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Finding the methodology to accurately measure the performance of your staff is difficult for the modern IT manager. Employees working in sales have their own set of metrics that are easily understandable, but nothing that straightforward exists for most technology teams. Many tech leaders are forced into using a variety of subjective techniques with questionable efficacy.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Here are a few ideas on how to best track the performance of your IT team.  These tips provide a measure of insight that ultimately leads your staff to higher productivity levels?

Determining the Right Performance Data to Track

Knowing what to measure is a good first step in determining how to track employee performance. This largely depends on the job title of each employee, as software engineers likely need a different set of metrics compared to business analysts or network administrators. Spend some effort figuring out the right key performance indicators (KPIs) based on each role on your staff.

Each KPI should be measurable and quantifiable. When setting quarterly or yearly goals, there needs to be a way to track performance towards a target over time. This becomes more difficult without a standardized set of metrics.

Leverage your project management software to gain another set of data useful for analyzing employee performance. You are able to track the hours spent on completing project-based tasks by each employee. Similar data can be captured from a source code management system to analyze the overall productivity level of your software engineers.

You probably aren’t going to be able to completely remove subjective opinions when conducting employee reviews, but having meaningful performance data available adds some objective credibility to the process.

Set Performance Targets to Improve Productivity

When creating goals and targets for your staff, consider using the SMART acronym. All the targets need to be: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound.

The employee KPIs are useful when setting SMART targets for your staff over a year, or even a smaller time period. Giving your workers goals that are both tangible and measurable should improve their individual performance over time. If not, you’ll have the meaningful data to develop a plan of action to get those poor performers back on track.

Ultimately, analyzing IT employee performance becomes simpler once you determine what data to track, and use that information to set meaningful and measurable goals. A more productive and efficient organization is the result.

When you need additional insights on building a productive technology team at your company, talk to the experts at MindFinders. As one of the top IT staffing solutions agencies in the Washington DC area, we offer a supply of talented — and vetted — candidates ready to make a positive difference for your company. Connect with us at your earliest convenience.

Written by Tim Booker, President and CEO of MindFinders, with over 20 years of industry experience.

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