The KPI Institute, a global research institute specializing in business performance, has announced the winner of the TKI People Awards for Employee of the Year 2022. The TKI People Awards recognize employees and teams who go above and beyond expectations, excel as team players, and create a tremendous impact on the company.

Teodora Gorksi, Managing Director – MENA, is the recipient of the Employee of the Year award. She has not only excelled in her job but also contributed significantly to the growth of the organization. She was praised by Adrian Brudan, Managing Partner at TKI, for her “relentless efforts, support offered to the team, and excellent results achieved.”

Let’s find out what her life and work principles are.

What does receiving the Employee of the Year award mean to you?

Teodora: I always like to tell a story about myself. Starting with my childhood, I was always trying to be one step ahead. It began with a story about finding Neverland, winning first prize in school, going to the math Olympics, and being captain of the volleyball team. Growing older made me realize that it is more than that. Being ahead means creating something great, trusting people, putting passion in what you do, keeping your family and friends near, learning from many, teaching more, encouraging everyone, and finally, never forgetting that when you were a child, you thought everything was possible. Well, it still is. This has always inspired me to bring motivation, passion for what I do, knowledge and an open heart and mind to what I do. I am a proactive learner, and I always feel the motivation and commitment towards personal and professional development while leaving my personal contribution and legacy in the things I get involved.

What’s your favorite accomplishment so far at TKI?

Teodora: I would include among them, opening operations in a new region and fostering positive work and personal relationships with my colleagues, a lot of which I can call my friends, and some are even part of my family. Together, we established a strong foothold in the region and created a collaborative work environment that led to remarkable results.

When you’re faced with a challenge at work, how do you find a solution?

Teodora: “Have a break, have a KitKat.” 😊

Or, if you want something more serious:

‘”Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt

What would be the three main career lessons that you have learnt thus far?

Teodora: I’d like to mention four based on Luthans’ four positive attributes:

Hope – Embrace hope as a driving force to set goals, create a roadmap, and stay self-motivated with willpower and waypower to reach your destination.
Efficacy – Develop efficacy by cultivating the conviction to execute tasks with excellence in any given situation. Believe in yourself, and let your confidence shine through.
Resilience – Cultivate resilience as an indispensable trait that enables you to bounce back and overcome any setback, disappointment, or success.
Optimism – Harness the power of optimism to propel you forward toward success. Optimism creates a positive outlook and a belief in the possibilities of achieving your goals. Let this positive energy fuel your happiness, perseverance, and success.

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Join The KPI Institute’s growing team! Visit TKI’s official LinkedIn page to see job openings, career opportunities, and more.

Building healthy work relationships is essential for both the employees and their employer when they are building a performance-oriented culture.

Citing several studies on work relationships, SHRM Foundation’s Effective Practice Guidelines Series shows that high-quality human relationships can impact one’s physical and psychological health, cognitive abilities, thinking capacity, learning, resiliency, commitment, creativity, and organizational citizenship behavior. This means more efficient employee coordination with qualities that support “greater organizational effectiveness and efficiency.”

However, the work setup of most companies changed when the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world. Organizations moved their operations online, forcing employees to perform their duties and communicate virtually. 

Cultivating professional relationships is not easy in such an environment. Employees connecting virtually rather than face-to-face communication have lesser chances of building relationships, according to a study held by Xiao-Ping Chen, the Philip M. Condit Endowed Chair in Business Administration at the University of Washington Foster School of Business.

Findings showed that it is difficult to understand the nonverbal cues of remote workers, such as facial expressions, hand gestures, silence, or delayed responses. Moreover, most employees struggle with paying attention during a meeting done via video conferencing.

What Organizations Can Do

Increasing resilience in the workplace as people recover from a crisis means giving them purpose and hope, flexibility and adaptability, and connection to their colleagues. Organizations can arrange activities that can help employees stay connected even while working remotely. 

In an interview with CNBC, Jason Fried, CEO of the project management company Basecamp, recommends a daily check-in with colleagues or a time at work where they can share ideas and express support over personal matters.

Meanwhile, education company General Assembly implemented watercooler chat over coffee through video chat rooms. Meg Randall, the director of product delivery for the company’s tech team in New York City, said that those coffee breaks help her mentally start her day. “It’s a small talk that lasts for a few minutes, but it’s a nice ritual if you’re craving that human connection every day, which I have been,” said Randall. 

Trust, transparency, and open communication can also help organizations nurture healthy work relationships. One of the ways this can be tested, particularly between leaders and employees, is performance evaluation. Assessing employee performance has changed due to the pandemic. 

In the online event held by ECCP and HURIS on August 2021, Cristina Mihăiloaie, Business Unit Manager at The KPI Institute, said that the performance criteria used for employee evaluations, whether it involves key performance indicators or not, should be “flexible, easy to adapt to changes, and more focused on the extent to which the role is successfully achieved, compared to looking at operational details.”

“For example, employees who worked from home and multitasked between being a parent and a professional may have missed some meetings, or maybe they seemed more absent during work. Overall, if the output of their job is good, the operational details may be less important,” she said. 

Join Cristina as she delivers the Certified Performance Management Systems Audit Professional Live Online course on 07 – 11 March 2022 / EMEA 18:00 – 22:00 GST and ASEAN 09:00 – 13:00 CST (US).

This 40-hour course will discuss how to diagnose and audit the maturity of performance architectures for five capabilities: strategic planning, performance measurement, performance management, performance culture and employee performance management.

Don’t miss this opportunity to widen your knowledge and experience in employee performance management. You can sign up here.

Fadi Al-Jafari, a Senior Management Consultant at The KPI Institute (TKI), is the recipient of the Employee of the Year award for 2021, having demonstrated consistency, commitment, and competence throughout the year.

The TKI People Awards series features the employees and teams recognized by The KPI Institute for going above and beyond expectations, excelling as team players, and creating a tremendous impact on the company.

As part of the Consulting Division, Fadi facilitates workshops and training courses on strategy and performance management. He provides consultancy and develops materials for clients from different industries, helping them design and implement Performance Management Systems and other advisory services.

Fadi has a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Engineering from Al-Balqa Applied University in Jordan and a Masters Degree in Business Administration from German Jordanian University in Jordan.

As a colleague, Fadi is known for being hardworking and undaunted, having delivered numerous training programs in 2021.

“He is always very supportive and willing to learn from others,” said Iulia Tutulan of the Employee Engagement Team. “He was involved in multiple projects and besides delivering so many sessions, he was open to teach me and support me with my preparation as a facilitator. Also, he has overachieved his target and showed exemplary performance in all his fields of activity by being active in promoting our services on all platforms and ways,” she added.

Now, it is time for you to meet the man of the hour.

What does receiving the Employee of the Year award mean to you?

Fadi: It means that the organization is recognizing their employees and committed towards building a performance culture that focuses on employee engagement. For me, personally, it was a great gesture from the team after a tough year and too many deliveries.

What’s your favorite accomplishment so far at TKI?

Fadi: I achieved 200% of my sales target.

When you’re faced with a challenge at work, how do you find a solution?

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. It is a goal management framework that contains a maximum of five objectives and five key results for each objective. OKR, an approach successfully adopted by Google, connects vision and reality in an organization. With the OKR methodology, everyone’s work is aligned and focused on achieving the same goals. 

When done right, OKR can be beneficial for organizations, especially when there are a lot of uncertainties. According to a survey held by Mind the Product and NEO culture, companies consider increased transparency across their organization as the main benefit of using OKR. More than half of the respondents reported being able to monitor and update the probability of key result achievements. 

Andrew Constable, founder of early-stage business & product consultancy firm Visualise Solutions, said that OKRs help build a “culture of shared purpose.” He points out that under OKR, everyone is moving in the same direction and working on things that truly matter.

Alina Miertoiu, a senior management consultant at The KPI Institute, explained in her article “OKR Essentials – Simplified Performance Management” that the OKR approach asks the questions, “Where do I want to go?” “How will I know I’m getting there?” and “What will I do when I arrive?”

She believes that OKRs are suitable for agile organizations because their work requires regular updates and is open to changing goals and results. An OKR-focused system can help organizations take higher-risk objectives instead of operational ones. The methodology also leads to higher employee engagement because it encourages employees to be creative and take risks.

Alignment, not cascading, is key to OKRs, according to Alina. “When setting their own OKRs, employees should take into consideration their own responsibilities, the strategic direction, the already-established OKRs or the management’s aspirations in the organizational context,” she wrote.

“It is recommended that an employee’s OKRs are actionable by that person, so it’s harder to assign OKRs or create a set of general OKRs for a position,” she added.

If you would like to explore further how your organization can benefit from using OKRs, Alina is facilitating The KPI Institute’s Certified OKR Professional Live Online training course on 21 – 25 February 2022. 

Discover the benefits of stretched goals, understand how OKRs work in different contexts, and identify best practices for aligning OKRs across the organization. Experience developing a comprehensive project plan for an OKRs implementation and creating communication templates to gather data for OKRs measurement.

Get more details about the course and register here.

Online ordering, digital payments, the rising demand for plant-based items and sustainable packaging, and preference for alcohol-to-go and outdoor dining are just some of the trends that restaurants are adjusting to. 

While consumer behavior and dining preferences have changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the restaurant industry sees a glimmer of hope. Sales are expected to increase from $864 billion in 2019 to $898 billions this year, according to the National Restaurant Association’s 2022 State of the Restaurant Industry Report. Meanwhile, the foodservice industry is predicted to generate 400,000 jobs, for total industry employment of 14.9M before the year ends.

However, Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of the Research and Knowledge Group at the National Restaurant Association, emphasized that the restaurant industry may never completely return to its pre-pandemic state. 

Over half of restaurant operators believe that the return to normalcy would take a year or more. Restaurants are still grappling with employee retention and recruitment, food, labor, and occupancy costs, and supply delays or shortages of key food or beverage products.

“We still have work to do to ensure that those operators struggling the most can survive.  The Association will continue to champion the necessary government support needed at the federal and local levels to help keep these businesses — cornerstones of our communities — on a path to better days,” said Marvin Irby, Interim President & CEO of the National Restaurant Association.

What Can Restaurants Do

Use data to adapt to changes. The NPD Group recommends studying restaurant visits each daypart–morning meal, lunch, dinner, and P.M. Snack–and adjusting operations according to the behavior and motivations of diners. “The ability for restaurants, particularly full-service restaurants, to operate at total capacity, consumer comfort with dining in, and more business and recreational travel will aid recovery at the dinner daypart,” NPD states.

Exceed expectations to retain customers. Heleri Rande, a partner at Think Hospitality, a Florida-based real estate development and hospitality company, believes that restaurants should go beyond their usual services. They can add special touches like recipe boxes and contactless drop-off. She also suggests upselling “sides, bottles of wine, and desserts” and encouraging customers to buy gift vouchers. 

Track performance using KPIs. During uncertain times, every business decision is critical. Understanding where a restaurant has potential or needs improvement can help owners develop and implement a customer-focused strategy. This is only possible when they have the data to support their decisions.

The KPI Institute released The Top 25 Restaurant KPIs – 2020 Extended Edition, which compiles the most popular 25 KPIs used by food and beverage units worldwide throughout 2016 and 2020. The 25 restaurant KPIs identified are categorized into six divisions:

• Restaurant Financials – Incorporate the sales generated by the business from different perspectives and the investments made for its functionality
• Service Quality – Refers to issues that influence customer’s satisfaction, such as unavailability of menu items or service diversity
• Customer Feedback – Offers information regarding the customers’ assessment of the restaurant as an indicator of their satisfaction and loyalty
• Restaurant Occupancy – Represents the attraction of customers and the capacity at which the restaurant operates
• Restaurant Workload – Reflects on the intensity of the restaurant’s activity and the impact of peak periods on employees
• Restaurant Governance – Indicates the principles and practices that guide the decisions of the restaurant’s management

Discover the 25 most popular restaurant KPIs today and read each of their profiles, all packed with exclusive in-practice recommendations. Download The Top 25 Restaurant KPIs – 2020 Extended Edition now!

A high-performance culture is characterized by behaviors and norms that allow organizations to achieve outstanding results and superior performance. 

Citing the book “Leadership in High-Performance Organizational Cultures” by Stanley Truskie, the University of Ottawa states that organizations with a high-performance culture experience financial and non-financial success at the same time. Some examples of non-financial success are employee retention, customer satisfaction, competitiveness, and innovation. 

How can leaders build and sustain a high-performance culture? Vibhas Ratanjee, Senior Practice Expert — Organizational and Leadership Development at the analytics and advisory firm Gallup, stated that there are five cultural drivers of such culture. He emphasizes that leaders must know how to communicate clearly and consistently to help employees understand what is expected of them. In addition, identifying values and rituals guides employees in interacting within the organization and resonates with how they deal with clients. 

Ratanjee points out the need to establish and optimize work teams and structures. Work Gallup’s findings show that how employees perceive work structure has an impact on their engagement. Another driver is the development of a company’s human capital. He suggests that managers must hold coaching sessions that drive performance “based on how each person is enabled to use their own unique abilities.” 

The final cultural driver is performance management. One of Gallup’s recommendations is to invest in hiring high-performing managers. “Investment in managers is critical. They account for 70% of the variance in team engagement but an alarming 65% of managers are not engaged or are actively disengaged.”

Cristina Mihăiloaie, Business Unit Manager and Performance Management Consultant at The KPI Institute, wrote in her article on performancemagazine.org that embedding performance within an organizational culture impacts both internal and external stakeholders. 

For internal stakeholders, it can increase accountability regarding the quality of their work and establish their role and contribution to the organizational strategy. For external stakeholders, it means positioning the organization as a trustful and reliable partner, enhancing customer experience, and improving employer brand and market image.

If you would like to learn more about how to nurture a performance culture and manage your organization’s performance in different scenarios, join The KPI Institute’s Certified Performance Management Professional Live Online Course on 20 – 24 February 2022 (EMEA: 09:00 – 13:00 GST and ASEAN: 13:00 – 17:00 GMT +8). 

The 40-hour course will discuss the ins and outs of a performance management system architecture, the fundamentals of performance review meetings, and how to use data to enhance the decision-making process. 

Do not miss this opportunity to gain knowledge, practical experience, and a chance to connect with a community of industry experts and professionals. Invite your colleagues and sign up here.

The global data visualization market size hit USD 9.48 Billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 20.16 Billion by 2028. What is data visualization, and why is it so important?

Emergen Research attributes its optimistic forecast to the “generation of large data volumes and the rising need for multi-device access facilities.” It added that cloud computing and the need for fast decision-making, particularly during volatile times, are also accelerating the adoption of data visualization.

The rise of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) that help companies process data in 3D formats pushes the demand for cloud computing in data visualization, according to Emergen Research. These are further driving the market revenue growth.

The KPI Institute defines data visualization as “the visual representation of data, in order to better understand information and present it in a clear and effective manner.” Data visualization can help detect and analyze patterns, trends, and correlations.

According to the report “TDWI best practices report: Data visualization and discovery for better business decisions,” some of the benefits of data visualization are the improvement of operational efficiency, better response to business changes, identification of new business opportunities, and higher employee and partner productivity. 

Based on Emergen Research’s findings, the software segment revenue would increase steadily during the firm’s forecast period. Moreover, the standalone visualization software segment revenue is soaring due to the need to produce useful information from huge volumes of data. Such data usually comes nowadays from social media and other online platforms. “Use of data visualization software such as Oracle, tableau, and SAP made this approach feasible,” the forecast report states.

Developing and designing a visual representation is not a walk in the park. To communicate data visually and effectively, you need the right tools, knowledge, and expert guidance. 

The KPI Institute’s Certified Data Visualization Professional course teaches participants how to create better and more relevant reports and present intelligible data sets to decision-makers. If you would like to improve the visual communication within your organization, secure your slot on 21 – 25 February 2022 (EMEA: 09:00 – 13:00 GST and ASEAN: 13:00 – 17:00 GMT +8) by signing up here.

If 2020 was the year for survival mode, 2021 was the year for adapting to changes that came our way. Adaptability is not just about keeping up with modern technologies and trends. It’s more about how we use them to accelerate change and foster a culture of innovation in the workplace, and this won’t be possible without valuing learning and development.

That is why The KPI Institute continues to deliver quality live-online certification programs in strategy and performance management. These learning sessions are designed to help organizations and professionals address business challenges, gain competencies, and achieve results.  They are packed with tools, frameworks, resources, exercises, and expert recommendations.

Before we put 2021 behind us, let us revisit the courses that made a mark on you. According to our data, here are the top live-online training programs of The KPI Institute that received the highest number of participants last year.

1. KPI Certified Professional and Practitioner: “Embedding more than 15 years of research, this educational program will provide you the necessary knowledge and skills to differentiate yourself from other professionals through a rigorous and structured approach to measuring performance.”
2. Strategy and Business Planning Professional Certification: “The course aims to offer participants a chance to build up a strategic mind-frame, understand key strategy planning concepts, use strategy planning tools, in individual and team exercises, and reflect on the best practices in the field through case studies and debates.”
3. Balanced Scorecard Management System Professional Certification: “The training course provides the pillars, tools, and resources required for an immediate application and Balanced Scorecard Management System in your own organization.”
4.  Certified Performance Management Professional and Practitioner Certifications: In this course, participants will “Obtain a premium recognition for your competencies both as a professional and practitioner to demonstrate your ability to monitor and improve current performance levels in different scenarios, in a standardized and effective manner.”
5. Certified OKR Professional: “The three-day course trains participants in how to set and work with OKRs and offers them the opportunity to get certified on the ability to deploy and use OKRs in accordance.”

To learn more about other certification programs, check out the Performance Management Training Calendar 2022.

Even if 2021 wanes, the new year means you are bound for a fresh start. Whether you want to get promoted, learn new tools, or gain an in-demand skill, this is the perfect time to map out your route for the next 12 months.

The minimal access to offices and the challenges of the Zoom era shouldn’t stop you from seeking career growth and opportunities. If there’s one good thing that the pandemic gave us, it’s more time to look at ourselves and reflect on the paths we want to take.

We asked our colleagues at The KPI Institute about their plans for 2022. Hear everything straight from them and get ready to be inspired.

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“I realized that I find consultancy projects more appealing to me. I’m able to learn more and develop myself as a professional. When doing research and consultancy projects, I have the chance to apply concepts in real life. It also involves communication with the client, an aspect of the project that I find challenging and exciting at the same time.

Aida Manea | Business Research Analyst, TKI Research 

“In 2022, I look forward to investing more time and effort in my skills. There were training opportunities I neglected to embrace, and I am not very happy about it.”

“I hope I will be able to work on research projects that involve data analysis and recommendations as well new courses. I would also like to learn new skills especially management skills.”

Mai Ismail | Business Research Analyst, AMSI

“I would like to make the blended delivery of the Strategy and Business Planning Professional Certification happen. It may be related to me upskilling in terms of using industry-standard software, like Articulate Storyline or Captivate, to add more personality, animated people, and elements to the recorded theory part of the course.”

Roxanne Mercado | Head of Instructional Design

Daniela Vuta | Senior Business Research Analyst, TKI Research

“I look forward to integrating my efforts with TKI into empowering words to achieve performance excellence. My plans are to develop the HR Maturity Model, Marketing and other functional maturity models, and the enterprise maturity model. I also want to play a role in sensitizing and at the same time explore the learning concepts of Industry 4.0 and Web 3.0. The question is, how can these futuristic concepts be integrated with business excellence in 2022 and 2023?”

Manoj Dubey | Internal Consultant, AMSI

“I want to excel in Power BI by the end of 2022 and see myself as a better value addition to TKI’s growth.”

Sirisha Kodukulla | Business Research Analyst, TKI Research

“I want to work toward signing my first consulting project to support the consulting division.”

“I would like to learn more about digital marketing and content writing and to achieve new certifications, such as the Certified OKR Professional and the Certified Performance Management Professional and Practitioner.”

The KPI Institute (TKI) capped off  2021 with numerous feats. From welcoming more participants to revenue growth to signing new partnerships, take a look back at how the organization navigated changes and chased success throughout the year.

Here are the 10 highlights reflecting our steadfast drive for progress:

1. New courses: TKI launched the Agile Strategy Execution, Certified Performance Audit Professional, and Executive Education Program  as a response to
2. A growing online community: Smartkpis.com, the world’s biggest database of documented KPIs, attracted over 2000 new subscribers and members.
3. Unparalleled KPI research: With more than 17 years of experience in the field, The KPI Institute remains a valuable source of the most popular KPIs in various industries and functional areas. You can learn more about them by downloading the Top KPIs reports and KPIs of the Month infographics.
4. Trusted by Major Organizations: TKI provided consulting services for the National Grid (KSA), Andes Petroleum (Ecuador), Power International Holding (PIH) – 14 Entities, Solutions by STC, Islamic Development Bank, Program for Health Assurance and Purchasing, Sharquia Development Authority (KSA), and Al Nahdi Family Office.
   
5. Expanding organizational structure: The company saw a 64% increase in the number of employees this year compared to 2020.
6. Nurturing a multicultural environment: As a global research institute, the TKI ecosystem is composed of skilled professionals, specialists, and consultants with different cultural backgrounds. Its employees and collaborators come from Romania, Indonesia, Jordan, Lebanon, Australia, Egypt, Malaysia, Philippines, India, Mauritius, Nigeria, Greece, Italia, Turkey, and Vietnam.
7. High-quality training sessions: TKI recorded a 121% increase in the number of training courses organized in 2021 compared to 2020.
8. Most coveted certifications: The certification program with the highest number of participants in 2021 was the KPI Certified Professional and Practitioner, followed by the Strategy and Business Planning Professional Certification. The Balanced Scorecard Management System Professional Certification, the Certified Performance Management Professional and Practitioner Certifications, and the Certified OKR Professional also made it to the Top 5.
9. Significant partnerships sealed: Three new partners strengthened the presence of TKI in different markets. Thanks to Strategic KPI from Tunisia, Enroute International Limited from Bangladesh, and Third Sector Center for Training and Management Consultancy Saudi Arabia.
10. Attracting audiences worldwide: The number of course participants during open training sessions in 2021 rose by 82% compared to 2020.

Join us this year in conquering new heights and empowering the world to achieve exceptional performance.

• Explore our Performance Management Training Calendar 2022.
• Get the latest resources on strategy and performance management.
• Enjoy free access to intelligent analysis and comprehensive discussions on Performance Magazine.
• Let our experts guide you in achieving success through our consulting services.

If you don’t find what you’re looking for above, email us at [email protected]org or call at T: +61 3 9028 2223 / M: +61 4 2456 8088.