizations can then make changes that help to reinforce their company culture. 9 company culture metrics to track So, which key performance metrics should an organization track to boost company culture? The specific employee and business KPIs tracked will vary depending on the organization’s industry, goals, and business model. Some KPI examples that can be used to either enhance corporate culture or track an organization’s existing culture include: Team-specific KPI examples When trying to create a culture of excellence, many businesses focus on team or role-specific KPIs, creating KPI dashboards that display the achievements of various team members to help encourage some healthy competition and drive results. Examples of employee KPIs that can help drive corporate culture include: Sales activity KPIs. Sales team members may be tracked on how many prospect calls they make, the number of emails they send, and other sales activity KPIs that measure how frequently they engage with leads. This helps to encourage active participation by sales team members. Service Level Agreement (SLA) metrics. Service team members may be assessed based on how well they’re matching the obligations set forth in the company’s SLAs. While it’s important to have strong SLAs to satisfy customers, they also need to be realistic based on the service team’s capabilities and resources. If the service team is struggling to keep up with an aggressive SLA, it may be necessary to adjust those goals or tweak the service team’s resources to keep them aggressive, but achievable. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR). How many customers are on recurring services that bill monthly? How well is the sales team pushing MRR services? How good of a job is the service team doing at keeping customers who are subscribed to MRR services? Having a strong MRR is a great measure of a company with an excellent corporate culture that drives both sales and service teams to succeed. Service tickets closed. How many customer service requests does the service team close each day, week, or month? This metric can serve as a decent indicator of how effective and efficient the service team is at helping clients/customers with their issues. Customer satisfaction. How happy are customers with the service they’re getting? Tracking customer satisfaction is important for gauging how well expectations are being met and whether employees are going above and beyond to provide satisfactory solutions. Company culture KPI examples Aside from tracking individual and team performance metrics, it’s also important to track whether the company’s culture is impacting employees in a positive or negative manner—and to make adjustments as needed. So, it may be important to track company culture metrics such as: Overall Employee Engagement. How engaged are employees at work? As noted by Gallup, in the U.S., the percentage of “engaged” employees, “those who are highly involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace,” is roughly 36% of all workers. Meanwhile, 13% of workers are “actively disengaged,” meaning they are miserable at work and may try to sabotage their employer’s efforts. The remaining 51% of workers lack strong feelings either way. A strong company culture helps encourage more employees to be engaged with their work and trying hard to meet or beat their goals, while preventing the creation of disengaged employees who harm the company’s efforts. Voluntary Employee Turnover. Not every employee who is thinking about quitting will report so if asked. They may not answer honestly in employee engagement surveys about how satisfied they are with their work (especially if they’re concerned about getting fired for a negative review). Looking at voluntary employee turnover statistics can help employers discover how effective their company culture is at retaining employees—and whether they need to make changes to prevent high employee attrition. Utilization Rate. How effectively do employees use their time at work? Employees who are satisfied with their work and the company’s culture are more likely to spend their time efficiently than those who are dissatisfied. Taking an employee’s hours worked on client tasks and dividing that by their total hours worked, it is possible to see how efficiently they were spending their time. So, a high utilization rate is often desirable—though it’s important to avoid burning out employees through overutilization. Employee Burnout Rate. A strong indicator of a negative corporate culture is the “burnout rate” of employees in the organization. According to Gallup, employees with high burnout “are 63% more likely to take a sick day, 13% less in their performance and 23% more likely to visit the emergency room.” Gallup’s article also noted that the rate of burnout among employees who work from home all the time has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic began, going from 18% on average to 29% on average. Best practices for improving your company culture through KPI tracking So, how can your organization use KPI tracking to improve company culture? Here are a few tips to get you started: 1. Use company culture metrics to identify critical issues and fix them This may be easier said than done, but actually tracking company culture KPIs and using them to identify critical issues impacting employee performance and engagement at work can be a crucial step in improving corporate culture. For example, if employee churn (and especially voluntary turnover) is high, investigate the causes of the churn to identify potential problems. This could be something like unsatisfactory work conditions, a lack of advancement opportunities, or even a toxic manager/employee driving away good workers. Finding and fixing the source of the issue is crucial for improving company culture. 2. Collect anonymous feedback from employees to fuel company culture KPIs Tracking metrics like employee satisfaction and engagement requires polling employees through workplace surveys and similar data collection tools to get feedback from them directly. However, employees need to know that their feedback will not be used against them during evaluations. Otherwise, they may sugar-coat their problems—which defeats the purpose of collecting feedback. Anonymous surveys can help ensure that employees feel more comfortable sharing both positive and negative experiences from their work environment. This, in turn, makes it easier to identify potential issues and fix them. 3. Create public KPI dashboards to encourage competition Creating KPI dashboards to display employee performance metrics and sharing them where everyone can see can be a great way to encourage some competitiveness amongst employees. With public data dashboards, employees can see how they’re performing compared to others in the company—which can help motivate them to outdo their peers. This helps to create a corporate culture where excellence is encouraged. Additionally, publicly recognizing top achievers and rewarding their efforts can provide further incentive for others to perform. 4. Have top performers coach their coworkers If there is an employee who is consistently outperforming their peers, then it can be helpful to have them share their strategies for success with their coworkers. This helps to encourage a corporate culture where employees share knowledge and work to support one another. Additionally, it helps spread top strategies for success throughout the organization. Using employee KPI data to identify these top performers can be a must for ensuring future success. Are you ready to transform your company culture with KPI tracking? Reach out to BrightGauge today to learn more about how you can leverage data dashboards and performance metrics to create a strong company culture!