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1. Scorecards and Dashboards
Translating HR Strategies
Into Meaningful Metrics and Staying Focused
By Charles H. Hannabarger and Frederick S. Buchman

2. Human Resources Scorecards and Dashboards
Translating Human Resources Strategies into Meaningful Metrics and Staying Focused
Today, achieving competitive advantage for your business is more complex than ever. Knowing
that you are headed in the right direction for the long-term is tough. It’s hard enough just
knowing where you are sometimes, let alone where you are going and why.
Not Just for Labor Relations Anymore
There was a time when the Human Resources organization was a small, tightly focused group
within a company, mostly focused on labor relations. Today, Human Resources is involved in
almost every aspect of the business, with direct impact to the bottom line.
The end result? Human Resources is now involved at very strategic levels within a company.
The problem is, many Human Resource Departments are scrambling to keep up: hiring the right
people, effectively providing the right training, pursuing competitive employee pay and benefits,
managing shared services and outsourcing, just to name a few.
Finding Help in the Balanced Scorecard
Though it has been around for some time, there are some advances being made in the
Balanced Scorecard. Once viewed as only a process, it is now being viewed as a system for
management. A critical element of that system is Human Resources. Recognizing this,
successful HR departments are helping to manage their organizations using the Balanced
Scorecard, by planning their performance measurements across the 4 distinct ‘legs’ of the
balanced scorecard, to maximize their overall financial performance while building a solid
foundation for the future.
The 4 ‘legs’ are:
1. Customer focus,
2. Financial performance,
3. Internal process performance, and
4. Employee learning and growth.
The relationships between the 4 ‘Legs’ are depicted directionally in the figure below. The
organization must develop employee competence and skills within solid business process
performance, to enable customer focus and satisfaction, resulting in desired financial
performance and achieving competitive advantage and business growth. HR plays a vital part
in developing competent, knowledgeable human resources to the ever changing process and
performance demands of the business.

3. The process to develop and implement a balanced scorecard is really quite simple, yet
somewhat involved, consisting of four steps, as depicted in the diagram below: 1. Create a
Strategic Map; 2. Set up a balanced scorecard, 3. Design and implement dashboards to monitor
and adjust in real time, and 4. Continuously review, assess, and improve the system through
feedback and feed forward loops back to the scorecard and strategy map.

4. It Starts With the Strategy Map
Every company has 2-3 major strategic goals or objectives for the year, or the next 5 years.
The Strategy Map establishes key objectives within the framework of the 4 ‘legs’ as they relate
to achieving the overall goals of the organization. With this map, the organization can develop
strategic initiatives that will ensure the goals are met, focusing on all 4 ‘Legs’ collaboratively.
The following figure provides a good example of a top-level strategy map, linking the 4 ‘legs’ to
the 3 long term goals of an organization.
‘Legs’ of the Growth & Market Highly Regarded Increased
Balanced Share Expert in the Shareholder Value
Scorecard Industry
Customer Create desire for our Looked to for Profitability Leader
Focus products, at our price Expertise First for our Shareholders
Financial Increasing Revenue, Higher Margins,
Performance Price Competitive Cost competitive
Deliver when, where, and Demonstrated Best Cost Reduction,
Business how much, f lexible to Practices, Leading- Efficient Process,
Processes demand changes Edge Processes Minimize Waste
Knowledge, Demonstrated Leaders Demonstrated Leaders
Skills and and Experts in the and Experts in the
competence Industry Industry
The next figure provides an example of a strategy map for a car dealership, showing how
interim goals align through the 4 ‘legs’ to achieve the 3 strategic objectives.
STRATEGIC
GOALS Profitable Shareholder Longevity
Company Value
Increase Increase
Financial Increase
Profit Revenue
Market
Share
Customer Competitive Easy Reliable
Price Rental Car
Internal Reduce Reduce Car
Streamline
Processes Rework Costs Utilization
Rental
Staff Hire / Car Sales
Learning & Training Selection Training
Growth
We see then, at the Internalthat HR plays a vital role in ensuring the workforce has the
start,
Processes
competence and capability critical to achieving specific goals and accomplishing expected
performance levels, which will enable the organization to achieve its overall goals and

5. objectives. But even beyond this, human resources are part of the internal processes, deal
directly with customers, and provide for financial performance every day.
Developing your Scorecard
The creation of a balanced scorecard first takes the Strategy Map and adds performance
metrics to each of the 4 ‘legs’ objectives. This is done at three levels: Strategic, Operational
and Tactical. Strategic measures focus on the effectiveness of the overall long term
performance of the organization. Operational measures look at productivity and delivery of the
product and services the organization provides to the customer. And Tactical measures focus
on daily activities and how well they are done in support of operational performance.
Let’s take a look at an example of this application on a Healthcare Organization:
Balanced Scorecard Worksheet - Strategic, Operational, Tactical
- Example: Health Care Shared Services - Business Process 'Leg'
Process Objectives Process Measurement Target
Strategic - Align strategic direction with upcoming health care - Anticipated compliance, and Risk levels - 100%
legislation
- Benchmark 'best practices' for business process - Comparison to 'Best Practices' over time - Meet or Exceed
performance, and establish achievement targets,
strategies
- Overall focus on Customer Satisfaction - Customer Satisfaction Indices - >98% Monthly
Operational - Comply with existing and upcoming health care - Business Process Compliance to Legislation - 100%
legislation Requirements
- Effectively Plan and Operate at optimum cost - Staffing levels/Indices, Operational Process - Indices targes are 1.0
efficiency - staffing levels, operational process Cost Indices, Waste reduction, Response, - Waste Reduction: 25% year over year
costs, reduced waste, … Customer Satisfaction operational indices, - Response: TBD
and overall Process Performance - Overall Process Performance: >95%
Tactical - Comply with legislated requirements for daily - Compliance to legislated requirements - 100%
operation
- Manage business and operational processes to - Compliance to budget weekly, Monthly, with - 100% or better
budget actions in place
- Meet daily, weekly and Monthly operational goals - Goal acheivement - on/off track - On track, or plans in place to recover
- Ensure Customers needs are satisfied daily - Customer Satisfaction Indices - >98%
- Conduct Admin functions in a timely manner - Cycle time, First Pass Yield, Rework and - Improvement 25% year over year
process capability
You then develop the Balanced Scorecard using these considerations for each ‘Leg’, linked to
each objective, in terms of its measurement, expectation, level and rate of measure, and which
departments or functions are linked to that objective. The result is a scorecard that balances
performance across all 4 ‘legs’ to achieve the company’s strategic goals. The following figure is
an example of how a Balanced Scorecard might look for a Retail Sales organization.

6. Scorecard Indicator Measure Units Target
Leg
Knowledge Employee feelings about Employee complaints Complaints 0
and Growth work Employee suggestions Ideas suggested and 10% more each year
implemented
Employee feelings about Employee turnover Turnover <5%
qualifications Training and Development T&D numbers 25% per year
Movement within Sears
Employee feelings about the Growth Successions 15% per year
future
Internal Service oriented Handling situations First Pass Yield >95%
Business Movement of merchandise Inventory levels/Turnover
Process Helpful to Customers Ease of processes Cycle Time >5 per year
10% better each year
Value Merchandise
Customer Customer ideas and Number of ideas from Number, type >300 per year
Focused recommendations customers suggested and % Implemented >10%
implemented $ Saved/Improved >$5M each division
Customer impressions Customer surveys
Customer Retention % Return customers Percent, by demographics >10% each year
New Customers % Increased customers Percent, by demographics >10% each year
Financials Investment return ROA $$ $XXXX
Profit Operating Margin Percent YY%
Sales Gross Revenue $$ Sales $$MMMM
Growth Revenue Growth over last Percent ZZ%
year
Draft Working Balanced Scorecard Example
[Retail sales Corporation - Worldwide]
A department such as HR can take this information, and determine what they would need to do
to support the overall organization’s performance in meeting or exceeding its targets. It is not
enough just to conduct training; an organization needs to define what it needs based on where it
is going, and then take steps to develop/train, acquire or contract the necessary skills and
competencies required. They might also examine the customer experience, to determine what
can be improved in the human interface, as well as enhancing any operational or systems
capability to enable greater levels of performance, to improve the organization’s financial gains.
Dashboards Make Things Real For Everyone
From this balanced scorecard, we now must help each person in the organization to understand
their role in achieving these goals and objectives. To do this, we will now design our
dashboards, by setting up the charts and graphs that display these measures and their
performance so that they can indicate the comparison to expectations as the days, months and
year progresses.
The creative aspects of this step are limitless, in that the data can be displayed in dozens of
ways, from line and bar charts to graphs to tables to pie shaped to any other number of ways to
portray this information. The key is to keep it simple, clear and uncluttered, and easy to
interpret for decision making.
The next 2 figures are examples of how a dashboard might look for a sales or Operations
Group.

7. Harry’s Widgets – Global Sales April 2004 (Fictional example)
April Goal: $.7M Sales to date: ($000)
Status:
To Plan: +5%
Hi Lo
$1.8M AUS S. Am
April Total: EU S.W.
$736,233 K N.W.
Regional Breakout
1 2 3 4 5
Sales Strategy Step
Bill Bob Sue
NW NE SE SW EU A EGY SA CA AUS CH JA K
Reprinted with permission from Author, Balanced Scorecard Strategy for Dummies, Published Sept. 4, by Wiley Publishing Co.
The key is to have first created the scorecard linking the different departments and functions
and their specific goals and measures to the overall organization’s goals and objectives, and
then to create the dashboards for these departments and functions to see how well they are
doing, using visual display techniques based on real-time data updates and comparisons to
expectations.
An HR specific dashboard might depict levels of achieved competence given certain targets, or
headcount churn levels by region, function or country. It can also tap into levels of errors
experienced within the business processes, determine which are related to possible human
error, and work with operations to improve or ‘mistake-proof’ processes and decisions, to then
see improved performance as a result.
Incorporating Scorecards and Dashboards Into Your Management Systems
Imagine every group within an organization having dashboards that reflect real-time (hourly or
daily if possible) performance against goals, and making decisions in real time (rather than

8. monthly or quarterly) that impact and adjust for optimum performance. Once the departments
and functions have their dashboards up and running, each reflecting their own measures
against specific goals as outlined within the 4 ‘legs’, and linked to the next level above with
respect to performance and issue or problem resolution, every manager and leader will be able
to tell how well his or her department is doing, and what adjustments might be necessary as
well. Now imagine HR’s subsequent ability to support such an approach, where performance
indicators can show opportunities for resource planning and development, tied directly to the
goals and objectives of the organization. With each department dashboard linked to the next
level above with respect to performance and issue or problem resolution, every manager and
leader will be able to tell how well his or her department is doing, and, working with HR,
determine what adjustments might be necessary as well.
In companies that have incorporated this method, internal periodic reporting becomes obsolete
as everyone can call up the data in real time and management teams can adjust accordingly.
Decisions are proactive rather than reactive. And, performance objectives are rarely missed, if
ever. You can customize your scorecard and dashboards to fit your business needs and wants,
and then watch your performance and your management team excel.

9. About the Authors:
Charles H. ‘Chuck’ Hannabarger, President of PSI Solutions, Inc., has worked with dozens of
organizations over 28 years as an expert in management systems and continuous improvement
strategies, Co-founder of The Balanced Business Institute, LLC, and co-author of the book
Balanced Scorecard Strategy for Dummies, released Sept. 2007 by Wiley Publishing Co.
Frederick S. ‘Rick’ Buchman has over 25 years seasoned experience in business performance
consulting around the globe, Co-founder of The Balanced Business Institute, LLC, and co-
author of the book Balanced Scorecard Strategy for Dummies, released Sept. 2007 by Wiley
Publishing Co.