Performance
Employee KPIs: how to set them, 28 examples by role and bonus calculation
How to derive KPIs from company goals, test them against SMART with real examples and tie them to a bonus so that employees can work out their own pay.
In short
- 3–5 KPIs per employee. Each one should depend on their own actions and have a number, a data source and a deadline.
- KPIs are derived from company goals: annual goal → department goal → employee metrics. If you can't explain the link in a minute, the metric doesn't belong.
- Calculate the bonus using weights and an achievement corridor: below the threshold it's zero, above target it's capped.
- Below is a table of 28 KPI examples by role and a worked bonus calculation in tenge.
What an employee KPI is and how it differs from job duties
A KPI is a number that tells you, a month or a quarter later, whether a person did their job well or not. "Work with clients" is a duty. "Lead-to-payment conversion of at least 18% for the month" is a KPI.
A good metric has four properties: it's measured by a number, the data for it is already collected somewhere (CRM, 1C, timesheet, ticketing system), the employee can influence it, and it's tied to the reason their position exists.
It's also worth separating KPIs from department metrics. Store revenue is a store metric. For a sales assistant, a personal metric is derived from it: average transaction value or revenue from their shifts. For the store manager, it's total revenue, because they manage the schedule, the merchandising and the team.
How to set KPIs with SMART: with examples, not just words
SMART often turns into a formality: the template has five columns, but the goal is still "improve service". Test every letter with a question that needs a specific answer.
| Letter | Test question | Bad | Good |
|---|---|---|---|
| S — specific | What exactly should change? | Improve client service | Reduce the share of repeat requests about the same issue |
| M — measurable | What number, and where does it come from? | Clients are happy | Share of repeat requests from the ticketing system report |
| A — achievable | What was the actual over the last 3–6 months? | From 22% to 5% in a month | From 22% to 16% in a quarter |
| R — relevant | Which department goal does it move? | Number of outgoing emails | Client retention, which drives revenue |
| T — time-bound | By what date, and how often do we check? | Soon | By March 31, with a monthly checkpoint |
The letter A can only be checked with data. Before setting a target, pull the actuals for past periods. If a call centre agent in Astana has handled 70–75 calls per shift for the last six months, a target of 110 calls doesn't motivate. It teaches people not to believe in targets.
One more check is the "gaming test". Ask yourself: how could someone hit this KPI without adding any value? If agents are judged only on call volume, they'll hang up faster. Such a metric needs a counterweight, for example a quality score based on a checklist.
The cascade: from company goals to employee KPIs
KPIs invented separately for each position pull the company in different directions. Sales chases revenue through discounts, finance chases margin, the warehouse chases shipping speed at the cost of errors. A cascade removes these conflicts.
- Company goal for the year. For example: revenue of KZT 2.4 billion with a gross margin of at least 28%.
- Department goals. Sales: KZT 1.9 billion from new and existing clients. Marketing: 3,600 qualified leads. Warehouse: 98% of orders shipped on time.
- Manager goals. The head of sales is responsible for the department's target, conversion and deal margin.
- Employee KPIs. Sales manager: personal sales target, conversion, share of deals without a discount above 10%.
The cascade is built top-down, but the target is checked bottom-up. Add up the sales managers' personal targets: the total should cover the department's target with a 5–10% buffer for turnover and sick leave. If it doesn't, that's a conversation about hiring or about the goal, not a reason to add 20% to everyone.
How it works in TapHR
In the Performance module, goals and KPIs are linked in a cascade: every employee metric shows the department and company goal it supports. Managers see their team's progress in one place, and the 1:1 meeting agenda pulls in current KPIs, so the conversation is about numbers, not impressions.
28 KPI examples by role
This is a starter set. Pick 3–5 metrics per role rather than all of them, and set targets based on your own actual data.
| Role | KPI | How to calculate | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales manager | Personal sales target achievement | Actual payments / target × 100% | CRM, 1C |
| Sales manager | Lead-to-payment conversion | Paid deals / leads received | CRM |
| Sales manager | Share of deals without an above-standard discount | Deals with a discount up to 10% / all deals | CRM |
| Sales manager | Receivables over 30 days | Total overdue payments from their clients | 1C |
| Call centre agent | First contact resolution (FCR) | Requests with no repeat call within 7 days / all requests | Telephony, tickets |
| Call centre agent | Checklist quality score | Average score of reviewed calls | Supervisor report |
| Call centre agent | Schedule adherence | Time on the line / scheduled time | Telephony, timesheet |
| Warehouse operative, picker | Picking accuracy | Orders without mis-picks or shortages / all orders | WMS, reports |
| Warehouse operative, picker | Productivity | Order lines picked per shift | WMS |
| Logistics specialist | On-time delivery | Orders delivered within the window / all orders | TMS, 1C |
| Logistics specialist | Delivery cost per order | Delivery costs / number of orders | 1C |
| Recruiter | Time to fill | Days from the opened request to the accepted offer | ATS |
| Recruiter | Hiring plan completion | Filled jobs / jobs in progress | ATS |
| Recruiter | Retention of hires through probation | Hires who passed probation / all hires | ATS, HR records |
| HR manager | Turnover in the first 90 days | Leavers within 90 days / hires for the period | HR records |
| HR manager | On-time onboarding completion | New hires who completed onboarding on time / all new hires | Onboarding system |
| HR manager | Company eNPS | % promoters − % detractors | Engagement survey |
| Marketer | Qualified leads | Leads accepted by the sales team | CRM |
| Marketer | Cost per qualified lead | Ad budget / qualified leads | Ad accounts, CRM |
| Accountant | On-time month-end close | Close date vs. scheduled date | 1C |
| Accountant | Reports without corrections | Reports filed without adjustments / all reports | Filing log |
| Accountant | Source document processing time | Average days from receipt to posting | 1C |
| Developer | Team's quarterly task completion | Closed tasks from the quarterly plan / planned tasks | Task tracker |
| Developer | Post-release defects | Production bugs in their tasks per month | Task tracker |
| Department head | Department target achievement | Department actual / department target | CRM, 1C |
| Department head | Team turnover | Voluntary leavers / average headcount | HR records |
| Sales assistant | Average transaction value | Revenue from their sales / number of transactions | Till |
| Store manager | Revenue vs. target and shrinkage | Actual / target; write-offs and shortages as % of revenue | Till, stock counts |
Be careful with volume metrics for developers, such as the number of commits or lines of code: they're easy to game and say nothing about value. Quarterly team goals plus quality are more reliable.
For recruiters, "time to fill" and "retention through probation" work as a pair: one keeps them from dragging their feet, the other from hiring just anyone. To see recruiting where these numbers are calculated automatically, visit the TapHR Recruiting page.
How to calculate KPIs and link them to a bonus: an example in tenge
The most practical scheme is a variable pay component with weighted metrics and an achievement corridor. First you calculate achievement for each KPI, then the weighted total, then the bonus.
KPI achievement = actual / target × 100%
Overall ratio = Σ (KPI achievement × KPI weight)
For metrics where lower is better (receivables, errors, lead time), the formula flips: target / actual × 100%.
Example: a sales manager in Almaty
Say the base salary is KZT 350,000 and the monthly target bonus is KZT 200,000 if all metrics are met at 100%. Corridor rules: if a KPI is below 80%, it earns zero; anything above 120% isn't counted.
| KPI | Weight | Target | Actual | Achievement | Counted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal sales target | 50% | ₸12M | ₸13.8M | 115% | 57.5% |
| Lead-to-payment conversion | 30% | 20% | 18% | 90% | 27% |
| Receivables over 30 days | 20% | max ₸600K | ₸900K | 67% (below threshold) | 0% |
| Total | 100% | 84.5% |
Bonus: 200,000 × 84.5% = KZT 169,000. The manager beat their sales target but received less than the target bonus because clients aren't paying on time. That's exactly the signal the system should send: a sale that isn't paid for is of no use to the company.
Two rules from the Labour Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The bonus system is set out in the employment or collective agreement or in an employer's act, such as a bonus policy (Art. 107). And base pay must make up at least 75% of earnings, excluding one-off incentive payments. A "small salary, big KPI bonus" scheme doesn't fit within this threshold: keep the variable component within a quarter of income.
A few practical rules about money. A variable component of 20–40% of income is noticeable but doesn't make the employee hostage to a bad month. Review weights no more than once a quarter, or people won't have time to adjust. And publish the calculation: employees should be able to work out their own bonus before payroll does.
Common mistakes when introducing KPIs
- Too many metrics. With 8–10 KPIs, each one's weight drops to 10%, and none of them changes behaviour. People just pick the easiest ones.
- KPIs the employee can't influence. A warehouse operative is measured on company revenue, an accountant on profit. The bonus becomes a lottery and the metric becomes background noise. A personal KPI should depend on personal actions.
- Targets pulled out of thin air. "Plus 30% on last year" with no calculation of where the growth will come from. Two months in, everyone realises the target is out of reach and stops trying.
- One metric with no counterweight. Speed without quality, volume without margin, hiring without retention.
- Data is collected by hand. If a manager compiles KPI actuals in Excel from three sources, the system will be dead within a quarter. Use metrics that already live in your CRM, 1C, timesheet or ATS.
- KPIs instead of conversations. Numbers show what happened, not why. Discuss them in regular 1:1 meetings, and assess behaviour and skills separately, for example through a 360-degree review.
Where to start tomorrow
KPI rollout checklist
- Write down 2–3 company goals for the year, with numbers.
- For each department, define 2–4 goals that move those company goals.
- Choose a pilot department, ideally sales or the call centre, where the data already exists.
- For each role, pick 3–5 KPIs from the table above and test each one against SMART and the "gaming test".
- Pull actuals for the last 3–6 months and set targets based on them.
- Assign weights, a threshold (for example 80%) and a cap (for example 120%).
- Calculate bonuses on past data: if half the department gets zero or everyone gets the maximum, adjust the targets.
- Run it for a quarter, review the numbers in 1:1 meetings every two weeks, and adjust after the quarter.
A pilot in one department gives you the main thing: proof that data is collected without manual work and that employees understand the formula. After that, rolling the system out to other departments is much easier.
