Case Study – Experimentation Throughout the Performance Management Process
Performance management presents a prime area for experimentation due to its critical role in driving organisational success and employee engagement. However, tackling challenges in this process can sound big and thorny like ‘how can we ensure effective performance management?’
The performance cycle allows you to break down complex challenges into time-bound and precise moments from goal-setting to reward. By experimenting with what works best with existing processes, you can tackle one organisational challenge at a time without investing excessive time and resources into initiatives that might not work.
Here are some experiments around the performance management cycle that we have been collaborating on with our partners to give you some ideas:
1) Goal-setting at a FTSE 100 organisation
This experiment focused on encouraging employees to set effective goals and discuss them with their managers. We leveraged the “fresh-start effect” by sending an email with video guidance narrated by a known leader to the treatment group. What we found was fascinating. Employees in the treatment group were significantly more likely to submit goals before the deadline than employees in the control group. This difference was particularly the case for employees who interacted with the email. This group of employees also submitted longer goal names. We interpreted this as a sign of higher engagement through writing in more detail.
% of employees who submitted goals on the system
2) Good feedback throughout the year with a global Telecoms company
Moving throughout the year, feedback on goal attainment is important. We recently conducted an experiment, utilising the client company’s mid-year check-in process. In the weeks leading up to mid-year, we sent a conversation guide to line managers to test four different ways to discuss the importance of staying on track with performance and how they should deliver feedback to their employees. We measured the amount of feedback provided by managers and how it affected employee motivation.
We found that the focus on employees’ career goals (vs the company’s goals) and a coaching feedback style (vs direct style) was the most effective way to encourage managers to provide feedback. The main driver was talking about the individual’s career goals which also replicated our past study on psychological safety in teams.
% of managers who completed feedback ratings
3) Career mobility and growth at a UK insurance provider
In 2023, we worked with our client and Amazing If to test the impact of their career development workshops and some follow-up nudges. We randomly assigned 600 employees into a control, a workshop-only, and a workshop + follow-up actions group. We used a sentiment survey to examine the impact of the workshops, finding that the employee who received the additional nudges signalled a higher intention to stay at the organisation.
We also found that the workshop and the nudges drove employees’ intention to participate in the company’s career development programme, showing that actively engaging in career planning exercises can increase motivation to take action.
Intention to stay at the company (7 Likert-scale)
There are still so many research gaps to experiment within the organisation. The performance cycle provides time-bound avenues and involves specific behaviour that can help you explore your research questions to tackle strategic challenges in your organisation.