THE LEARNING AND GROWTH PERSPECTIVE SLP - Essay Example

Learning and Growth Perspective Affiliation The learning and growth perspective acts as a means of spreading and introducing new concepts in an organization. It is a quantitative framework that is used for assessing satisfaction of the employee, productivity, and retention. The balanced scorecard integrates the four perspectives; customers, financial, learning and growth, and processes (Norton & Kaplan, 2000). Furthermore, learning and growth supports the three as it is a sphere where effective behaviours are build in an organization basing on employee coordination capabilities.

Measures of performance are quantitatively used to show the importance of organizational services, products, and the processes required to produce them (Norreklit, 2003). Objectives of learning and growth perspectiveThe main objectives for improving the organizations learning and growth include;I. Determining the effectiveness of the employeesII. Strategic development of skills to improve productivityIII. Strategic building of information for efficiency.IV. To focus available resourcesMeasures in learning and growth perspective include the following (FMA Accounting, 2006);Lagging IndicatorsLeading indicators- Revenue input and output per employee -Satisfaction of the employees- availability of strategic information- coverage of strategic jobs- alignment of personal goalsHow the objectives relate to the mission, vision and strategy of the organization.a) Effectiveness; it is a process that measures the degree to which the work output (product process) conforms to requirements.

It measures on whether the organization is performing the right things.b) Efficiency; it’s a characteristic process that measures the degree to which the organization produces at minimum resource cost the required output.c) Quality; measures the degree to which a service or a product meets the customers expectation and requirements.d) Timelines; gives information on whether the work was done on time and correctly. The criterion is always based on the requirements of the customer.e) Productivity; it is achieved by dividing value added process by capital consumed and labour value.f) Safety; it measures the working environment of the employees and the health of the organization.

Performance measure (metric) of the objectivesMetrics on effectiveness should reflect on whether the right things relating the organization goals, and the attainment of the desired results were achieved;Effectiveness = and Efficiency = It gives information on the process input and checks whether the resources are used properly.Productivity expected = and Real productivity = Targets of the objectivesa) The employees should be effective in their line of duty for the achievement of the organizational goals.b) Improvement of productivity through the development and nurturing of strategic skills.c) Efficiency to be attained in the organization through the use of information and ease of communication.d) Available resources are used effectively.

For proper and successful implementation of the objectives, strategic choosing of the objectives should be made (Norton & Kaplan, 2003). The following initiatives are important to be developed;1) The number of objectives chosen should be few and important. From observation, 15 to 20 objectives are sufficient for any organization. In the internal process perspective, 40% of the objectives should be located as it is where execution strategy is done.2) The objectives should be specific for highly focused, meaningful, and positive step changes in performance.3) The objectives should be driven by a customer theme as it allows the capturing of the organizational/customer interface that runs through the learning and growth and internal process perspective.4) From the internal business perspective, the organizational objectives should support how the organization differentiates itself in the market place.

Like for instance, objectives around quality and cost is more critical for an organization to be competitive.Learning and growth objectives relates with financial objectives by;Ensuring improvement in performance operationsEnabling profitable growth achievementMeeting the expectation and reduction in risk of the shareholder Learning and growth objectives relates to the customer service objectives by;Knowing the level of customer satisfaction (understanding of past performance can be used to build on future performance)Understanding customer requirementsImprovement of the agents performanceSatisfaction of target policyholdersLearning and growth objectives relate with internal business process objectives by;Looking at productivity improvementAligning claims within the businessDeveloping and knowing businesses in target marketsObjectiveMeasureTargetActionCustomer satisfactionProductivityQuality productsTraining of employees and use of quality machinesMeeting organizational goalsEffectiveness, e.g., level of service or grade of product Proper use of resourcesAnalyze the use and management of resourcesWhere and if improvements are neededEfficiencyMake necessary improvements that are resourcefulFinance where improvements are neededReferencesD.P. Norton and R.S. Kaplan (2000), Using the Business Review as A Strategic Management System.

Harvard Press.FMA Accounting (2006) Balanced Scorecard: Examples of Learning & Growth Perspective KPI. Retrieved August 20, 2009, from http://fmaccounting.com/balanced-scorecard- examples-of-learning-growth- measures/Kaplan, R. & D. Norton (2003). The strategy-focused organization. Harvard Business School Press.Norreklit. H. (2003) The balanced scorecard: what is the score? A rhetorical analysis of the balanced scorecard. Accounting Organization and Society.