Improvement targets

An improvement target is the objective for the next period: how far an index has to rise for the period to count as met.

You do not write it by hand study by study. You configure an improvement rate once in the account parameters, and from there the product computes each branch's target using its last real result as the starting point.

They are computed per branch

Each node has its own target, based on its last result. There is no single company target divided downward: an area coming from 62 and one coming from 91 do not have the same objective, because they are not starting from the same place.

Branches with no previous result have no target. There is nothing to compute it from — it is based on the last result, and in the first study there is none.

Falling short is not forgiven

A period that closes below its target does not reset the count. The next objective accounts for what was left outstanding.

The logic is that the target describes where the organization needed to get, not how hard it needed to try that period. Adjusting it down every time it is missed turns the objective into a description of the present.

The target freezes on launch

A study's objective is fixed the moment it launches. Changing the rate afterwards does not rewrite targets already set: it applies to whatever launches from then on.

It is the same rule that protects the confidentiality threshold, for the same reason: an objective that can be moved after the result is known is not an objective.

Practical consequence: if you are going to adjust the rate, do it before launching that period's study. Afterwards it no longer applies to that study.

Choosing the rate

This is your only real decision here, and it is worth taking slowly: an ambitious rate produces targets almost no branch meets, and an objective nobody reaches stops guiding anyone within a few months.

As a reference, sustained year-over-year improvement in workplace climate is slow. If your first measurement came out low, there is more room to recover; an organization that is already high moves little, and its target should reflect that.

Where to see them

In a finished study's results, next to each branch's index. And the Statistics module has a tab that follows them over time: target set against result achieved, period by period.

See Reading a result.