Data Suggests Performance and Development Systems Failing Employees

Performance reviews and learning programs are designed to support employee growth—but new data suggests they may be doing just the opposite.

The Career Advancement Crisis

According to new research sponsored by Acorn, nearly 80% of surveyed business leaders admitted that employees often need to leave their current organization to advance their careers. That statistic points to a deeper problem: many performance and development systems are failing in plain sight.

Performance Reviews: Just Going Through the Motions

The study, which surveyed over 1,200 U.S.-based respondents, also found that one in three professionals described their most recent performance review as a checkbox exercise—something done out of obligation rather than value. These reviews, once intended to support development and alignment, have become widely viewed as ineffective and demotivating.

Where Development Systems Break Down

The report highlights several critical breakdowns in current systems:

• A wide gap between executive and employee perceptions of performance review effectiveness.
• The emotional toll that poorly executed programs can inflict on workers.
• Technical limitations of legacy learning management systems (LMS), which struggle to provide personalized, outcome-driven development paths.

While these programs may have been created with the right intent, many have failed to evolve with the changing workplace.

The LMS Problem: Generic Solutions for Complex Needs

Traditional LMS tools are often generic, inflexible, and unable to respond to the dynamic needs of both employees and the business. As a result, workers may disengage—or exit altogether—in search of better growth opportunities elsewhere.

The False Security of Technology

Additionally, and somewhat ironically, organizations that invest heavily in LMS tools can potentially end up doing worse in terms of engagement. That’s because managers and HR teams can assume they’ve got their bases covered by virtue of those LMS tools and disregard the need for thoughtful, personalized engagement and career development initiatives.

Time to Modernize or Risk Losing Talent

As organizations contend with rising turnover and employee disengagement, the need to modernize how they manage, and support talent is pressing. Systems built for a different era are not only ineffective—they may be actively pushing talent away.

For organizations looking to retain their people and build future-ready teams, aligning performance and learning tools with both real business needs and employee aspirations isn’t just smart—it’s long overdue.

Lin Grensing-Pophal is a Contributing Editor at HR Daily Advisor.

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