Scorecard Best Practices

Organizational Buy‐In

An important issue of implementing a scorecard system is taking steps to ensure employee acceptance. Chapters 3 and 4 presented different aspects of socializing employees to the scorecard system, and providing an environment that will foster its proper use. Once the system is in place, the question arises as to how long it takes to reintroduce employees to the new system, train them to interact with it, and to secure their acceptance and get them to use it. The SHAPs survey results indicate that, on average, employee acceptance and use of the scorecard system is accomplished within six months and in the vast majority of cases within one year (see Exhibit 8.9 ).

Exhibit 8.9: Time for Scorecard System to be Accepted and Used

Implementation of a scorecard system introduces something new to an organization, something that may not be immediately accepted. It is critical to communicate—even to over communicate—with the employees regarding the new system. An organization needs to take the time to demonstrate the new system to employees and talk about how it will benefit them. Employees must also understand what the measure definitions are, where the data comes from, how the measure results are calculated, and how targets are developed. If this step is not taken, employees will question the results and their validity. Presenting only scores without explanations will ...