What does "management target" mean in this context?
This is from the book, After You. Sam is a paramedic. In previous pages he talked about how he had to take after all the drunk, messed up kids and adults after a scene in the night and all.

I listened to Sam talk. He told of nights holding the hands of elderly people who didn't want to make a fuss, and of **management targets** that left them all demoralized, feeling they weren't doing the job they'd been trained for. I listened, losing myself in a world far from my own, (...)

I don't really understand what "management targets" would mean here in this context.
Can anyone explain this to me? Thanks in advance.

Question

What does "management target" mean in this context?
This is from the book, After You. Sam is a paramedic. In previous pages he talked about how he had to take after all the drunk, messed up kids and adults after a scene in the night and all.

I listened to Sam talk. He told of nights holding the hands of elderly people who didn't want to make a fuss, and of **management targets** that left them all demoralized, feeling they weren't doing the job they'd been trained for. I listened, losing myself in a world far from my own, (...)

I don't really understand what "management targets" would mean here in this context.
Can anyone explain this to me? Thanks in advance.

Answer

Management is telling the employees to meet certain objectives or goals. These 'management goals' could be anything. As an example:
- you must see a certain number of clients each day
- you must only spend a certain amount of time with each person you help

This list could be anything, but they are considered 'management targets' because that is what management is 'targeting' or aiming at, and thus what the employees must try and do (or perhaps lose their job)

I don't know the book, but it would seem these goals/targets of management are very stressful for the employees because the employees think these goals or instructions of management don't help at all with what the employees should be doing.

Answer

I'm not certain, but I assume that Sam is talking about targets that hospitals impose on paramedics: they want the paramedics to resolve cases within a certain amount of time, and deal with a certain number of cases per night.  By contrast, the paramedics want to make sure that their patients are healthy and happy--they want to hold old peoples' hands for as long as the old people need it.  Management targets prevent them from doing that--they force the paramedics to move on to new patients before the last patient's problem is completely resolved.