What Causes Variablility In Workforce Performance?

What causes variability in workforce performance, within similar workgroups, has been the source of much study but the research that resonates is “among the many variables that discriminate between highly productive workplaces and those that are unproductive, is the quality of the local workplace manager and his or her ability to meet a core set of employees’ emotional requirements.” Primarily, emotional conditions are described as those that meet basic human needs. Buckingham,M & Coffman,C. (1999). First Break all the Rules: What the world’s greatest managers do differently. New York:Simon and Shuster. Coffman, C. & Gonzalas-Molina,G. (2002). Follow this path: How the world’s greatest organizations drive growth by unleashing human potential. New York: Warner.


Our 12 years of research  as a survey consulting firms supports the hard evidence that variability of performance is predominant in most every organization. Why does one department outperform another? The answer is quite simple!

Each department has their own leader that has created the culture for that department in their own image. Usually this local culture is not the same culture declared in the corporate “value proposition”. It’s that simple.
The solution is having a strong corporate leader that has the insights, tools, will, and strategy that will assist each of the local managers in eliminating performance variability in their respective departments. Easy to say, hard to do; until now.

Here’s the ultimate goal. Each department delivers the best output possible, with primary focus on the “critical success factors" consistent with the leader’s stated mission. That means high performance execution of each workgroup, strategically linked to profitability and organic growth. It means eliminate lop sided delivery in the “value chain”; get that HEMI engine working on all 8 cylinders!

Thus, building workforce engagement falls squarely on the shoulders of the local manager and manager engagement falls squarely on the shoulders of the leader. It not trying to regulate humanity, but to build a “we” culture with a purpose of bringing out the best in people. It’s a people to people skill in communication; the growth of Employee Engagement as an operating principle.

Employee Engagement is the most researched management tool to understanding how to build a high performance culture; that managers need as much help as leadership can provide to bring this thinking to the departmental level. In a study of 2,178 business units from 10 companies, research evidenced that workforce engagement predicted levels of performance. Harter,J.K., Schmidt (2005, August). Employee engagement and business unit performance: A longitudinal meta-analytic study of casual direction

This relationship of leader-manager-worker is known as vertical alignment, (Dr. George Labovitz, Power of Alignment, 1997, Wiley) and is managed with ease with precise information.

In summary, high performing workgroups, with willingness, commitment and ability to effectively execute the leader’s vision, need a communication avenue to senior leadership, who has a willingness to meet the need. It all starts by the capture of information with extremely powerful survey analysis tools.