Employee performance measurement, analysis and feedback system and method

Abstract

A method, apparatus and system is described that tracks and displays employee performance in real time, or near real time. Employee performance may be measured by the amount of sales associated with each employee over time. Sales reports are generated immediately after a sale is completed and sent to a server. The server records sales information in the sales reports in association with one or more employees responsible for the sale. Sales performance of each employee may be displayed to the employees in real time on a display at their workplace, in order to provide immediate feedback to the employees on their relative performance among each other. Sales goals, and awards for reaching the sales goals, may be defined by management and also displayed along with the employee sales information, to further motivate the employees.

We claim: 
     
         1 . A method executed by a server for tracking and displaying real-time employee performance information, comprising:
 receiving, by a processor via a communication interface, sales reports from a first retail establishment over a wide-area network, each of the sales reports comprising sales information pertaining to a sale of goods or services and an identification of an employee associated with each sale;   storing, by the processor, the sales information in each of the sales reports in a memory in association with each respective, associated employee;   in response to receiving at least one of the sales reports, generating, by the processor, a performance summary, the performance summary comprising cumulative sales information associated with each employee identified in the sales reports; and   in response to generating the performance summary, providing, by the processor, the performance summary to the communication interface for display to at least the employees identified in the sales reports.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the sales reports are received from a point-of-sale system associated with the first retail establishment each time a sale is completed. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining that a predetermined time period associated with the first retail establishment has elapsed;   identifying a proprietary format of the POS system;   formatting a request for the POS system to provide the sales reports; and   sending the request, formatted in the proprietary format, to the POS system for the POS system to provide the sales reports.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the performance summary comprises a graphical representation of the sales associated with each employee who has completed a sale. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 3 , further comprising:
 receiving a performance goal over the wide-area network, the performance goal comprising one or more time periods over which the performance goal is applicable;   comparing, by the processor, the sales information from each of the employees as stored in the memory to the sales goal during a first of the one or more time periods as each sales report is received;   determining that the sales goal has been achieved during the first time period; and   providing a notification, by the processor, to the first retail establishment via the communication interface and the wide-area network, that the sales goal has been achieved during the first time period.   
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 4 , further comprising:
 receiving, by the processor, an indication of an award via the communication interface, the award associated with the sales goal;   determining that a first of the employees has achieved the sales goal; and   providing a notification to the first retail establishment via the communication interface that the first employee has achieved the sales goal and an indication that the first employee has been awarded the award.   
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the award comprises a variable dollar figure based on the sales of the goods or services, and the method further comprises:
 in response to determining that a first of the employees has achieved the sales goal during the first time period, calculating the award as a predetermined percentage related to the sale of goods or services by the first employee as further sales reports are received in association with the employee; and   updating the award as displayed by the employee video monitor to reflect the calculated award each time that a further sales report in received in association with the first employee.   
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving, by the communication interface, a performance goal over the wide-area network, the performance goal comprising one or more time periods over which the performance goal is applicable; and   providing an indication of the performance goal for display in association with the performance summary during the one or more time periods.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the performance summary is configured for display on the employee video monitor disposed within the first retail establishment. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the performance summary is configured for display on personal mobile communication devices used by the employees. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving a minimum performance goal over the wide-area network, the minimum performance goal comprising one or more time periods over which the minimum performance goal is applicable;   comparing cumulative sales information of each of the employees to the minimum performance goal during the time period;   identifying an employee who fails to achieve the minimum performance goal based on each employee's cumulative sales;   identifying remedial training content associated with the minimum performance goal; and   providing the training content to the employee over communication interface via the wide-area network.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein providing the remedial training content to the employee comprises:
 formatting the remedial training content for display on a personal mobile communication device;   retrieving contact information of the employee who has failed to achieve the minimum performance goal from the memory; and   providing the formatted training content to a personal mobile communication device associated with the contact information.   
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the remedial training content comprises an identification of the minimum performance goal to which the training content is applicable, the remedial training content received over the wide-area network from a parent company of the first retail establishment. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving a minimum performance goal over the wide-area network, the minimum performance goal comprising one or more time periods over which the minimum performance goal is applicable;   receiving one or more of the sales reports from the first retail establishment associated with one or more employees during the first time period;   accumulating the sales information associated with each of the one or more sales reports as the one or more sales reports are received over the wide-area network to determine a cumulative sales figure for each of the one or more employees;   comparing the cumulative sales figure to the minimum performance goal as the sales reports are received during the first time period;   determining that a first cumulative sales figure associated with a first of the one or more employees will not meet or exceed the minimum performance goal during the first time period;   generating an alert message indicating that the first employee will not meet or exceed the minimum performance goal; and   transmitting the alert message to the first employee during the first time period.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the first cumulative sales figure associated with the first of the one or more employees will not meet or exceed the minimum performance goal during the first time period, identifying remediation content associated with a failure to meet or exceed the minimum performance goal; and   providing the remediation content to the first employee over the wide-area network.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 receiving a minimum performance goal associated with predefined goods or services of the goods or services over the wide-area network, the minimum performance goal comprising one or more time periods over which the minimum performance goal is applicable;   receiving the one or more sales reports from the first retail establishment associated with one or more employees during the first time period;   determining a number of goods or services identified in the sales reports that match the predefined good or service as indicated in the minimum performance goal and storing the number in association with each of the one or more employees, respectively;   determining a cumulative number of the predefined good or service received in the sales reports for each of the one or more employees;   comparing the cumulative number of the predefined good or service of each of the one or more employees to the minimum performance goal as the sales reports are received;   determining that a first cumulative number of the predefined good or service associated with a first of the one or more employees will not meet or exceed the minimum performance goal during a first of the one or more time periods;   generating an alert message indicating that the first employee will not meet or exceed the minimum performance goal associated with the predefined good or service; and   transmitting the alert message to the first employee during the first time period.   
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16 , further comprising:
 in response to determining that the first cumulative number of the predefined good or service associated with the first employee will not meet or exceed the minimum performance goal during the first time period, identifying remediation content associated with a failure to meet or exceed the minimum performance goal associated with the predefined good or service; and   providing the remediation content to the first employee over the wide-area network.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 comparing at least some of the sales information associated with at least some of the employees to determine a relative performance between or among the employees;   identifying a first employee who has sold fewer goods or services than other employees' sales of goods or services; and   notifying the first employee over the wide-area network that the first employee has sold fewer goods or services than the other employees.   
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 tallying the sales report for each employee over a predetermined time period;   providing the tallied sales report to a parent company after expiration of the predetermined time period.   
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 accumulating the sales information in the sales reports to generate a cumulative sales report;   receiving a store-wide performance goal over the wide-area network;   comparing the cumulative sales report to the store-wide performance goal;   determining when the cumulative sales report does not meet or exceed the store-wide performance goal;   identifying remediation content associated with a failure to meet or exceed the store-wide performance goal; and   providing the remediation content to the first retail establishment over the wide-area network for display on the employee video monitor.