What you can measure, you can manage

Not surprisingly (at least not to me), some of the best ideas in this blog come from readers who take a few minutes to post a comment. This happened again following yesterday's post, "Gruntled" on prime time, where we noted the use of our favorite pseudoword ("gruntled," of course) on NBC's "The Office." Scott McArthur, a people-management consultant in Cheshire, UK, thought of the blog when he heard the "Office" reference. That's good for NBC, and good for "Gruntled Employees."

(Ponder this for a second. "The Office" was originally a British sitcom, successfully imported and remade into an American hit, apparently being enjoyed back in the UK.) (OK, you can stop pondering now.)

Anyway, Scott has a great blog (now added to our Worldwide Blogroll — which sounds like a bakery item, but whatever) called "McArthur's Rant" where he talks about the kinds of topics that Gruntled readers care about. In his comment, Scott makes this terrific suggestion:

What we need now is the gruntled employee index on which we can base HR strategy and measure progress.

What a great idea! I've been wrestling with the concept of HR metrics and ways to measure the effectiveness of managers, HR professionals, and employment lawyers. (Some of the books on the right side of this page talk about these concepts.) Under the Peter Drucker rule that you can't manage what you can't measure, we need to find a way to assess our performance.

My plan then is to take Scott's great idea and develop the Gruntled Employees Index. I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear yours. What are the things that we should be measuring?