KPI-driven environments. Good or bad?
By Guides

This argument is as old as time and will certainly cause debate between business managers and leadership teams alike for years to come.

Having been in the recruitment industry for a few years, I’ve experienced both KPI, micro-managed environments, and more relaxed, placement-focused atmospheres. I can see the positives on both sides, however for me, there’s one that always wins.

I’m not knocking KPIs, they will always be needed in some way no matter what environment you’re in to give your management and yourself a good overview of what you need to do to hit X. Especially if you’re new to the industry.

Having said that, it all depends on whoever has set the targets and what they believe to be good performance metrics to follow. Are they set toward the individual? Or are they more general?

I’ve worked in some places that believe it’s in the number of phone dials you do. Aimlessly working down a list of hundreds of candidates, hoping to catch someone that’s looking for a change.

Don’t get me wrong, in the recruitment world of old, this would’ve worked a treat. Now the industry is much more saturated with thousands of new firms every year, the art of cold calling has been dying a slow death over the last few years especially with new compliance and regulatory guidelines in place.

Unnecessary KPIs put a lot of pressure on consultants no matter their experience. So, you’ve hit your financial target for the month? Great, but you didn’t hit your dials or new business calls so that’s a bad month.

Quality will slowly start to fall, if a consultant has a target of 30 resumes for the month, what happens on the last day when they’re 6 short? The consultant will start to forget what makes them money and focus on avoiding a confrontation with their leaders instead.

At the end of the day, all that matters is successfully making placements with good quality candidates and bringing in clients with the right buying signals to help you get there.

So how do we get there?

Here at Adaptalent, we know what makes us money and we know how to get there. We focus on smart KPIs that are tailored toward your strengths. We concentrate on the market you are working in, your own financial goals, making sure that your clients are getting the service you sold them, and allowing more freedom to work smartly to create the career that you want to achieve as a specialist consultant.