Our department leaders claim that support roles, such as administrative assistants and graphic designers, cannot be assigned a single weekly measurable without measuring meaningless activity. How do we find legitimate numbers for seats that do not have obvious sales or production metrics?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Every seat on the Accountability Chart exists to deliver a measurable outcome. If a seat does not generate an identifiable output, the seat should not exist. When managers claim that creative, administrative, or support roles cannot be quantified, they are confusing effort with accountability. You do not need to measure keystrokes or hours worked; you need to measure throughput, quality, and velocity.

To identify a meaningful measurable for a non-sales seat, look at their primary customer, whether that customer is internal or external. What does that seat deliver, and what happens when they fail to deliver it on time?

For an executive assistant, the measurable might be calendar conflicts resolved within twenty-four hours, inbox zero achieved daily, or zero missed executive travel deadlines. For a graphic designer, the metric might be design project turnaround time, the number of creative briefs completed per week, or the percentage of assets delivered on the first revision without rework.

Avoid measuring vanity activity. Focus on numbers that reflect an completed deliverable or an operational service level agreement. When support employees have a weekly number on their team Scorecard, it removes subjective judgment from their performance. They know every single week whether they had a great week or an off week, giving them the same clarity and ownership that sales and production teams experience.