KPIs and Incentives Health Check · 10 min · free
Where do your KPIs and incentives honestly stand?
Objectives on a poster, measures in the dozens, targets that are last year plus a number. A bonus that pays for something the objectives never mention. Ten minutes shows which of those is you.
Start the check now →No email before your result · no sales call after
- LaggingThe bonus is whatever the owner remembers at year end, or it pays on one number, and the behaviour the business complains about is exactly what it rewards.
- BasicSeveral things are said to count towards the bonus, and everyone knows which one actually decides it.
- CompetentThe bonus pays on no more than five things per person, each traceable to a written objective.
- AdvancedWhat the bonus pays for has been checked against what the business says it wants (teamwork, margin, safety, customers kept), a gap was found, and what is paid for changed.
- LeadingEverything the bonus pays for is behaviour the business would want even if nobody were paid for it.
What the check covers
Twenty to twenty-five practices across five dimensions, one screen each. Pick the sentence that is true today.
The objectives: few, cascaded, understood, shared
How many objectives there are, whether they trace up and down, and whether anyone three levels down could name them.
The measures: defined once, owned, leading as well as lagging
Whether the measures are defined once, owned by someone who can move them, and watched for what they make people do.
The targets: how they are set, and what happens near them
How targets are set, what they get argued down to, and what happens to the numbers near the line.
The rhythm: reviewed together, and acted on
How often the objectives and the measures are looked at together, and whether the review changes what anyone does.
The incentives: what pays, line of sight, the bonus and the budget, recognition, principles
What the bonus actually pays for, and whether the people on it can move the numbers it pays on.
- 60%Australian businesses with 20 to 199 people using KPIs
About six in ten Australian businesses with 20 to 199 people used KPIs in 2024-25.
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Characteristics of Australian Business, 2024-25. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Ask your leadership team too. Set up a team poll: each colleague answers alone, and you see where your views differ.
Sample report · your profile
What you get
Your profile
Stage names across every area.
Two or three moves
Each one step right, with what good looks like.
A one-page PDF
Written to put in front of your board, leadership or team.
Four questions
How long does it take?
About ten minutes. One dimension per screen, and you can stop and come back.
Who sees my answers?
You. In a team poll with individual answers visible, the person who set it up also sees each answer against level and function, never a name. Only anonymised figures go into benchmarks. A comparison appears only once enough similar businesses have taken the check.
Is this advice?
No. It is a self-assessment against practices built from more than 30 years of strategy consulting and over 1,000 engagements. It is not remuneration advice, and nothing here is HR, tax or employment advice. What you do with it is yours.
What happens after?
Your report opens on screen as soon as you finish, with no email asked for. If you want a copy, there is a field on the report to send yourself the link, once. Nobody calls. If you want to talk, there is a button on your report; nobody will contact you otherwise. No email before your result, no sales call after it, no list, and delete on request.
More about this check
Most businesses have objectives on a poster and measures in the dozens. Their targets are last year plus a number, and a monthly meeting decides nothing. The bonus pays for something the objectives never mention. Each piece looks defensible on its own. Together they are not a system, and the business ends up paying for exactly the behaviour it complains about. Every practice in this check is answered from what is already on your desk:
- the page of objectives
- the list of measures and who owns them
- the evidence behind the targets
- the minutes of the last review
- the bonus letter.
What the check covers
Sentences you can check:
Each of these is the lowest of five sentences on its question, from how the practice goes wrong to how it goes well. If one of them is true of your business, the check says so. Then it shows you the next sentence up: what one step better looks like.
What you get
Your profile across the five dimensions in stage names, not scores. The pattern you match, if you match one. The two or three moves that take you one step right, each with what good looks like. A one-page version written to be put in front of your board, your leadership or your team.
Changing a measure is one of the cheapest things a business can do and one of the hardest to judge afterwards. In one business we worked with, the sales force had been measured on gross sales and volume. The business moved it to net sales value, rewrote its discount guidelines and trained the sales force on both at the same time. EBIT on individual accounts improved by up to 15 per cent. Three things changed at once, so what we saw is what the package did. Nobody can say what the measure did on its own, and we do not claim it. "Up to" means the accounts that moved most. It is neither an average nor an expectation.
The check measures the practice. It is not a remuneration benchmark, it does not price a plan, and it says nothing about what any individual should earn.
Start the check
One check, for a business that has objectives, measures and some form of bonus and is not sure they add up to one system. Four questions come first:
- whether you are answering for one business or a group
- roughly how big it is
- what governance sits over executive pay and the annual objectives
- whether there is a written bonus, commission or share plan covering at least the managers. A business with no written plan skips the three practices that need one on paper; what the bonus actually pays for is asked of everyone.
Two neighbours, both live. The sales plan and what reps are paid on belong to the sales check. The unit structure your measures are meant to fit belongs to the operating model check.
Ten minutes. Private. Your report on screen.
Two minutes first? Try the five-question version.
See what ASX 200 chief executive bonuses pay for, from FY2015 to FY2025.