How many KPIs should you really track in workplace services?
In workplace services, dashboards can quickly become crowded.
Number of requests received.
Number of requests closed.
Average resolution time.
Percentage of deadlines met.
Number of contractor visits.
Number of incidents per building.
Average cost per job.
Overdue requests.
Urgent requests.
Reopened requests.
At first glance, the more indicators there are, the more precise the picture seems.
Yet one question often emerges: what should we actually be looking at?
Effective management is not about measuring everything that can be measured.
It is about identifying the few workplace services KPIs that genuinely help you understand the situation and make a decision.
Why do too many KPIs make effective management harder?
Initially, every new indicator seems justified.
A manager wants to track delays.
Senior management wants to know the volumes.
A contractor needs to be assessed.
Then budgets, deadlines, satisfaction, critical incidents and recurring requests all need to be monitored.
The dashboard gradually grows.
Each indicator seems useful on its own.
Together, however, they can eventually have the opposite effect to the one intended.
An overloaded dashboard becomes difficult to read
When fifteen or twenty indicators are displayed at the same level, it becomes difficult to know where to focus.
The manager sees a great deal of information.
But the important signals are harder to distinguish.
Slipping deadlines can be lost among a dozen other figures.
An increase in open requests can seem insignificant among numerous charts.
The dashboard becomes descriptive, but far less useful for making decisions.
An available data point is not necessarily a good KPI
Today, it is relatively easy to measure a vast range of things.
The number of emails.
The number of requests.
The number of jobs.
The number of contractors.
The number of cases closed.
But data is only useful if it helps answer an operational question.
What decision does this information help us make?
If the answer is unclear, the indicator probably has little value on the main dashboard.
Why can three KPIs be enough to manage your operations?
Deliberately limiting the number of indicators forces you to prioritise.
You then need to answer a simple question: What are the three things we absolutely need to know to determine whether our operations are under control?
In many organisations, three dimensions already provide a very solid picture:
workload;
deadlines;
the quality of resolution.
This does not mean that the other data should disappear.
It remains available for more detailed analysis.
But it is no longer displayed permanently at the same level.
KPI 1: your teams’ actual workload
The first question is simple: can we cope with the requests coming in?
To answer it, looking only at the number of requests received is not enough.
Incoming volumes do not tell you whether operations are under control
One team might receive 300 requests in a month and deal with them quickly.
Another might receive only 100, but gradually fall behind.
Incoming volumes therefore need to be considered alongside the number of requests still open.
The backlog is often more revealing
The number of open requests shows what still needs to be dealt with.
But the way that number changes is particularly useful.
If the backlog was 60 requests three weeks ago, then 75, then 90, then 110, a warning signal emerges.
The team is probably receiving more requests than it can handle.
This KPI helps establish that the team is overloaded before the situation becomes critical.
KPI 2: meeting deadlines
A high level of activity is not necessarily a problem if deadlines remain under control.
The second KPI should therefore usually focus on time.
Which time-based indicators should you track?
There are several options:
average resolution time;
number of overdue requests;
percentage of requests resolved within the agreed timeframe;
average age of requests that are still open.
The objective remains the same: spot a deterioration quickly.
Deadlines often start slipping before the overload becomes visible
The pattern is familiar.
Volumes increase slightly.
Resolution times begin to lengthen.
The first reminders arrive.
Users become more insistent.
Then requests are increasingly labelled urgent.
Monitoring deadlines helps detect the problem earlier.
You can then act before the team is working entirely in firefighting mode.
KPI 3: the actual quality of resolution
Dealing with a request quickly does not necessarily mean resolving it properly.
A request may be closed and then reopened.
A contractor may attend the same piece of equipment three times.
A fault may recur every week.
You therefore need to measure something other than speed.
Recurring requests are a powerful signal
The number of recurring requests can reveal that a problem is being dealt with without actually being resolved.
A piece of equipment keeps breaking down.
The same incident keeps occurring in a particular area.
A contractor has to return several times.
This repetition creates work that could sometimes be avoided.
Reopened requests can also be monitored
A reopened request often indicates that the initial response was incomplete.
It may reveal:
incorrect initial categorisation;
inadequate work;
a communication failure;
premature closure.
This indicator complements volume and time-based KPIs very well.
How do you choose the right three workplace services KPIs?
There are not necessarily three universal indicators.
The right KPIs depend on the organisation’s circumstances.
But a very simple method can help you select them.
First question: are we coping with the workload?
You need a KPI that shows whether requests are building up.
For example: number of open requests.
Second question: are we meeting deadlines?
You then need an indicator that identifies delays.
For example: percentage of overdue requests.
Third question: are we actually resolving the problems?
Finally, you need to check that requests are not constantly recurring.
For example: number of recurring or reopened requests.
These three dimensions already give the manager a clear picture:
workload → deadlines → quality.
Why can some KPIs lead to poor decisions?
An indicator influences behaviour.
This is another reason not to add KPIs without careful thought.
Measuring only the number of requests closed
If the main objective becomes closing as many requests as possible, straightforward cases may be prioritised.
Complex requests then remain open for longer.
The figure improves.
But the service does not necessarily improve.
Measuring only speed
If teams are assessed mainly on deadlines, they may be encouraged to close requests quickly.
A temporary fix may then be treated as completed work even though the problem has not actually been resolved.
A good KPI should encourage the right behaviour
This is why indicators must always be linked to the real objective.
Not simply: deal with requests quickly.
But rather: cope with the workload, meet deadlines and resolve problems for the long term.
How do you stop reporting from becoming an extra burden?
Another risk arises when the dashboard requires too much manual work.
Extract the data.
Clean up the file.
Update the charts.
Prepare the presentation.
Check the formulas.
Then start again the following month.
Reporting then begins to consume a significant share of the time it was meant to help manage.
A KPI should be readily available
If each indicator requires several hours of data preparation, it will be difficult to track it regularly.
Ideally, essential KPIs should come directly from operational data.
A request already has:
a creation date;
a status;
a closure date;
a priority;
and possibly a building or category.
Several indicators can be generated from this information without entering the data again.
Measuring less also reduces reporting time
Limiting the main dashboard to a few KPIs allows you to focus your efforts.
Other analyses can still be carried out when needed.
But they do not have to be produced systematically every week or every month.
How do you make a dashboard readable in a few seconds?
A good dashboard should provide a very quick initial overview.
The manager should be able to answer three questions almost immediately:
Is the workload increasing?
Are deadlines slipping?
Are problems recurring?
Show trends rather than isolated figures
A figure on its own often means very little.
120 open requests.
Is that a lot?
It is impossible to say without context.
If the team had 180 last month, the situation is improving.
If it had 50, the situation is deteriorating sharply.
The trend is therefore often more useful than the raw figure.
Highlight anomalies
The main dashboard does not need to explain every aspect of the operation.
Its main purpose is to identify what needs further analysis.
Is the backlog rising sharply?
You need to find out why.
Are deadlines slipping?
You need to identify the categories affected.
Are recurring requests increasing?
You need to identify the buildings or equipment involved.
The KPI shows where to look.
The detailed analysis then explains why.
Should senior management and teams use the same KPIs?
Not necessarily.
Management reporting and day-to-day operational management answer different questions.
KPIs for senior management
Senior management may want to track:
the overall level of activity;
costs;
whether commitments are being met;
the service’s overall progress.
It needs a concise overview.
Operational KPIs
Teams often need to track more immediate matters:
overdue requests;
the current workload;
recurring incidents;
bottlenecks.
The dashboard can therefore be organised into several levels.
A few summary KPIs.
Then the option to drill down into the detail when needed.
Should you always keep the same three KPIs?
No.
The idea is not to choose three figures and keep them for ten years.
Priorities can change.
KPIs should reflect the current challenges
A company taking on several new buildings may pay particular attention to request volumes.
Another may be facing significantly worsening delays.
A third may have a quality problem involving repeat contractor visits.
The main indicators can therefore change.
But the rule remains the same: give prominence only to the few pieces of information that are genuinely needed to make decisions.
How do you know whether a KPI is actually useful?
A simple test is to observe what happens after people read it.
A good KPI prompts a question or a decision
The backlog is growing.
Why?
Delays are increasing.
At which site?
Recurring requests are increasing.
On which piece of equipment?
The indicator naturally leads to analysis or action.
A poor KPI changes nothing
If a figure is presented every month but nobody comments on it, analyses it or acts on it, it is probably worth asking why it is being tracked.
It may be an interesting data point.
But not necessarily a priority KPI.
Why can measuring less help you manage more effectively?
This is the paradox.
We often assume that better management requires more indicators.
In reality, beyond a certain point, more data can mean less clarity.
More charts.
More figures.
More reporting.
But not necessarily better decisions.
Limiting KPIs instead forces you to prioritise information.
That prioritisation helps you spot more quickly what is actually going off track.
The other data remains available for more detailed analysis.
A tool such as Followme centralises request data and provides the indicators you need without multiplying reporting files.
The objective is not to have the most impressive dashboard.
It is much more practical: quickly see whether operations are under control and know where to act when they are not.
Comments