This document discusses the need for a balanced measurement system when evaluating workforce programs. It argues that solely using outcome measures like employment rates is insufficient and that measures focused on operations and processes are also needed. The document recommends using a balanced scorecard approach that considers multiple perspectives: customer, financial, internal processes, and learning/growth. This allows an organization to understand what activities and processes drive outcomes. It provides an example of how to develop objectives and measures for a customer-focused initiative around improving youth employment retention rates.

1. The Need for a
Balanced Measurement
SystemUsing Different Perspectives to Create
Meaningful Measures
Bill Rabung and Brad Sickles
U.S. Department of Labor
ETA Performance Accountability Team

2. The Mission of WIA…
“…“…increase the employment,increase the employment,
retention, and earnings ofretention, and earnings of
participants, and, as a result, improve the quality ofparticipants, and, as a result, improve the quality of
the workforce, reduce welfare dependency, andthe workforce, reduce welfare dependency, and
enhance the productivity and competitiveness ofenhance the productivity and competitiveness of
the Nation" - Sec. 106the Nation" - Sec. 106

3. National Core and Customer
Satisfaction Measures…
 17 core and customer satisfaction measures
 Selection of measures driven by law
 The measures focus on program impacts, not on
operations or strategies
 Apply separately to States and local WIBs
 Performance is assessed annually
 Performance levels are negotiated
Incentives and sanctions based on performance

4. The Need for a Balanced Measurement
Approach to Manage Performance…
 The national measures focus on “bottom line”
results, not the drivers of performance
 The need for timely results
 There is a need for measures that focus on program
business operations and outputs
 Customer impact measures provide a limited picture
of organizational health
 Customer impact measures alone are insufficient to
assess continuous improvement

5. The Ideal Approach to Measuring
Performance…
Deploys the agency’s strategic
plan
Focuses and aligns agency
activities and efforts
Tests cause-and-effect relationships among the
program’s activities
Family of measurement types reduces risk of not
meeting “bottom line” measures
Links performance measures to decision making

6. A Different Framework for Measuring
and Managing Performance…
MISSION
CUSTOMER PERSPECTIVE
To achieve our mission, how
must we satisfy our customers?
FINANCIAL PERSPECTIVE
If we succeed, how will we look
to Congress and the public?
INTERNAL PROCESSES PERSPECTIVE
To satisfy our customers, Congress, the public, and
mission, what businesses processes must we excel at?
LEARNING AND GROWTH
To achieve our mission, how must our people learn,
communicate, and work together?
Value,Benefit
Value,Benefit
Source: Public sector Balanced Scorecard from the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative

7. Why Use Different Perspectives When
Creating and Using Measures?
 Aid to system and operations management
 Help in diagnosing and troubleshooting
 Prioritizing
 An aid to planning
 Understand improvement
 Tracking performance
 External accountability
To be successful, the
drivers of performance
must be identified
Perspectives Objectives Measures

8. Use a Strategy Map to Develop Objectives
 Identify strategic themes and group them under the
appropriate perspective
 Create a strategy map to visualize the interaction of
individual activities in the larger system
For each identified strategic theme, identify what you
are trying to achieve and the obstacles you face
Develop measurable objectives that specify numeric
target levels, where appropriate
Limit objectives to major program elements
Perspectives Objectives Measures

9. Develop Measures for the Objectives…
 How well did we succeed at providing
customer value?
 How well do we do the things which
support creating customer value?
Each measure should answer one of the
following questions:
Perspectives Objectives Measure
s

10. Linking Strategy to Measurement…
Customer Perspective Example
Initiative: Create a strategy to increase the percent of
successful program completers from the current rate of 75%.
Rationale: Successful completions highly correlated with
increased employment and earnings.

11. Goal Measure Target Initiative
Financial
Customer
Process
HR/Learning
Leadership Business
Results
Strategic
Planning
Customer
Focus
HR
Focus
Process
Management
Information and Analysis
Relationship of Baldrige to the
Balanced Scorecard
Malcolm BaldrigeMalcolm Baldrige
Systems ModelSystems Model
Balanced ScorecardBalanced Scorecard

12. Compare
Learn
Motivate
Reward and celebrate
Promote and explain
Perspectives Objectives Measure
s
Use of Performance Measures

13. Wherever the product of a public organization has not
been monitored in a way that ties performance to
reward, the introduction of an effective monitoring
system will yield a fifty percent improvement in the
product in the short run.
Chase’s Law on Measurement…
In otherwords…
Whatgets measuredgets done

14. Small Group Exercise

15. Small Group Exercise…
Initiative: Your organization created a strategy to increase the
employment retention rate of older youth through enhanced
training and job development efforts.
Task: Using the approach discussed today, develop short-term
customer impact measures that will help your program manage
activities to achieve an increased retention rate.
 Discuss and identify factors influenced by the program that lead
to long-term employment (such as placement into jobs with paid
benefits)
 Identify at least one objective (such as to increase the
percentage of participants placed into jobs offering paid benefits)
 Create appropriate measures (such as the percent of
participants placed into jobs with paid benefits)
 Identify potential data sources

16. For More Information…For More Information…
Balanced Scorecard Collaborative
Phone: 781.259.3737
www.bscol.com
Workforce Excellence Network
Phone: 202.693.2990
www.workforce-excellence.net