Employee and executive incentives are based upon various measures of a
company's performance.  I would like information on the metrics used
to evaluate employee performance and reasons for using a particular
metric.

archick-ga,

The metrics used are job-specific. For instance, a prime salesperson
metric is amount of sales per quarter, in dollars. For engineers,
production is a metric. Are there any specific professions you'd like
to tailor your Answer to, or are you looking for common metrics that
can be aplied to as many different professions as possible?

omniscientbeing-ga

Employee incentive programs are most effective when tailored to meet
the business objectives of specific companies. www.worldatwork.org is
and organization focused on assisting HR managers with the complex
process of setting up, managing, and benchmarking compensation
programs. Incentives must be clear/understandable, relatively simple
to manage, achievable and tied to a business's overall goals.