In this video, Matt Vaadi from ERG explains employee scorecards as tools that define specific, measurable outcomes for a role, helping both to gauge an employee’s success on the job and to assess candidates during hiring. He contrasts scorecards with traditional job descriptions, noting that job descriptions are often vague while scorecards provide concrete targets (e.g., “win 3 gold medals” or “implement 26 new clients”). The video outlines how a scorecard should include clear outcomes, be tied to quarterly and annual goals, and follow the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Reasonable, Timely). Vaadi describes how interviewers can use scorecard‑based questions to visualize a candidate’s fit and how the same rating and comments system can be used in performance reviews. He emphasizes the importance of precise metrics, offers practical examples, and provides contact information for further support.
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Hi, this is Matt with ERG, and today we're talking about employee scorecards and defining outcomes that define the success of our teammates. An employee scorecard helps us to measure what success looks like for an employee once they're in a role, and also it helps us to evaluate talent during the hiring process to determine if this person would be a good fit for for what we see this role achieving over a period of time. So what's the difference between a job description and an employee scorecard? So while we do recommend having job descriptions, they can often be vague and sometimes intentionally vague. Many employers want to include things such as "other duties as required" or they want to leave it fairly ambiguous so that the employee can handle a multitude of roles, particularly in small businesses. And while this is important, it's also really important to have goals and defined metrics that you're going to measure the success of a teammate by. So a job description might have vague things like "fast, strong swimmer" and "team player," whereas a scorecard is very specific: win 3 or more gold medals, win and break records when swimming for team events. A job description could get you one level of candidate, whereas a scorecard will get you a completely different level of candidate. So what does a scorecard look like? Well, a scorecard defines specific outcomes that we expect from a role, such as successfully implement 26 new clients while establishing and following standard operating procedures that contribute to the long-term retention of clients. Now, these specific outcomes will not only help you to gauge success of somebody who is performing the role on a daily basis and create goals both quarterly and annually for that employee to strive towards, but it will also help you to determine if you have the right candidate during the interview process. So if you're interviewing someone and you can gauge your questions around what the desired outcomes are for the role, you can really get a better visualization of if this person is going to be successful once they join your team. So we can use this rating and comments section during both the interview process and during our performance management reviews. If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. It's important that you have specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable, and timely goals—SMART goals—that your employees can strive towards every day, week, month of the year, and allow them and give them the tools they need to be successful inside their role, including a clearly defined vision of what success is. If you need more help or resources with this, please reach out to us at support@ergpayroll.com, or you can hit me direct @MattVaadi on Twitter, M-A-T-T-V-A-A-D-I, or find me on LinkedIn. Thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.
