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Measure whether people deliver the results and quality their roles require, contribute effectively to shared work, and adapt as priorities change—not how long they sit at a desk. The practical approach is to agree on a small set of role-relevant objectives, review evidence regularly, and adjust measures when the work changes.
What should employers measure instead of hours worked?
Hours and office attendance show time and location; on their own, they do not show whether useful work was completed or met the required standard. Start by defining good performance for the role. CIPD groups it into three categories: task performance (core job activities), contextual performance (contributions beyond core duties, such as helping another team), and adaptive performance (responding to change or supporting innovation). Each can be considered through outcomes, behaviors, or both.
- Results: completed deliverables, progress toward an objective, or a service or customer outcome.
- Quality: whether the work meets an agreed standard, including relevant error or rework measures.
- Contribution: behaviors that support colleagues, coordination, or shared goals when these are part of the role.
- Learning and adaptability: progress in complex work, learning goals, or response to changing priorities.
These are possible kinds of evidence, not a universal KPI list. Choose only measures that are necessary, meaningful for the role, and aligned with organisational priorities. A count of completed items is incomplete if it does not show whether those items were useful or met the required standard.
How to choose useful measures for each role
1. Connect the role to an organisational goal
Identify what the employee or team contributes to a larger priority, then separate outcomes they can reasonably influence from those that depend mainly on customers, other teams, or external conditions. Measures should reflect the actual work and workload. Acas advises that objectives be fair and reflect an employee’s usual tasks and workload; its guidance applies to UK workplaces.
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2. Match the objective to the work
For a clear deliverable, agree what must be produced, the quality threshold, and the timeframe for review. For complex analysis, discovery, or innovation, define what should be learned or advanced and use milestones or an open-ended objective instead of a simplistic volume quota. CIPD notes that knowledge-work results can be less tangible and harder to define and evaluate than manual-work outputs; its evidence review on knowledge work explains this measurement challenge.
3. Balance individual and team contribution
When work is interdependent, include shared outcomes and relevant teamwork behaviors alongside individual responsibilities. A goal assigned to one person should not reward them for undermining a team result. For people managers, consider both team outcomes and evidence of how the manager supports the team’s performance.
4. Keep the set small and check for perverse incentives
Use a few indicators that together represent what matters; do not add a measure simply because it is easy to collect. Ask whether someone could improve a score while harming quality, customers, coworkers, or long-term capability. If so, revise it or pair it with a countermeasure. CIPD cautions that overemphasised targets can become counterproductive, consume time, and hinder effective work.
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Examples by type of work
| Work type | Potential evidence | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Clear, repeatable service work | Cases resolved to the service standard, quality or error rates, and relevant customer outcomes. | Speed or volume alone can reward rushed work. Acas offers customer email response time as an example objective, while advising that goals reflect usual tasks and workload. |
| Knowledge and analysis work | Agreed decision-ready analysis, progress against learning or discovery goals, and usefulness to decisions. | Raw document or task counts may not represent the value of complex work. |
| Collaborative projects | Team milestones, quality of the shared result, and behaviors that support coordination and delivery. | Individual targets can conflict with shared outcomes if responsibilities are not aligned. |
| People managers | Team outcomes and evidence of how the manager supports team performance. | Assessing only the manager’s personal output misses their impact on other people’s work. |
Make measurement a regular two-way conversation
Performance management works better as a continuing cycle than as a once-a-year score. Agree objectives and what evidence will be used, then check progress in regular conversations as well as formal reviews. Discuss what is going well, obstacles, training, or other support needed, and whether priorities have shifted. CIPD describes performance management as a continuous cycle; Acas guidance on reviews and appraisals recommends recording formal review discussions and sharing the record with the employee.
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Revisit objectives when the role, workload, dependencies, or business priorities change. A measure that was relevant earlier may no longer describe the work people are being asked to do.
How to audit a productivity measure
- Relevance: Does it represent a meaningful part of this role and its goals?
- Quality: Does it reward work that meets the required standard, not just more units or faster delivery?
- Control: Can the employee or team reasonably influence the result, given dependencies and available resources?
- Attribution: Is the outcome individual, shared, or both—and does the measure reflect that?
- Time horizon: Is an immediate output appropriate, or should learning, progress, or longer-term value count?
- Reliability and validity: Is the measure stable over time and an accurate gauge of what matters?
- Side effects: Could it distort behavior or take more time to administer than the insight it provides?
Control deserves particular attention: Gallup reports that 21% of employees strongly agree their performance metrics are within their control. That is a reported employee-survey figure; the Gallup page does not state a survey year alongside it. It is a reason to examine dependencies and influence before using a metric for accountability or reward—not proof that any particular measure is unsuitable.
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What survey findings say—and do not say
CIPD’s UK Working Lives survey 2023 found that 48% of surveyed UK employees had at least basic performance management involving specific job objectives, while 28% had systematic performance management involving objectives, monitoring, feedback, and accountability. In the same survey, 89% of employees reporting systematic performance management said they achieved their job objectives, compared with 76% of those reporting no performance management. These are survey associations, not proof that the management approach caused the difference. The figures and definitions are discussed in CIPD’s account of the impact of performance management on employees.
Gallup’s research page reports that 2 in 10 employees strongly agree their performance is managed in a way that motivates outstanding work. It also reports that 30% strongly agree their manager involves them in goal setting, and that this group is 3.6 times more likely than other employees to be engaged. The page does not specify the underlying survey year or enough methods to establish causation, so these figures are best read as reported employee-survey findings, not forecasts of what an individual employer will achieve. See Gallup’s performance-management research summary.
Measurement practices also vary in how clearly employers describe them. In its spring 2023 Labour Market Outlook, based on 1,216 employers, CIPD found that common words used to describe productivity measures included “output,” “per,” and “time”; many responses simply said “efficiency” or “productivity” without clarifying the measure. This describes employer responses, not evidence that one formula is best. The findings appear in the CIPD People Management and Productivity Report.
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