What is the difference between Key Performance Indicators, Objectives and Job responsibilities? Can our professionals please explain.

Regards,

Prashant Thakkar

Hello Prashant,

The difference between KPIs and Job Responsibilities is the KPIs or Key Performance Indicators are the measurables/skills/actions/activities which drive your Job Responsibilities and indicate how effectively you fulfill your roles and responsibilities. Let's say for example The Job Responsibility is Recruitment and Selection activities KPIs would be Timely fulfillment of manpower, Quality of Manpower, Right kind of people for the job required etc and the skills required to carry out the task.

I hope i have made a logic.

Regards,

Prof Tandon

Dear Members,

Let me give certain clarifications, based on the norms / standards being used by leading consultants of Performance Management System widely,as on today.

Objective - is a statement of purpose.

In the decade of 70's - 80's, the concept of MBO had gained popularity where, the objectives were, de-facto, measureable goals, set by a person in discussion with his/her boss.However, the concept of defining KPAs/KRAs and goal setting being its derivative gained ground subsequently and is prevalent even now.

Job Responibility - As may be defined by the employer.There is nothing vague about it.For example - Recruitment,Appraisal Management, Induatrial relations, Transport for Employees etc etc are statements of job responsibilities.

KPAs/KRAs - Brief statement of job responsibilities, (alongwith qualifying adjectives), such as timely recruitment of right kind of people,timely completion of Anual appraisal, maintaining cordial industrial relations,managing efficient transport services for employees in a cost effective manner etc etc.These KPAs/KRAs give us lead for setting measurable/quantified goals.

Key Performance Indicators - As the name suggests, these are the Indicators which enable us to quantify and measure the performance.KPIs are the units of measurements ( used for setting the measurable goals ).

For example---

* Metric Tonnes of output from the shopfloor.
* % of defective products (not to exceed total output)
* Frequency of meeting with Unions.
* No. of training - mandays to be achieved by Training Manager.
* Metric Tonnes of raw matertial to be procured by the Materials Manager for giving to Production Manager

There can be several more examples.

I have tried to explain as best as I could.However, I cant claim to be a great hand in communication. Kindly, therefore, feel free to ask me if any more elaboration/clarification is needed.

Paul

Job Responsiblities :- Job responsibilites talks about the job description of the position. It says for what all things a person is responsible, who is handling that position, it talks about all the things or jobs that a person has to do handling a particular position.

KPI :- KPI speaks about the key performance indicators against which a person's performance will be measured, basically indicators that what all is expected against his job repsonsibilites.

Basically you give measures like for eg: A particular person in IT Role handling software development.

Now parameters for performance will be ( level specific)

Awareness :- good

Knowledge :- very good

Capabliltiy to work :- Excellent etc

So when annual appraisal is done, you see the person's level of handling a particular role and try to benchmark it against the measures set and accordingly his carrer development / Tng needs are identified.

Hope this helps..

Cheers
lieu

Hello Friends,

MBO's/KRA's/KPA's come from business goal/objective of the organization. If organization wants to grow by 200% & they have to recruit people, train them, develop them, motivate them or if organization wants to create leadership within organization, HR works towards that. If organization wants to create culture & discipline, HR works towards that. Every dept. MBO's/KRA's/KPA's comes from organization goal/objectives.

Most of time, Job responsibilities is defined in generic terms i.e. recruitment & selection, training & development, motivation, performance appraisal etc. Let us take another example of sales, job responsibilities can be getting new business, creating partnership, maintaining relationship with the existing clients but if it sound very simple. The question comes how you are going to achieve & measure so that performance can be seen. MBO's/KRA's/KPA's create the process/action place/milestones which become job profile/responsibilities for dept. & its team members. It is tracked by organization/HOD's/Manager whether dept. / employee is performing based on MBO's/KRA's/KPA's.

Job responsibilities can be remained same for 5-10 years continuously in the organization but your MBO's/KRA's/KPA's keeps on changing depend upon the business demand & supply which makes you more focus. HR Heads in all industries will be responsible for recruitment & selection but all do not focus on the same b'coz organization priority might be different. Training & development, OD might be some of the priority which organization / top management decide.

Regards,

Smita

Basically the KRA concept is a top to bottom approach where in the business goals/objectives are spelt out at the start of a financial year. For eg: 50 % overall growth to increase the profitability by say 200 Crores. Once the business goals are spelt out after carrying out the necessary analysis/operations by the top, the department goals are then aligned to achieve those business goals. The respective functional heads in facilitatation of the HR Head then sets up their respective Department Targets. These becomes the Departments Goals for that financial year. Say achieving a sales turnover of 2200 Crores. nce the department goals are decided then the respective individual goals are cascaded down based on what the department objectives has been set.

Job descriptions are made based on the position and not the holder. What all are the key accountabilities for a particular position what all are the KPI's for particular accountability. Why this position is existing what are the responsibilites, Competencies for the position etc. How this position is aligned to the business goals etc. As per the individual goals set there are minor changes in the Job descriptions as the key responsibilites of the position also changes. For eg based on the Dept. needs his targets gets increased and new accountabilites are added but the core job/Accountability remains the same

Regards,

Kamlesh Jhaveri