{"id":3681,"date":"2025-03-06T05:02:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T05:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3681"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:09:07","slug":"performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Performance Management Must Adapt to Evolving Workplaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

As the nature of work is changing rapidly due to hybrid schedules, automation, AI, and other factors, the most effective ways to define and measure performance are also changing, Academy of Management Scholar Herman Aguinis<\/a> of the George Washington University School of Business and author of Performance Management for Dummies<\/em>. And it\u2019s challenging to measure anything that is constantly evolving.<\/p>\n

Aguinis said organizations usually measure performance through two approaches:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Behavioral or process, which is measuring how people do their work.
\n\u2022 Output or results, which measure the outcomes of employees\u2019 work.<\/p>\n

For example, athletes might measure how many hours a week they practice and exercise, what they eat, and the hours they sleep. That\u2019s the behavior or process approach. The results approach would measure how many points they scored and other game statistics and whether their team won.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to do both\u2014obviously, results are very useful for allocating rewards, so if you’re a salesperson, if you sell more, then you will earn more, or if you’re a researcher, if you publish more papers or get more citations, then you will get the goodies,\u201d Aguinis said. \u201cHow about improving performance if someone is not doing well, is not scoring many points, not publishing research, or not selling anything?<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you only measure results, then you will not know what\u2019s wrong with the process, so you also have to measure that\u2014it\u2019s a dual approach of measuring both results and behaviors,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you do not see employees perform in person, as in the case of remote work, or for many jobs that can be done in many different ways, then managers would probably emphasize results a lot more because they don\u2019t see how they do the job face-to-face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another performance-management challenge is for jobs when the results are not known for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the NASA team trying to put people on Mars in 20 years, managers will not wait 20 years until they see if they succeeded, so they\u2019re right to measure the performance in terms of how they do things along the way,\u201d Aguinis said. \u201cIn that case, I would emphasize the process and the behaviors instead of the results, but both are critical.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to measure how the job is done and what the results of the job are once it\u2019s done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Analyzing performance in context<\/strong><\/p>\n

It can be difficult for managers or supervisors to analyze results in their proper context. For example, in a challenging business environment where sales and marketing people aren\u2019t hitting their key performance indicators (KPIs), managers should judge that differently than if they\u2019re operating in a favorable business environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat has to do with fairness\u2014if we have two salespeople in two contexts, one favorable and the other one less favorable, and you just look at results, then you will be fooled, believing that one person is doing better than the other,\u201d Aguinis said. \u201cIt\u2019s really important to have ongoing conversations about performance because managers are responsible for the performance of the people on their team, and if they do well, then the company does well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher As the nature of work is changing rapidly due to hybrid schedules, automation, AI, and other factors, the most effective ways to define and measure performance are also changing, Academy of Management Scholar Herman Aguinis of the George Washington University School of Business and author of Performance Management for Dummies. And it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performance"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPerformance Management Must Adapt to Evolving Workplaces - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Performance Management Must Adapt to Evolving Workplaces\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-03-06T05:02:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:09:07+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":542,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/workplace-design-11.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"PERFORMANCE\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/performance-management-must-adapt-to-evolving-workplaces\\\/\",\"name\":\"Performance Management Must Adapt to Evolving Workplaces - 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