Performance follow-through: how HR can close the gap

Despite the pace of AI-driven change, fewer than 25% of organisations ask employees whether leaders have clearly explained their AI strategy. Among those that do ask, just 58% of employees agree the strategy has been communicated clearly. 

What HR leaders can do to close the gap 

The most immediate lever is making decision-making authority explicit, particularly for the mid-level leaders who report the greatest confusion. Culture Amp recommends a decision framework such as RAPID, which assigns a recommender, input provider, decider, performer, and approver, before a decision arrives. HR leaders can facilitate this rollout starting with the decisions directors and VPs most frequently have to negotiate. 

Transparency around underperformance is equally important. Rather than keeping the entire process behind closed doors, HR teams can communicate, without breaching individual confidentiality, how performance concerns are raised and resolved within the organisation.  

Pairing that transparency with timely recognition and reward strategies for high performers ensures employees can see both sides of the standard being applied. 

Building performance follow-through into daily operations  

Calendar-based goal revisits matter too. Setting fixed mid-quarter checkpoints and communicating openly about which goals have been updated, retired, or kept, signals that goal-setting is a live process rather than a once-a-year formality.