World at Work Survey Report

In order to gather information about performance management practices and outcomes, World at Work and Sibson Consulting recently invited members from World at Work to participate in a confidential survey that was conducted online. World at Work is an international association of HR professionals and business leaders that are focused on attracting, motivating and keeping employees. It supports its 30,000 members and customers currently in 75 countries through leadership, education, publications, research and certification.
The results from the 2007 State of Performance Management Study conducted by World at Work and Sibson Consulting indicate that improvement is needed in performance management for several organizations and that performance management is stronger in those companies that perform at a higher level.
The key findings of this study included points such as these:
Performance Management techniques for the effective and less effective organizations are really not that different. The biggest difference is the level of active leadership support and the championing of the process.
At least fifty percent of the respondents taking the survey used information from performance management to determine merit increase, promotions and annual incentive distributions.
Only thirty percent of those respondents reported that their employees trust their current performance management system.
The 2007 World at Work and Sibson State of Performance Management Study conducted the survey with more than 550 individuals. These were primarily senior level HR professionals. The demographic profile for the respondents are similar to those of the World at Work memberships. The organizations represented in this study range in size from small (fewer than 100 employees) to large (more than 100,000 employees).
The following industries were represented in the study: Finance and Insurance, HealthCare, Higher Education, Manufacturing, Professional Services, Public Sector and Utilities.