Good performance is about clear objectives, not about appearances

What someone's time spent in the office looks like from the outside is less important than whether they are doing their best work for the organisation with that time. Melissa Dreuth, Chief People Officer of Planful, tells People Matters about how the way people view performance is changing

- Mint Kang

Set clear objectives, communicate them well, and look at what people need to meet those objectives; anything outside that, such as working hours, is a distraction from the real business of doing good and competitive work.

In a conversation with People Matters, Melissa Dreuth, Chief People Officer of cloud financial planning and analysis platform Planful, talks about the connection between productivity and expectations, and the importance of equipping people with the skills to perform well in the hybrid world of work. Here's what she said.

Tell us about your take on productivity. Where do you think we are now?

The concept of productivity really comes down to expectation setting. You want employees to feel like they can bring their whole selves to work, but there also need to be some expectations: this is our mission, this is the goal for your job, this is when we need it to be done by. What we did was introduce OKRs (objectives and key results) to create transparency around our corporate objectives, then built department objectives out from there to align the teams and make the tasks more digestible.