I'd have expected that all employees are expected to do what's best for the company. However this appears to be an ideal that's not reached in practice, and people seem fixated on hitting their key performance indicators (KPIs) as opposed to doing what's best for the company. I've seen situations like these happen:
- Alice wants to move from branch A to branch B. The reason is that branch B has a much larger + skilled personnel for the work she does. Branch A opposes the move because with Alice gone their output will be worse.
- A client approaches Bob with a job. Bob insists on handling it himself, because although the specifics of the job makes other colleagues better at handling it, this specific task is still measured in his KPIs.
Logically in the first situation, branch A should not care that their output will be worse, only that the company's output improves (which it probably will). Similarly in the second situation, Bob should not care that his KPIs will suffer, but rather that the company benefits if Bob passes the job on, since the client gets a better product.
How can a manager stop his or her employees / branches from competing against each other at the expense of the company? Can this problem be tackled at the HR level ("hire people who don't compete with each other")?