As the old adage goes—you can’t manage what you don’t measure. And managing and measuring employee performance is no exception.

The performance of your frontline workers, after all, translates into increased productivity, customer satisfaction and revenue. Research has shown that 10% of productivity comes from the top 1% of employees, and 26% of output is from the top 5%. The same study also found that top-performing employees are up to four times as productive as the average worker. Identifying and tracking key employee performance metrics, therefore, is a task that’s front of mind for many L&D teams. 

Between measuring work quality, employee efficiency and training effectiveness, narrowing down which performance metrics to track can quickly become overwhelming. 
We’ve got you covered with 25 key performance metrics to help you get a pulse on your frontline staff’s work quality, productivity and engagement—outlining with the data you need to identify strengths and gaps, and ultimately, improve employee performance.

What are employee performance metrics and why are they important? 

Performance metrics for employees serve many purposes for organizations with frontline staff, such as retail chains, grocery stores or call centers. On a macro level, tracking employee performance metrics can help L&D teams identify underperforming stores or locations, and mitigate issues quickly and effectively. On a micro level, performance metrics can identify the strongest and weakest performers, enabling managers to course-correct underperformance or reward individual and team performance, as the case may be. 

The employee metrics you measure ultimately depend on your overall business objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, a distribution center focused on processing orders as quickly as possible may hone in on work quantity and efficiency metrics, such as time per task or number of orders processed. On the other hand, a call center with the goal of generating returning customers may want to measure work quality metrics like customer satisfaction scores or response time. 

To help you get a better sense of what key performance metrics align best with your business goals and objectives, let’s dig into 25 useful performance metrics for employees. 

Work quality performance metrics for employees

Work quality metrics measure employee performance in relation to service or production outcomes. This helps organizations ensure that frontline workers are performing effectively and that the output of that work is meeting certain quality standards. 

Here are some ways work quality is measured:

1. Customer satisfaction scores

Customer satisfaction scores (also known as CSATs) measure how satisfied customers are with the service or support provided. These are typically expressed as a percentage from 100% (fantastic) to 0% (terrible). CSATs can be collected through surveys or feedback forms.

2. Error rates

Error rates track the frequency of mistakes or defects in the work performed, such as incorrect orders or errors in processing. 

3. Compliance and safety adherence

Especially for roles involving physical tasks or hazardous conditions, tracking compliance rates and adherence to safety standards is critical to ensuring the health and safety of your frontline staff. Organizations can measure adherence to company policies, safety procedures or the volume of safety-related incidents. 

4. Quality of work

Supervisor reviews, peer evaluations and customer feedback are all subjective indicators that can measure the quality of a frontline staff member’s work. 

5. Customer recognition

Objective customer feedback on an experience with frontline staff is an invaluable method of assessing an employee’s performance. To gather this intel you can go high-tech with a customer experience platform, or low-tech with a comment box at each store or location. 

6. Performance evaluations

When done right, performance reviews can be an effective form of performance management. An employee performance evaluation may look like something more traditional, like a manager feedback session, or you may employ a less hierarchical method, like 360 degree feedback or a peer performance review. Whatever your method, the general purpose of performance reviews with your frontline staff should be to provide an accurate and actionable evaluation of performance and a plan for upskilling in line with the demands of the job. Data from an employee performance appraisal—such as recurring themes or keywords, or average performance recorded on a Likert scale—can then be another type of performance metrics to track work quality. 

Read our guide: Everything you need to know about frontline enablement.

Work quantity performance metrics for employees

Another way to track employee performance metrics is through work quantity metrics. Unlike work quality metrics, which focus more on how employee performance impacts outcomes, quantitative metrics focus more on the process, placing an emphasis on the volume of work completed by frontline workers. 

These metrics provide insights into how much work is being done and can help identify areas for improvement in productivity and efficiency. Let’s dig into some examples of quantitative employee performance metrics. 

7. Tasks completed

This metric records the number of individual tasks or assignments completed, such as the number of orders processed or customer service tickets resolved. Monitoring task completion is a great way to identify top performers who are able to accomplish tasks repeatedly, demonstrating self-motivation. 

8. Work hours logged

Recording the total number of hours worked by frontline employees is one way organizations can get a pulse on productivity relative to time spent clocked in.

9. Sales volume

For retail and sales roles in particular, the total amount of sales or revenue generated in a given period is an impactful indicator of employee performance. Identifying individual employees who have exceeded expectations when it comes to selling or upselling products can be an objective way to determine top performance without the risk of internal bias. 

10. Inventory management

Tracking the number of items stocked or restocked, and measuring how quickly inventory is sold and replaced, are two indicators of an employee’s ability to properly manage stock.

Work efficiency metrics

Work efficiency metrics aim to answer the question, “How quickly were frontline workers’ tasks completed?” In other words, these metrics are focused on employee productivity and efficiency. Examples include:

11. Time per task

Time per task measures the average amount of time taken to complete a specific task or activity. For example, organizations may want to measure employee efficiency by tracking the time it takes to complete tasks like handling a customer inquiry or fulfilling a drive-through order. 

12. Task completion rate

For organizations wanting to measure how efficiently frontline staff are managing their workload, measuring the task completion rate (the ratio of tasks completed to tasks assigned) is an effective metric.

13. Cycle time

The cycle time of a task or activity is the total time required to complete a full cycle of the process, from start to finish. For example, when gauging an employee’s productivity in a distribution center, cycle time is a useful metric to measure how long it takes to process an order from the time it is received, packed and shipped. 

14. Output per hour

Output per hour is a useful tool that gives a bird’s-eye-view of a person’s productivity by measuring the amount of work produced per hours worked, such as customer inquiries resolved within an hour. 

Engagement metrics

Companies with engaged employees grow profits as much as 3X faster than their competitors. Evidently, ensuring your workforce is engaged and motivated at work correlates strongly with achieving performance targets. Here are some common ways that organizations track and action on employee engagement.

15. Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS)

An Employee Net Promoter Score, or eNPS, is a scoring system designed to gauge employee satisfaction and loyalty. Employees are asked, on a scale from zero to 10, to rate how likely they are to recommend the organization to their friends or family as a great place to work. eNPS scores range from +100 to -100. Generally, an eNPS between 10 and 30 is considered “good,” while above 80 is considered “best-in-class.” Since employee engagement is so intrinsic to a company’s success, businesses experiencing lower organizational performance may want to take a look at their eNPS—there’s a good chance that it could be improved.

16. Employee retention rate

eNPS is tightly correlated with employee retention since unmotivated and disengaged workers aren’t likely to stick around—and turnover has a hefty price tag. It costs an estimated $1,500 to replace every hourly worker who leaves your company. Tracking employee retention is essential to identifying turnover and its associated risks, early.

17. Absenteeism rate

Employee attendance is another performance metric to keep an eye on. Unplanned absences can be a sign of disengagement or dissatisfaction, so it’s important to measure their frequency. 

18. Recognition and reward metrics

43% of retail associates say recognition of an employee’s work performance is a top driver of happiness and success at work. Tracking the frequency and type of recognition and rewards given to employees is critical to ensuring that employee contributions are acknowledged on a regular basis. 

Teamwork metrics

Ensuring your frontline staff can work effectively towards team objectives, not just individual ones, is another important consideration when evaluating your employee performance goals. Some common teamwork metrics include:

19. Peer feedback and recognition

One of the best ways to assess an employee’s contributions to a team is to ask another team member. Some organizations may choose to collect peer feedback scores from employees about a team member’s work quality, communication and cooperation, providing insights into individual contributions to teamwork. You could also use this as an opportunity to foster peer-to-peer recognition, enabling team members to give kudos to their fellow staff members for going the extra mile, excelling at their job, demonstrating eagerness and more. 

20. Team collaboration frequency

Some organizations may choose to gauge their workforce’s team performance by measuring how often employees engage in collaborative activities, like joint projects or cross-functional tasks. 

21. Cross-training participation

Cross-training opportunities are an excellent opportunity for employees to demonstrate their flexibility and collaboration within the team, so monitoring the extent to which team members participate in cross-training or skill-training activities can be a useful performance metric. 

Learning and development metrics

The learning and development needs of your frontline staff naturally vary, which means a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t viable. Your approach to training programs and other L&D initiatives, therefore, needs to be iterative—and effectively measuring the right learning and development metrics is key to ensuring that your efforts are leading to better outcomes. 

22. Training completion rate

Measuring employee progress and completion of training programs is a critical first step to ensuring that training content is reaching your frontline employees. Most learning management systems can automate this tracking process.

23. Knowledge retention

Frontline workers who show they’re on top of product information are more likely to be able to help customers and sell that product, so measuring knowledge retention is another critical performance metric. Microlearning is a proven method of bite-sized knowledge testing that helps L&D teams identify gaps in product or company information. Microlearning platforms can take the manual work out of measuring knowledge retention, automatically delivering the appropriate training modules needed to close those gaps. 

Applying game-design principles to training initiatives can also help measure knowledge retention. A point system or a leaderboard can assign a quantitative value to an employee’s learning retention, enabling employee motivation and L&D insight into knowledge strengths and gaps. 

24. Training ROI

Similar to human capital ROI, training ROI evaluates the financial return on training investments by comparing the costs of training programs to their benefits, such as improved performance, increased employee productivity and average revenue.

25. Training satisfaction scores

Many organizations may choose to collect feedback from frontline staff on their satisfaction with training programs. This feedback may include the quality of content, delivery method, and relevance to an employee’s work.

Align performance metrics with business goals

Now that you’ve got a better understanding of performance metrics examples, the next step is to evaluate which key performance metrics align with your business objectives. Does your organization need to deliver products to customers faster? Do you need to save costs by reducing employee turnover? Are you focused on generating more returning customers? From there, you can begin to determine which performance metrics to track. 

Want to lean more into employee performance? Take our quiz on “How enabled is your workforce?”