How staff dashboard reviews are not really about dashboards

by Adeline Bibet

All of Trindent’s projects include the implementation of daily or weekly dashboard review meetings between front-line supervisors and their staff. However, the installation of these review meetings is very often a topic of concern of our clients, for two main reasons. The first is the human effort required to hold those meetings and any associated loss of productivity. The second concern is often times around the effect frequent KPI reviews can have on the staff morale.

While these concerns are all understandable, our answer is that these dashboard review meetings are about a lot of more than KPIs themselves. Beyond allowing for an unbiased view of the team’s performance, these indicators are the starting point for a deeper conversation with the staff on the root cause(s) of said current performance. They drive managers to ask their staff about the challenges faced in their daily activities which are driving subpar performance. Once those challenges are identified, front-line supervisors can identify action items and next steps towards resolving those challenges at the macro-level. This process is the cornerstone of the continuous improvement mindset Trindent strives to develop, which results in long-term, sustainable and observable operational improvement.

On top of this pure operational improvement, our experience shows that this cycle, when completed and communicated back to the staff, drives higher engagement in the project and overall motivation at work. This is why these dashboard review meetings are so key to a successful implementation in operational improvement projects and such an integrated part of the change adoption cycle.