While some operations (maybe many) may inappropriately manage the metric, the truth of the matter is that you don't want the accountability. No metric is perfect and somewhere along the line every each is described as ineffective...
Before I bought a TUPSS, I spent some time working in a call center, where I worked my way up to manager. Let me tell you, you're not alone when it comes to dealing with numbers. Telemetrics have nothing on a call center phone. As a call center manager, I could order up a report showing me which buttons you pressed on the phone, for how long, and how long you waited between pushing the buttons. I could also record every call you would take, and even listen in to you when you weren't on a call.
And not only was there a seperate department of people who's sole purpose was to spend their days listening to calls, then scoring them, there was another department that sat and watched real-time data on what everyone was doing on the phone, and would call me if someone was on a call for too long, on a break for too long, or anything for too long.
Each morning I would get a report with no less than two dozen metrics for everyone's previous day, and a half-hour into my day I had to report to my boss' office for a huddle with all the other team supervisors to discuss those previous day's metrics. There were two kinds of supervisors in those meetings: Those who bragged about how their team hit the goals, and those who explained why their team didn't hit the goals.
We had a number of different teams that did different things, so each team also had some unique goals. My team hit our unique goals out of the park. Our the client for whom we were taking the calls praised our company many times for what my team did, and it was thanks to my team that my company achived a big bonus payment two quarters in a row.
But they considered team supervisors to be comodities that could be traded anywhere in the company. Supervising was supervising. So when another client left the company, and some team supervisors had to be laid-off, they compared us all head-to-head, and only considered the metrics that were common to every team. So even though I could point towards two quarters of bonuses for the company that were the only reason we were in the black for those two quarters, I got laid-off.
I've always been critical of managing by metrics. I've never thought it was a good idea. Those metrics can help us understand part of what's going on, but they never, ever tell the whole story. And I have seen too many times when a company relies too much on the numbers. The companies are essentiallly letting the computers manage the company, and supervisors are turned into nothing more than messangers for the computers. I sometimes wonder why they don't just hook-up a voice chip to the computer, and let it talk to the workers.
I'm old enough to remember when managers actually managed. You didn't always agree with the manager, but you knew he had a job that not just anyone could do. These days, the only skill you need to be a manager is a thick skin. You don't actually manage people. You read reports, and act on the abnormalities before your boss reads his reports, and asks you what you're doing about those numbers. No one cares what customers are saying (unless they're taking some survey that can be reduced to some numbers). All they care about is what those reports say.
I started writing this hoping that sharing this would help everyone feel better. The old, "I guess the grass is just as yellow all over". But now I'm just sad that yellow grass is all over.
There is a bright side for you guys: Your union. It may have it's flaws, too, but I can tell you that it's the only reason why you can have a long career as a driver at UPS. There's no such thing as a long career in a call center. Eventually one metric or another will take everyone's job. (On the other hand, one of the reasons why call centers are very, very rarely unionized is that no one wants to fight to keep those jobs.)
It's been years since I've had a union job. (I was even once a local president.) And even though I'm a small business owner who's peers are mostly anti-union Republicans, I'm pretty certain that I'll make it to my deathbed as a pro-union Democrat. As I see it, strong unions are the only protection the working man has from becoming a slave to report-spitting computers. Fair wages and benefits are only half the story. Unions and management sitting on opposing sides of the table is the best way to keep humans in the equation.
Sorry for being so long winded.