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How to Set KPIs That Actually Drive Performance

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How to Set KPIs That Actually Drive Performance

Filed Under: Advisory and compliance, Change management, Culture, External HR Support, HR essentials, Leadership

Day 24 of 31 Days of Better Workplaces — KPIs are one of the most widely used and most widely misunderstood performance tools in business.

Done well, KPIs create clarity, alignment, and accountability. Done badly, they create gaming, resentment, and a disconnect between what the business actually needs and what people are being measured on. 

 

The most common mistakes

Too many KPIs. When everything is a priority, nothing is. Most roles should have three to five meaningful KPIs — not twelve. If you have more than five, you’re measuring activity rather than outcomes.
KPIs that measure inputs, not outputs. Tracking the number of calls made, the hours logged, or the volume of tasks completed tells you what someone is doing, not what they’re achieving. The best KPIs measure outcomes that actually matter to the business.
KPIs that the individual can’t influence. If someone’s measured on a business result they don’t directly control — total company revenue, a market condition, another team’s performance — you’ve designed a frustration, not a motivator.

 

How to build KPIs that work  

Start with the role, not the metric. What does success actually look like in this position? What are the two or three things, if done well, that would mean this person is doing their job brilliantly? Those answers become your KPIs.
Make them SMART. Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. “Improve client satisfaction” is a goal. “Achieve a client satisfaction score of 8.5 or above on the monthly survey by end of Q4” is a KPI.
Build in a review cycle. KPIs should be reviewed — not just at annual review time — but quarterly at minimum. Business priorities shift. A KPI that was relevant six months ago may no longer be.
Connect them to development. The best KPIs are challenging enough to stretch someone while remaining achievable with focus and effort. They create growth, not just measurement.
A well-designed KPI is a conversation starter, not just a number on a spreadsheet.

Book your free 30-minute consultation at Blue Kite HR Consulting 

 

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Termination Done Right: The Legal Steps Most Businesses Skip

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Termination Done Right: The Legal Steps Most Businesses Skip

Filed Under: Business Update, Career Planning, Change management, Culture, External HR Support, HR essentials, Leadership

Day 23 of 31 Days of Better Workplaces — termination. It’s the part of the job nobody enjoys, and the part where the most legal mistakes are made. 

Getting termination wrong — even where the grounds for dismissal are completely valid — can convert a justified exit into an unfair dismissal or a general protections claim.

 

The steps most businesses skip

1. Providing a clear reason 

An employee being terminated has the right to know why. Not a vague statement about “business reasons” or “not being the right fit” — a specific, factual reason. If the termination is for performance or conduct, that reason should not be a surprise: it should have been communicated through a performance management process. 

2. Giving the opportunity to respond

Before a termination decision is finalised, the employee should be given an opportunity to respond to the reason. This doesn’t mean the decision changes — but the process requires that it’s offered. Skipping this step is one of the most common procedural failures in unfair dismissal cases.

3. Allowing a support person

Employees have the right to have a support person present in meetings where dismissal is being discussed. You don’t have to allow legal representation, but a trusted colleague or union representative is their right. Denying this, or failing to offer it, is a procedural risk.

4. Providing appropriate notice 

Termination requires the notice period specified in the contract or Award, or payment in lieu of notice. Not providing this is a breach of contract and an employment law violation.

5. Managing the final pay correctly

Final pay must be processed within a specific timeframe and must include all owed entitlements: outstanding wages, accrued annual leave, long service leave where applicable, and any other contractual entitlements. Errors in final pay are common and create additional legal exposure.

 

The documentation to have ready

Letter of termination, statement of the reason, final pay calculation, written record of the process followed.
Done properly, termination is clean, compliant, and defensible. Done carelessly, it creates exactly the kind of legal exposure you were trying to avoid.

 

Book a free 30-minute consulation at Blue Kite HR Consulting 

 

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What Leadership Coaching Looks Like in Practice

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What Leadership Coaching Looks Like in Practice

Filed Under: Advisory and compliance, Career Planning, Change management, Culture, External HR Support, HR essentials, Leadership

Day 22 of 31 Days of Better Workplaces — today I’m sharing what leadership coaching actually looks like in practice, using the Intentional Coach program as a lens.

Most people associate coaching with executive programmes, large corporates, and price tags that put it out of reach for the average SME. The Intentional Coach program exists specifically to change that — delivering structured, evidence-based coaching for SME leaders and managers who want to lead better but don’t have the time or budget for generic corporate training.

 

What the program covers 

The Intentional Coach program is built around the real challenges SME leaders face: managing people without the safety net of an HR department, having difficult conversations, building team capability, creating accountability without micromanaging, and maintaining their own wellbeing in a high-pressure environment.
Each participant begins with a tailored questionnaire and a discovery conversation. The reason for this is straightforward: cookie-cutter leadership training rarely produces lasting change, because it doesn’t account for the specific context, team, and challenges the individual is navigating.

 

 

What makes it different

It’s delivered remotely, which means it’s accessible regardless of location. It’s tracked over time using a structured system, so both the participant and I can see what’s shifting — not just in the conversations, but in the actual results in their team and business. And it’s built on positive psychology principles, which means it starts from strengths rather than deficits.
The most consistent feedback I receive is not about the tools or frameworks — it’s about having a structured space to think through the real challenges of managing people, with someone who understands both the HR context and the pressures of running or leading a business.

 

Who is it for?

Business owners who have recently taken on a management role. Managers who were promoted for their technical skills but haven’t had formal people-leadership development. Leadership teams preparing for growth or change. Anyone who wants to lead with more confidence and less reactivity.
If you want to understand whether coaching is the right fit for you or a member of your team, the starting point is a conversation.

Book your free 30-minute consultation at Blue Kite HR Consulting 

 

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The Most Expensive Person in Your Business Isn’t Always the Most Obvious Problem

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The Most Expensive Person in Your Business Isn't Always the Most Obvious Problem

Filed Under: Advisory and compliance, Change management, Culture, External HR Support, HR essentials, Leadership

Day 21 of 31 Days of Better Workplaces —

There’s a particular kind of person in some small and medium businesses that the owner is aware of, uncomfortable about, and quietly protecting. They deliver. Their numbers are good. Clients like them — or at least clients never complain about them.

And everyone else on the team walks on eggshells around them. Including, if we’re being honest, the owner.

This is the toxic high performer. And the reason they’re so costly isn’t the behaviour itself — it’s what the behaviour does to everyone else.
What most SME leaders don’t realise is how much authority this person has accumulated outside the formal structure. Other team members have learned to read the room through them. Newer employees figure out the unwritten rules by watching how this person operates and what they can get away with. Their reaction to a business decision — an eye roll in a meeting, a dismissive comment in the kitchen — can quietly undermine more leadership communication than any formal initiative can build.
In short: they are often the real ideological centre of your workplace. The culture revolves around managing them, accommodating them, and working around the discomfort they create.
The performance case for keeping them has been made in your head many times. I understand it. But have you ever calculated the other side of the ledger? The people who left because of them. The ones who quietly reduce their output because ambition feels risky. The cost of a workplace where everyone performs compliance rather than genuine engagement.
Toxic high performers are a culture risk that shows up in the financials long before it shows up anywhere obvious.
Most businesses don’t act until there’s an incident they can’t ignore. By then, the culture has already been shaped around the problem.

 

Book your free 30-minute consulation at Blue Kite HR Consulting 

 

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Performance Management Myths Businesses Believe (and Why They’re Costly)

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Performance Management Myths SMEs Believe (and Why They're Costly)

Filed Under: Advisory and compliance, Culture, External HR Support, HR essentials, Leadership

Day 20 of 31 Days of Better Workplaces — let’s address some of the performance management beliefs that are actively making things worse for businesses.

 

Myth 1: “If I ignore it, it’ll sort itself out.” 

It won’t. Performance issues almost never resolve on their own. They either stabilise at an unsatisfactory level, continue to deteriorate, or spread — other team members notice the lack of accountability and draw their own conclusions about what standards apply.

 

Myth 2: “A PIP is just a way to build a case to fire someone.” 

A Performance Improvement Plan done properly is a genuine opportunity and a last resort — not a formality before termination. If you’re only ever creating PIPs as a step in an exit process, you’re using the tool wrong and you’re exposing the business to unfair dismissal risk.

 

Myth 3: “Good people don’t need feedback — they already know how they’re going.”

Your best performers benefit from feedback as much as, or more than, anyone else. They want to know what good looks like at the next level, where they can develop, and that their work is being noticed. Assuming they don’t need to hear it is how you lose them.

 

Myth 4: “We’re too small for formal processes — we just deal with things informally.”

Informal culture does not replace process. When an informal conversation doesn’t resolve an issue, or when an employee disputes what they were told, the business that has nothing documented has no position to stand on. You can be a small business with a warm culture AND have clear, documented processes. They’re not mutually exclusive.

 

Myth 5: “Performance management takes too much time.”

The investment in addressing a performance issue early — a few well-structured conversations over a few weeks — is a fraction of the time, cost, and distraction involved in managing a formal process, a resignation, or an unfair dismissal claim six months down the track.
The time argument for avoiding performance management is exactly backwards.

 

Book a free 30-minute consultation at Blue Kite HR Consulting 

 

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The Retention Conversation Has Changed. Here’s What Actually Makes Employees Stay — and Why Most Businesses Are Still Answering the Wrong Question.

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The Retention Conversation Has Changed. Here's What Actually Makes Employees Stay — and Why Most Businesses Are Still Answering the Wrong Question.

Filed Under: Advisory and compliance, Business Update, Culture, External HR Support, HR essentials, Leadership

Day 19 of 31 Days of Better Workplaces — retention is the topic most business owners come to me about. And most of them are focused on the wrong thing.

The assumption has been that retention is primarily about compensation. Pay people enough and they stay. Pay them less than a competitor and they leave.
That was never entirely true, and it’s less true now than it’s ever been.

 

What the research actually shows

McKinsey’s research on why employees leave identified the top drivers as: not feeling valued by the organisation, not feeling valued by their manager, and not having a sense of belonging. Compensation appeared lower on the list — not because it doesn’t matter, but because pay dissatisfaction is rarely the primary driver of resignation.
Gallup’s engagement research consistently finds that the quality of the manager-employee relationship is the most significant predictor of employee engagement and retention. People leave managers, not companies.

 

 

What’s shifted in the current labour market

The Covid-era “Great Resignation” and the sustained tightness in Australian labour markets have fundamentally reset employee expectations. Flexible work is no longer a perk — it’s a baseline expectation for most knowledge workers. Meaning and purpose at work matter more than previous generations reported. The expectation of transparency from leadership — about strategy, about challenges, about the future — has increased significantly.

 

What this means for businesses

The conversation about retention has to shift from “what do we pay” to “what is the experience of working here?”
Are your people growing? Do they know where they stand? Do they feel like their contribution matters? Is there a reason to stay beyond the salary?

 

What forward-thinking businesses are doing now

They’re running regular pulse surveys — not annual engagement surveys that take six months to action, but short, frequent temperature checks that enable rapid response.
They’re investing in manager capability as a retention lever — understanding that the quality of the direct manager relationship is the single most controllable variable in retention.
They’re being explicit about development pathways. Even in small businesses where there may not be a formal career ladder, people want to know they’re progressing. Creating learning opportunities, stretch assignments, and mentoring relationships is how you provide that in a small business context.
They’re offering flexibility with structure — not an unmanaged free-for-all, but a deliberate framework that gives people autonomy over when and how they work within clear boundaries.
The businesses that figure out retention now — before the next tight labour market, before their best people get a call from a competitor — are building a durable advantage.

Book a free 30-minute consultation at Blue Kite HR Consulting 

 

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