Targets

AubreyMac

Do you work to targets/timescales?


It is in my working experience that setting numerical targets create unethical practices.


In all my jobs I've had to work to targets and produce numbers.


We've seen it many times in the media - mis-selling of PPI, evidence fabricated or covered up (like those of traffic wardens) and patients being left in ambulances to delay being 'admitted'. All these is to 'fiddle' with and meet targets.

DomRavioli

AubreyMac wrote: »

Do you work to targets/timescales?


It is in my working experience that setting numerical targets create unethical practices.


In all my jobs I've had to work to targets and produce numbers.


We've seen it many times in the media - mis-selling of PPI, evidence fabricated or covered up (like those of traffic wardens) and patients being left in ambulances to delay being 'admitted'. All these is to 'fiddle' with and meet targets.

What exactly is your question?

MacMickster

Targets have their place in the workplace. That said however, if people are told that their job, pay rise or promotion is dependent on meeting or exceeding those targets, then human nature dictates that they will meet those targets by hook or by crook.

Management, of course, will always claim to be unaware of / shocked by any suggestion that staff have bent the rules or acted unethically in achieving their targets, blaming the whole thing on a few bad apples (scapegoats) which never seem to include senior management.

AubreyMac

Do you think setting targets work/help to achieve goals?

tomtontom

AubreyMac wrote: »

Do you think setting targets work/help to achieve goals?

Overall, yes, they encourage efficiency. You're always going to get bad eggs that will try to cut corners, but they equally exist in non target orientated workplaces. The key is using measures of quality alongside the more quantitative targets.

Ozzuk

It would be an odd (and short) production meeting that started with 'produce what you want today...'!

bugslet

I set targets for my staff all day long - deliver this to there by then ( unless something goes wrong ).

Does that count:D

ACG

I used to work for a bank, they brought in targets and Icould see people all but conning customers to get the sale. At first it is just the greedy ones who do it for the extra income, but then the others started to look bad or were having pressure applied from above and so in turn they started.

I left as it did not fit comfortably with me and I could not hit the same figures doing it the right way. I gave them the reasoning on my exit interview in full detail, I susepct it either ended up shredded or in a cabinet somewhere.

Targets can be good, but they have to be realistic and based on positive outcomes rather than just try to flog this that and the other.

FredG

I also used to work for a bank and part of our annual bonus was weighted against how much PPI we could sell.


I flat out refused to sell it due to the cloak and dagger way the actual cost was being hidden and also because it generated so many complaints for the business as a result of this. The fact it was absolutely useless in most cases was also a factor.


Happy to relinquish a pitiful bonus for the personal pride of not being a deceitful oik.


Some targets can be worthwhile, others not. Totally depends.

ACG

PPI in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. I remember speaking to a bloke at the bank I worked for and he was made redundant. His gf at the time had basically run up 2 £10k credit cards in his name. She then left him.

He had PPI on 1 card. Overnight we were able to halve his outgoings on credit cards.

But I know what you mean, part of the reason I left the bank was PPI.

AubreyMac

Thanks.


I think targets, although gives a focus, actually encourages poor performance.


With regards to the few 'bad eggs', I think it's the pressure to meet targets that drives them to do bad things. For example, I knew someone worked for a major attraction in London, they had to sell corporate packages as part of their performance targets. Failing to do so will result in lack of bonus/payrise and eventually could come down to dismissal. What he and his colleagues ended up doing was selling them then refunding them just to meet targets.


My colleague's previous role was deleted due to cutbacks, yet she's back in exactly the same role as an agency worker which costs the organisation more money.