North America Leads the Way in Employee Performance Management Globally

September 2, 2011 – Lumesse, a global leader in integrated talent management solutions, has released the results of its Performance Management Assessment Tool, which reveals companies in North America as overall global leaders in employee performance management. Based on assessments by 500 business and HR executives in 44 countries worldwide, the results highlight the contrasts between North America, Europe and Asia Pacific when it comes to the maturity of employee performance management processes. Areas examined included key processes such as the use of cascading goals, the identification of career plans, links between pay and performance, and good use of financial metrics. North American companies came out on top at every basic performance management practice; other regions had much more variable results. In the U.K., 37 percent of organizations had cascading goals for the majority of employees — the second highest of all regions — however the U.K. proved to be the least effective at providing financial metrics. Meanwhile, Germany, France, Italy, Benelux and Scandinavia were above the global average (32 percent) in terms of providing career goals and linking these to financial metrics (19 percent), but still struggled to make a connection between pay and performance — all falling below the global average (24 percent). The Asia Pacific region also had different strengths and weaknesses. It was the second best region at enabling its employees to see a connection between performance and compensation. But only 22 percent of its organizations provide cascading goals for the majority of employees, and just 17 percent measure the majority of its managers on leadership effectiveness, proving to be the weakest region on both measures. Matthew Parker, CEO, Lumesse said: “Wherever we look, we see the best organizations enhancing performance management processes to develop the talent that will be needed for growth and competition, because only people can create great performance. But these results show that, while there are global hotspots of good practice, there is still plenty of untapped opportunity for substantial business improvement by focusing on the areas which deliver the most benefit.”