Performance Impact Analysis Takes
Your Research to a Higher Level

Quantifying Your Impact
on Organizational Performance

Traditional research methodologies use survey data to identify the strengths and weaknesses of employee programs, such as internal communications, training, safety, benefits, etc. The problem is, how do you know whether any of these programs have a positive impact on organizational performance and, if so, which programs have the greatest impact on performance? Just knowing which programs are seen as strengths and weaknesses by employees doesn't tell you anything about what motivates and engages employees, about what drives them to high performance.

Advanced research methodologies – such as our innovative Performance Impact Analysis model – take us to the next step in measurement.  Performance Impact Analysis provides three critical pieces of information:

	Quantifies the impact that employee programs have on organizational performance measures.
	Identifies the key drivers of performance. Focusing on these key drivers will yield the greatest improvements in performance.
	Provides an estimate of how much performance is predicted to improve based on improvements to the key drivers. This enables us to calculate a return on investment for implementing initiatives to improve the key drivers.

Performance Impact Analysis uses the most advanced form of statistical analysis to move beyond traditional research methodologies. Through Performance Impact, we know where to focus our attention and resources – these are the areas in which we will see the greatest return on investment.

We developed this program in 1999 as a means of measuring the impact of communications on organizational performance (we called it ComLINK then), and have applied the model to numerous clients since then. Our program won a Gold Quill Award of Excellence from the International Association of Business Communicators for a multi-year research project with one of our clients. IABC received 1,347 entries and granted only 5% of them the Award of Excellence.

When our clients invest in initiatives that are focused on improving the key drivers identified by Performance Impact Analysis, their performance measures improve by the exact amount predicted by our model. By acting on our research results, our clients see positive results.

Sample Performance Impact Analysis Model

Through Performance Impact, we create a model that shows the link between employee programs and performance. For example, a typical model may look something like this:

The diagram above shows how employee programs such as training, safety and compensation, as well as communication channels and management effectiveness, might impact employee engagement and the overall work environment. For example, the model suggests that “Manager Communication Skills” has a direct impact on how well informed and aware employees are, and on how engaged employees are.

By performing our Performance Impact Analysis, we can quantify the impact of these and other programs employee engagement, the work environment and other performance measures.

Performance measures can include measures of financial performance, such as sales, revenue, performance against budget, balanced scorecard measures, and more.