Performance Objectives: Best-practice Agency Evaluation Series Part 3

Agency Evaluation Issues

Many of our clients these days set specific performance objectives for the year. They are often integral to incentive compensation calculations and payments. However, a common frustration is that the relationship evaluation program cannot accommodate measurement of performance against the set objectives. Nor include their level of achievement as a component of the overall outcome.

Help the Agency Participate

Advertisers with best practice relationship evaluation programs have found ways to include performance objectives i.e. the setting of objectives and the “scoring” of achievement of them. Some tips we have learnt:-

• Avoid overloading the program with too many numeric objectives. Instead, try to merge many objectives into a single or few scores;

• Differentiate between “hard” and “intermediate” measures. (Hard measures are typically sales oriented; intermediate measures are usually research based e.g. tracking scores);

• Performance scores against objectives should be entered by only one person. It can be confusing if all assessors in the program get to enter what should be a single unequivocal score!

• Prioritize for importance the weighting to be allocated to the achievement of performance objectives as opposed to the main assessment survey outcome. Thus, for example, the overall outcome might be shown as follows:

The relationship evaluation program must accommodate specific performance objectives. The objectives– and their relative importance – should be clearly delineated.

Click here to access the previous post in this series.