In any organisation, the key people are making the difference. These people might be “key” for many reasons: natural leaders, specific knowledge in one area, or time in the company.
But these individuals are making a big difference as they are references for their peers.
Speaking about my experience in finance in an accounting department of any company, especially in Financial Shared Services Centres during their creation, those key people will be the ones that will generate some of the following. Good work atmosphere, guiding the rest of the team, and achieving the deadlines.
Those key people, might not always be the “official” leaders, they can be any team members, especially when the department is newly created and many people have been newly recruted, but with their specific skills, they will bring a lot of talent.
For these reasons, those key people have to be identified quickly by management so that they can help significantly achieve results by giving them some responsibilities regarding their skills immediatly. The results might include: improving quality, achieving deadline, organising team work responsibility better, bringing specific idea, and having always good attitude in stressful situations.
These key people have to be identified quickly by management so that they feel recognized at the value of their input. Some career plan can be discussed, so that they also feel part of the organization and are not tempted to leave at the first call received by any head hunter. The key people have to be identified quickly by management as they are the example to follow for others and the rest of the team members will appreciate the fair recognition.
To conclude: in a department, the KPI “headcount number” is often analysed, but behind the number of one, you might have the value of two or three. Identifying the key people quickly will make a huge difference in the results that you achieve.
