How to Use Data to Measure Employee Performance

By Jason Wright Human Capital Management, Prodoscore

Good managers are also cheerleaders, finding the most effective ways to motivate their employees and help them fulfill their potential.

That motivation comes in many forms. From doling out praise to offering financial rewards, most managers have a handle on the basics but many overlook a crucial aspect of engaging employees – data.

When you share the details of an employee’s performance with them – showing in a data-driven way how they’re contributing to their team’s goals – they have greater insight into their weaknesses and strengths and are more motivated to fix the former and lean into the latter.

But, having the data isn’t enough – you also need to know how to interpret it and ensure you have enough data points to evaluate to come to valid conclusions, not just the traditional “input vs. output” equation.

Theories of motivation

There have been extensive studies on workplace behavior as psychologists explore what drives professional engagement. Much of the research has focused on motivation, building off psychologist Frederick Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, first introduced in 1956.

Herzberg claimed that employee satisfaction is influenced by two elements – motivator factors and hygiene factors:

Motivator factors – motivate staff to work harder, with greater engagement and enjoyment of the work
Hygiene factors – encourage job satisfaction through steps like building positive workplace relationships, offering perks, and creating an inclusive company culture.

Sharing performance data with your employee aligns with both these areas. By giving staff specific feedback, you’re helping them feel more empowered and in control of their own performance, while also building a transparent and supportive relationship with them.

How to measure productivity

To improve an individual staff member’s performance, you need individual data. Providing this data to the employee helps them see exactly how they measure up with their own expectations, their colleagues, and the company’s overarching objectives. It also promotes a higher level of accountability, transparency and trust between manager and employee.

Productivity isn’t a clear-cut concept, however, and there are as many ways to define it as there are to measure it. So where do you start?

One helpful marker is to focus on input vs. output, otherwise known as the labor productivity ratio. This looks at the number of hours worked and volume of work produced in that period to give managers an idea of whether employees are using their time effectively.

While not perfect – employees can work so many hours that they become burned out and their productivity actually decreases – the labor productivity ratio can still be a useful metric to track effort and results.

To get a more complete picture, managers need to dive into exactly what their employees are doing in those hours. The digital age has given us a wealth of tech tools to power performance, with studies showing a positive link between computer usage and productivity, but managers need to be sure those tools are being used correctly.

The Prodoscore solution

Employee Productivity Monitoring platform Prodoscore tracks how staff are using company tools to issue each individual their own productivity score. Scores give managers and staff visibility into how they are engaged from day to day, month to month, and over longer timeframes.

The platform tracks a range of activities, including email sends, CRM activity, document usage, and more.

This generates a wealth of valuable data that can be shared with employees to help them overcome any hurdles and determine their own personal productivity goals. Many companies take a more secretive approach however – according to Gartner, 41% of employees say their organization fails to communicate with them about what data is collected on their work, and how it’s being used.

This is a mistake. Communication is crucial to nurturing productive relationships with your staff. Making sure your team knows their data, and understands how to use it, is crucial to helping them work not just harder, but also smarter.