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Forbes
30-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
AI & The Future Of Performance Management
What happens when some of Silicon Valley's top HR leaders gather to discuss the future of performance management? A fundamental rethinking of how we measure, manage, and motivate people at work. On June 5th, Modern People Leader – an influential HR podcast that has become essential listening for people professionals – hosted a live event in San Francisco that brought together 80 senior HR leaders from across the tech industry. The intimate gathering featured a live podcast recording, and networking sessions that sparked honest conversations about the intersection of artificial intelligence and performance management. Modern People Leader Gathering In San Francisco I had the opportunity to speak with both speakers and attendees, including Jennifer Rettig (Chief People Officer at Pendo), Gianna Driver (former Chief People Officer at Lattice), Danny Guillory (Chief People Officer at Glassdoor), Kelli Dragovich (interim Chief People Officer at Quizlet), and Tiffany Stevenson (former Chief People Officer at WeightWatchers). Their insights reveal a profession grappling with fundamental questions about what actually drives performance – and how technology can help or hinder that mission. 1. Your Top Performers Are Watching How You Handle Your Worst Ones One surprising revelation came from Jennifer Rettig at Pendo, whose team discovered something unexpected in their latest engagement surveys. While compensation and career development typically dominate employee feedback, this time a different theme emerged. "What really stood out was this idea of accountability," Rettig explained. "When team members aren't performing, their peers think managers didn't move fast enough to exit them from the business. Your top employees don't want to be saddled with teammates who aren't engaged, who aren't doing their work, who may be quietly quitting." This insight flips conventional wisdom about engagement on its head. The issue wasn't that high performers needed more development or recognition—they needed to see that excellence mattered and mediocrity had consequences. "What we learned was holding managers more accountable to take timely action actually drove engagement of your higher performers," Rettig said. 'You've got to be both accountable to managing your poor performers, and at the same time, you've got to be accountable to your high performers and continue to work to retain them.' Your engagement problem might not be about what you're giving your best people – it's about what you're tolerating from everyone else. 2. Performance Reviews Are Broken Because We're Fighting Human Nature The numerical rating system that dominates performance management isn't just ineffective – it's neurologically incompatible with how humans actually evaluate each other. Gianna Driver, former Chief People Officer at Lattice, pointed to research that should make every HR leader reconsider their current approach: "I read an HBR article called 'The Feedback Fallacy' that talked about how we as humans are neurologically hardwired to evaluate people more in relative terms, less so in absolute numerical terms." Yet most organizations persist with systems that ask managers to assign numerical scores—a practice Driver believes is fundamentally flawed. "I believe the way of numerically assigning a score to a person is fraught with problems and in the not too distant future will become much more antiquated." Tiffany Stevenson from WeightWatchers offered a solution that's gaining traction: radical simplification. Instead of complex rating matrices, some forward-thinking organizations are moving toward "on track, off track" assessments that focus on clarity and forward momentum rather than numerical precision. This connects to a broader theme that emerged from the conversations: effectiveness matters more than sophistication. As Stevenson put it, 'There are no explosive new ideas coming out of a performance playbook, but there are ways to do it more efficiently and consistently.' Stop fighting human psychology with complex rating systems. Simple, clear frameworks that align with how people naturally think will always outperform elaborate scoring mechanisms. 3. AI Isn't Just About Automation—It's About Scaling Empathy While much of the AI discussion in HR centers on automation and efficiency, the most compelling use cases described by these leaders focused on scaling human connection. Kelli Dragovich from Quizlet articulated the vision clearly: "If you can scale yourself to be everywhere and anywhere when people need it in the flow of their work, that's where you can create a ton of value. Once someone figures out how to make 10 of me, that's insane." But this isn't about replacing human judgment – it's about making personalized support accessible to everyone. Danny Guillory from Glassdoor emphasized that this requires unprecedented organizational transparency: "I'm a big believer in transparency and the trust that it builds with your workforce. If you tell them as much as you can within legal and ethical bounds, that makes AI initiatives much easier." Tiffany Stevenson reinforced this point while discussing AI's broader impact: "It's irresponsible at this point to not be taking AI seriously. But the real win is that AI for tier one requests made it exciting for folks who had been working in these roles forever to finally get career pathing opportunities." The pattern is clear: AI's highest value lies in augmenting human capabilities rather than replacing them, enabling more personalized, empathetic interactions at scale. The organizations that win with AI will be those that use it to make every employee feel more seen and supported, not those that use it to reduce human touch-points. 4. Engagement Isn't a Program—It's Your Company's Identity Perhaps the most provocative insight came from Tiffany Stevenson, who challenged the entire framework around employee engagement initiatives. "It's been otherized," she said, drawing an unexpected parallel. "It's like the thing that drives me crazy in grocery stores when they have the ethnic food aisle—why is there an ethnic food aisle versus just food? That's what happens with engagement, where it's like this thing that you do when you launch your engagement survey." This "otherization" manifests when organizations treat engagement as a separate work-stream with defined start and end dates, rather than as a fundamental expression of company values. Stevenson advocates for a radically different approach: "Looking at it as a series of micro decisions that you make every day—from who you hire to how you develop people to how you talk about your values." The solution isn't more engagement initiatives, but rather embedding engagement principles into every operational decision. "It becomes like a project or an initiative instead of just an expression of your identity as a company, as a brand," Stevenson explained. Kelli Dragovich reinforced this theme when discussing the broader transformation happening in HR: "The days of HR doing things for employees is kind of over. We're starting from scratch with the business. Not 'here's our programs'—it's 'what do we want to do?' There's permission now to not do things that we felt shackled to do in the past." Stop running engagement surveys and start making engagement-driven decisions. Every hiring choice, every meeting structure, every policy should reflect your commitment to creating an environment where people thrive. 5. The Future of People Analytics Is Hiding in Plain Sight The best innovative performance insights aren't coming from traditional surveys or self-assessments—they're emerging from organizational network analysis and passive data collection. Danny Guillory shared a powerful example from his time building a mentorship program: "I crossed different data points—Slack connections, email connections, and 360 review requests. About 80% of the results were people I could have predicted, but 20% were people I'd never heard of who turned out to be incredible connectors." This approach revealed hidden influencers who became highly effective mentors, demonstrating the power of looking beyond what people self-declare about their performance. "Seeing if you can identify not just what people say they've achieved or what their managers say they've achieved, but if there are other ways to get at it," Guillory explained. The implications extend far beyond mentorship programs. Organizations that master this approach can identify burnout patterns, collaboration bottlenecks, and engagement issues in real-time rather than waiting for quarterly surveys that capture sentiment weeks after problems emerge. The most valuable performance data already exists in your organization's digital exhaust. The question is whether you're sophisticated enough to find it and wise enough to act on it. Looking Forward These conversations reveal a profession in the midst of fundamental transformation. The traditional playbook—annual reviews, engagement surveys, standardized development programs—is being replaced by something more dynamic, data-driven, and individually responsive. As Jennifer Rettig noted about the challenge facing all organizations: "Can you grow to be whatever the next thing or phase of your business is with the same amount of people that you have today? What more can you do with what you have today with the help of AI?" The answer, according to these HR leaders, lies in leveraging AI not to reduce headcount but to dramatically increase the quality and personalization of people support. The future of HR isn't about having fewer human interactions—it's about making every human interaction more meaningful through intelligent augmentation. For people leaders navigating this transition, the message is clear: the organizations that will thrive are those willing to abandon what isn't working, embrace data-driven insights, and use AI to scale their most human capabilities. The transformation is already underway. The only question is whether you'll lead it or be swept along by it. I write about the intersection of AI and performance management for Forbes. I'm the founder of Mandala, an AI Coaching Platform for Managers.
Finextra
17-06-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Pendo releases AI agent performance measurement tool
Pendo, the world's first software experience management platform, today announced Pendo Agent Analytics, a first-of-its-kind solution that gives companies visibility into how AI agents are performing. 0 Companies can leverage Pendo Agent Analytics in two powerful ways: To measure the performance of their digital workers like they would their employees and to measure adoption of their agentic software like they would their SaaS applications. As agents join org charts and product roadmaps across the enterprise, companies require systems to understand how agents work and to optimise their performance. IT teams need confidence that agents will act in compliance and improve productivity, and R&D teams must ensure that agents drive business outcomes for customers. According to the Forrester report Agentic AI Agents Are A Rare Sighting: 'We need transparency, data security and protection, controls and guardrails, and advanced monitoring before we see broad adoption of agentic systems.' Pendo Agent Analytics supports these functions with metrics and reports that track homegrown and third-party agent behaviour alongside usage of traditional software. With Pendo Agent Analytics, companies can answer questions like: 'Are people using my agents and how frequently?' What prompts are they using?' 'What do users do on my platform after an AI interaction?' And ultimately, 'Is this agent delivering value?' Pendo Agent Analytics includes functionality that: Tracks user behaviour across agents and traditional software to understand how workflows are changing; Provides insight into what people do before and after they interact with an agent; Analyses conversations with agents to determine prompt trends; Highlights non-compliant behaviour; Maps agent usage to task completion, helping companies measure the ROI of agentic AI; and Ensures safety, trust, and governance at every step - so companies can innovate confidently, knowing they have enterprise-grade monitoring and controls in place. 'The shift to intelligent software is happening faster than we could ever imagine, and enterprises are faced with improving their SaaS applications, while accelerating agent and AI innovation,' said Todd Olson, CEO and co-founder of Pendo. 'I'm proud that we are supporting customers wherever they are on their transformation journey.' Pendo announced the new offering during its inaugural Pendomonium X event in New York City, along with numerous product updates that help teams improve user onboarding, accelerate user success and cut support costs, increase upsell revenue, and drive team productivity.
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pendo Introduces First-of-its-Kind Solution to Measure AI Agent Performance
Groundbreaking analytics solution empowers companies to measure agents as they would their employees RALEIGH, N.C. and NEW YORK, June 17, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Pendo, the world's first software experience management platform, today announced Pendo Agent Analytics, a first-of-its-kind solution that gives companies visibility into how AI agents are performing. Companies can leverage Pendo Agent Analytics in two powerful ways: To measure the performance of their digital workers like they would their employees and to measure adoption of their agentic software like they would their SaaS applications. As agents join org charts and product roadmaps across the enterprise, companies require systems to understand how agents work and to optimize their performance. IT teams need confidence that agents will act in compliance and improve productivity, and R&D teams must ensure that agents drive business outcomes for customers. According to the Forrester report Agentic AI Agents Are A Rare Sighting: "We need transparency, data security and protection, controls and guardrails, and advanced monitoring before we see broad adoption of agentic systems." Pendo Agent Analytics supports these functions with metrics and reports that track homegrown and third-party agent behavior alongside usage of traditional software. With Pendo Agent Analytics, companies can answer questions like: "Are people using my agents and how frequently?" What prompts are they using?" "What do users do on my platform after an AI interaction?" And ultimately, "Is this agent delivering value?" Pendo Agent Analytics includes functionality that: Tracks user behavior across agents and traditional software to understand how workflows are changing; Provides insight into what people do before and after they interact with an agent; Analyzes conversations with agents to determine prompt trends; Highlights non-compliant behavior; Maps agent usage to task completion, helping companies measure the ROI of agentic AI; and Ensures safety, trust, and governance at every step – so companies can innovate confidently, knowing they have enterprise-grade monitoring and controls in place. "The shift to intelligent software is happening faster than we could ever imagine, and enterprises are faced with improving their SaaS applications, while accelerating agent and AI innovation," said Todd Olson, CEO and co-founder of Pendo. "I'm proud that we are supporting customers wherever they are on their transformation journey." Pendo announced the new offering during its inaugural Pendomonium X event in New York City, along with numerous product updates that help teams improve user onboarding, accelerate user success and cut support costs, increase upsell revenue, and drive team productivity. About Pendo:At Pendo, we're on a mission to improve the world's experience with software. Thousands of global companies use Pendo to provide better software experiences for 900 million people every month. Pendo improves business outcomes by enabling non-engineers to analyze, assess, and act on software issues. Our integrated Software Experience Management (SXM) platform manages the entire enterprise software asset: Customer- and employee-facing applications; desktop and mobile platforms; and SaaS, AI and Agentic software. Find out more at View original content: SOURCE Pendo
BBC News
05-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Baby Samantha Pendo: Four Kenyan police officers charged over killing as others freed
Four Kenyan police officers have been charged with the murder of a six-month-old baby nearly eight years other officers who had originally also been accused alongside the four have had the charges against them dropped by the public prosecutor, sparking case relates to baby Samatha Pendo, who was fatally hit in 2017 as police were deployed to quell violence linked to post-election protests in the western city of Monday, the four officers who are still accused denied multiple charges including murder as a crime against humanity. They also pleaded not guilty to other charges of torture and rape committed against a number of human rights groups, including Amnesty International, say the charge sheet "omits senior officers who held overall command responsibility during the operations that saw the deaths, rape and injuries of no less than 60 Kenyans".They have also expressed concern over the prosecutors' office move to name the victims and witnesses which it said could expose them to harm and Pendo - as she became known - died after being hit on the head, which caused a national outrage and became a symbol of the police brutality during the 2017 public prosecutor at the time initiated a public the inquest found the police culpable, the prosecutor ordered further investigations into other cases resulting from the police none of the accused had until now entered a plea amid repeated delays in court, which sparked calls for justice and Pendo's mum, Lensa Achieng, has told the BBC that she is hopeful for justice and is pleased that "we have a case now".She said the journey had not been easy "but as the family of Baby Pendo at least we are going somewhere... they are taking a bold step to take the case to another level."It's just our prayer for us to find justice for our daughter so that whatever happened to us does not happen to another parent."Rights groups have continued to criticise the delays, blaming numerous attempts to defer or stall court say the charges were amended without the involvement of the investigating agency, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa). Ipoa has said it does not know the rationale used by the has been little movement since a new prosecutor took over in 2023, and this year the head of Amnesty Kenya, Irungu Houghton, told the BBC that there seemed to be "an unwillingness to try to prosecute this case".Amnesty and other rights groups are now calling on the judiciary to ensure the cases against the four officers are not reporting by Gladys Kigo You may also be interested in: Pressure mounts to probe Kenya police and army after BBC exposéBBC identifies security forces who shot Kenya anti-tax protestersBatons, tear gas, live fire - Kenyans face police brutalityWATCH: Inside the world of Kenya's 'killer cop' Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
Reuters
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Kenyan court charges four police officers over baby's death after 2017 elections
NAIROBI, May 5 (Reuters) - A Kenyan court on Monday charged four police officers with crimes against humanity over accusations of killing a baby during a crackdown on protests after a disputed election in 2017, according to court documents, media and rights groups. Charges against eight other officers were dropped due to what the prosecutor's office said was insufficient evidence, Citizen Television reported, in a move that was condemned by rights campaigners including Amnesty's Kenya chapter. The four officers pleaded not guilty to the charges, according to local media reports. Police in the East African nation frequently face accusations of brutality and extrajudicial killings from civilians and rights groups, but officers are rarely charged and almost never convicted. Six-month-old Samantha Pendo died in August 2017 in the western city of Kisumu after officers threw tear gas into her home, suffocating and beating her, according to her mother's testimony at the time, opens new tab. An inquest into the incident was opened in November that year. The prosecutor's office recommended that 12 officers be charged with the deaths of Pendo and 39 other protesters during countrywide protests challenging the outcome of the 2017 presidential vote. Thirty Kenyan rights groups, including Amnesty, condemned the prosecutor's decision to drop the charges against eight of the officers, saying it was done without the involvement of the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, which investigated the case.
