We’re still measuring people like it’s 1995. Here’s what HR must do now

Is your company’s approach to performance measurement working? If your answer is no, then you are not alone. According to a recent Gallup survey a mere 2% of CHROs think their performance management system works. This feeling extends to staff too, as 72% of workers do not trust their organisation’s performance management process. 

What is causing this collapsing trust in traditional performance metrics? 

The answer lies in the focus of these performance measures. Traditional Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) tend to revolve around metrics like sales targets and revenue growth that mainly serve the interests of the system, rather than the people within it. While offering valuable insights into financial and operational performance, they often overlook the human element that drives success. 

To concentrate on the output only is utopian. If you do not concentrate on the input of your employees how can you understand what is in the way of reaching that performance your team is chasing? How can you refill your people’s energy levels to give more? How will you know how to show up for your people?

Performance needs to be repositioned differently and KPIs must evolve to prioritise metrics that capture how people are doing. By introducing people-centric KPIs and shifting the focus to performance enablement, HR can maximise individual potential and create a culture of engagement and fulfilment, fostering high performance in turn. 

What a people-centric KPI approach actually looks like 

People-centric KPIs complement traditional metrics by providing a deeper understanding of the organisation’s culture, employee wellbeing and capacity for innovation. By incorporating both sets of KPIs, organisations can achieve a more balanced and holistic view of their performance while nurturing their most valuable asset – their people. So, what does this approach look like in practice? 

One great people-centric metric you can incorporate is the strengths-alignment index, which evaluates the alignment between individuals’ strengths and their roles. When leaders understand their people’s strengths, weaknesses and motivations they can then match them to tasks and projects that play to their skills and provide an appropriate level of challenge. This creates a zone of excellence where individuals can fully leverage their expertise without being overwhelmed, able to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals, ultimately maximising performance and productivity. 

Instead of waiting for performance reviews to discuss where people can improve HR should take a proactive approach and encourage their leaders to uncover their people’s strengths and skills in order to enable high performance. This is where empowering teams with effective training comes in. 

How to shift the conversation from performance review to performance enablement

Training is essential for improving team performance. It gives them the confidence and knowledge they need to succeed. With proper training, you enable your teams to tackle challenges and excel in their roles, driving success for your organisation. 

Here are three ways HR can refocus their training for performance enablement: 

1. Change the perception of your training department
2. Exercise: Identify and develop your people’s strengths
3. Build blended learning journeys

The perception and image of your training department are critical. Your company needs to see it as an enabler of success and performance. And you, as a leader, can make it a ‘hot’ topic. For example, in one of my previous roles, together with my team, we repositioned and changed the name of our ‘training department’ to ‘team performance training department’. While seeming like a small change, adding the word ‘performance’ brought this department to another level.

Leaders should spend time looking into the type of support their people will need. This ties back to the strengths-alignment metric, whereby leaders need a deep understanding of their people’s strengths before they can match them to tasks with the appropriate level of challenge. 

Here is a training exercise leaders can facilitate to identify and develop the strengths of their people:

Ask each team member to list out their strengths, discuss and validate them during an open team conversation. Or you can conduct a strength assessment questionnaire. There are many on the market. This will help you identify your people’s unique talents and strengths.

Once this is done, ask each of your team members to share their top strengths with the rest of the team. This will help create a culture of appreciation and understanding.

Then, discuss openly how each team member can leverage their strengths in their current role and explore opportunities for aligning tasks with their unique abilities. While this should not become a cherry-picking exercise, it can help shuffle a few things around to raise your teams’ efficiencies.

To wrap up this exercise, encourage each team member to create a personal development plan focused on enhancing their strengths and acquiring new skills. This process often helps you better understand who in your team is vested in your company’s success or not.

Beyond repositioning our image and building our credibility through performance, my previous team and I built learning journeys, using the logic of a ‘coloured belts’ system. The symbolism of the coloured belt system was to illustrate the stops required along the way – similar to its use in martial arts, where one would be required to demonstrate focus, dedication and discipline. Only those who practise will succeed. Only those who have patience and resilience will pursue the road to self-mastery.

The mastery of the discipline is a journey. It all starts from the mastery of the basics. At each level, the knowledge is tested to confirm it has been assimilated. This allows the student to create a solid base and to develop the strengths in a more sustainable way. This is what inspired us to design learning journeys.

Over the years I have discovered that the most effective approach for my teams is to offer blended learning journeys. By combining online, offline and experiential training methods we break the monotony and create more engaging learning experiences. This variety not only keeps participants interested but also helps them retain information better, ultimately driving higher performance when teams transpose learning into action. 

Where HR should focus moving forward

Simply put, rethinking how organisations treat their people is the only way to truly put them first. Without a people-centric approach which prioritises performance enablement employees will just feel like another cog in the company’s machine, lacking the support and motivation to succeed. 

Place your people’s wellbeing at the forefront of your performance strategies. Make it a point that caring leadership does not take away from success and performance. On the contrary, it fosters expansion, passion and the motivation for employees to perform at their best.