Engineering day-to-day human performance
Continually reinventing performance management won’t solve our core need: to truly unlock how people create business and human outcomes. To do this, we need to consider moving beyond the mere process of performance management to a broader and longer-term effort to engineer human performance in the flow of everyday work.
To engineer performance in the flow of everyday work, we need to build a human performance strategy—not just a performance management strategy. Setting a human performance North Star requires focus from the C-suite, with a clear desired state and a well-defined path forward. In the example above, the new Rolls-Royce CEO saw the potential for much greater results, sent out a clear call to action, and has continued from there.11
Once the human performance strategy is set, organizations can consider the following actions:
- Create a human performance culture and org design. The culture of an organization must support valuing business and human outcomes equally to achieve the multiplier effects of human performance. Consider the high-stakes world of Formula One, where McLaren Racing’s approach to performance extends beyond the track. Daniel Gallo, McLaren’s chief people and sustainability officer, emphasizes that the welfare of the team is as crucial as the performance of the car. McLaren has implemented various strategies to support the physical and mental well-being of its employees, including access to in-house doctors, psychologists, and fitness coaches for manufacturing staff and race teams alike. “We’re very clear that human performance equals car performance and that’s a fundamental competitive differentiator for us,” Gallo told Raconteur.12 Ultimately, Gallo’s methods show that investing in employee well-being and fostering a strong culture can lead to stronger business results. McLaren’s number-one finish in the 2024 Constructors’ Championship is a testament to the impact of these efforts.13
A fit-for-purpose organizational design can also help unlock human performance; Deloitte research shows that organizations with a mature organization design capability that continually senses the external environment and responds to changes through redesign are over five times more likely to manage change effectively than other organizations.14 Other Deloitte research shows that designing work and organizations for well-being can have a far greater impact on worker well-being than bolt-on well-being programs like gym memberships or new benefits.15
- Improve manager and people connections. Managers know they need the training and tools to provide clear, honest, actionable feedback that helps workers grow. Yet only 54% of managers say they’re confident coaching for career development, according to Betterworks.16 Standard Chartered, however, created a robust development and accreditation process for managers based on developing capabilities such as building trust and aligning teams, and a separate one devoted entirely to coaching. It also fostered a community of middle managers to learn from one another.17
At the same time, driving human performance means encouraging the formation of positive, fruitful connections among workers. Teams should be designed to support one another, versus assuming one strong employee can somehow lift the group. In one study, a professor at the Rotterdam School of Management divided students into groups to complete a management task, with a prize for the best team. However, each team included someone playing a negative role. One negative member reduced team effectiveness by 30% to 40%, regardless of other members’ talent and intelligence. Negative attitudes quickly spread, causing others to mimic the poor behavior.18
Establishing clear norms can enable smooth working relations. Team cultures should encourage taking risks and potentially failing, augmented by a practice of providing real-time feedback on both points of improvement and successes. Deloitte’s High-Impact Total Rewards research found that organizations with a strong culture of recognition report significantly stronger talent and business outcomes.19
- Redesign workforce practices for human and business outcomes. Workforce practices—from hiring to learning to rewards and recognition—can be crafted to unlock human performance. However, many organizations today design these practices instead to primarily manage employment; our Deloitte 2024 Human Capital Trends research on boundaryless HR found that only 20% of C-suite leaders strongly agree that their HR function and the workforce practices that it manages improve their workers’ performance.20 Instead, organizations should make workforce practices more relevant to individuals or workforce segments, create more human-centric practices co-designed with workers themselves, use technology in new and innovative ways, and design practices to meet customer and business needs.
Some organizations, however, are redesigning their workforce practices to elevate human and business outcomes. For example, Roche used technology to enhance its learning and development approach to rapidly equip its engineers and specialists with the latest and greatest skills required to build biotechnology for its customers. The new approach simplified the learning experience by allowing learners to simultaneously engage in both mandated and skill-based training, with clear pathways and checkpoints throughout the journey to support individual learning, while also ensuring competence. As a result, Roche established a straight line from learning to human performance with speed to competency reduced from 1.5 years to 90 days, which both reduced turnover and improved customer satisfaction.21
Another example is AXA, the global insurance provider. Recognizing that workers’ well-being is a significant driver of human performance, the organization launched a comprehensive “We Care” program for all employees worldwide. It extends far beyond traditional benefits offered by most organizations, such as the ability for workers to take paid leave to care for family members, a robust set of benefits to support those facing domestic violence, and a Healthy You program with support for both mental and physical well-being, including fertility treatment, menopause, in-person medical checkups, and more. Taeko Kawano, executive officer and chief human resources officer of AXA Holdings Japan, highlighted that “the program is designed not just for employees but also for their families, underscoring that holistic wellbeing—at work and in life—is crucial for employees to bring their whole selves to work and perform at their peak.” Since its launch, the organization has seen improvements in both business and human outcomes, including worker well-being and satisfaction.22
- Use technology and data to support how work gets done. Historically business technology mainly has served to automate or augment work; new technologies have the potential to enhance human capabilities in ways that achieve human performance and potentially reduce unnecessary work. Workers partnered with tech can perform more effectively than either people or technology could independently, and leaders and managers can better develop and interact with their workers using tech. Not only can greater performance be unlocked, but when workers and machines work in close proximity, it can be easier to distinguish and measure individual human performance.
A major US-based electronics company has seen this firsthand. At its repair facility, implementing robots to assist workers significantly improved the ability to observe individual employee productivity. Managers were able to collect data that allowed them to more easily distinguish between human and machine errors. Noting that the robots consistently made the same type of error, human errors became easier to identify and correct.23
In addition to using technology as a collaborator in the work, tech tools can use all the data they collect about work to provide real-time performance insights. New technologies like Gong.io and Salesforce Einstein Sales Coach Agent, for example, provide real-time feedback to sales professionals helping them adjust and learn real time in the flow of work. Likewise, smart factory technology can guide a worker to use safer or more efficient techniques, while a software pop-up could tell a worker that the data they are entering is outside of expected ranges and should be double-checked. The key is that workers receive feedback while they are working, enabling them to put the guidance into action immediately.
Technology can also help drive human outcomes in the flow of work—one of which is well-being. Examples abound showing how data-enabled tech can highlight safety concerns or identify toxic interactions so they can be addressed. Indeed, the job matching and hiring platform, used communication software to embed its inclusive language guide into the flow of work, providing inclusive language suggestions in real time and empowering workers to have better conversations with clients and each other.24
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