The case against performance metrics

Organisations that monitor productivity above all else are seeing negative consequences in retention, wellbeing, and productivity.

Recent research from the University of Queensland has confirmed that employees no longer respond to performance metrics in the way employers are hoping for.

The study, based on responses from 283 employees across 23 industries in the United Kingdom, found that intense employee monitoring translated into the deprioritisation of any task not tracked.

According to Professor Martin Edwards, an HR analytics expert at the university, performance metrics highly influence employee behaviour and performance.

“This isn’t laziness, it’s a rational response to the signals the system is sending about what actually counts,” Edwards said.

At the same time, however, intensive metrics did not result in increased focus on the work that was being measured, suggesting the issue is less about employee motivation and more about the ill effects of surveillance.

In support of this, Edwards noted that such measures from an organisation “correlated with lower employee engagement and a higher intention to quit a month later, particularly where staff don’t see their organisation’s processes as fair”.

At the same time, many of the tasks that are abandoned in the name of productivity and performance are still important. Mentoring, helping a colleague, or flagging broader risks may not be concrete achievements, but are just as important to overall productivity and often wellbeing.

Further, the findings were not sector-specific, with participants working across teaching, finance, engineering, healthcare, IT, consulting and food service, with performance tracked through computer activity, website clicks, email opens, customer reviews, sales records, response times, ticket resolutions, and referral numbers.

The research also identified technology as a facilitator for performance monitoring.

Edwards said that “it’s now easy to collect and analyse employee activity across a wide range of industries”, especially with AI’s capabilities to generate digital performance dashboards.

In this way, organisations need to be asking “which parts of the job their dashboard can’t see, because those are the parts most in jeopardy”.

He highlighted that, while dashboards do have some benefits, the risks to wellbeing and retention mean they must be considered alongside other, holistic measures.

“Organisation[s] need to acknowledge the work that sits outside those measures so valuable behaviours don’t fall through the cracks,” Edwards said.

“It’s about striking a balance.”

Similarly, co-author Professor Tyler Okimoto said the unintended consequences of monitoring can be voided by a communicated perception of fairness.

He said: “Employees need to feel confident that valuable work will be recognised, even if it’s not visible on a dashboard.”

“When people trust that their organisation’s processes are fair, consistent and transparent, they’re less likely to de-prioritise important aspects of their job just because they aren’t being measured.”

The research aligns with ongoing coverage of the adverse effects of workplace honesty measures, whereby those encouraged to be honest are more likely than those incentivised to be.

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