Empathy vs accountability: How to balance emotions in performance management

There’s an intricate dance at play between empathy and accountability in business – one which HR is destined to act out every single day. One person who knows this well is Andrea Vrbanac, VP of people and culture at Axonify.

Within the fast-paced tech sector, one plagued by layoffs and redundancies, understanding empathy’s role in performance management is critical. In 2023, Telus, Lyft, BuzzFeed and Accenture – to name a few – all laid off employees – with the number of layoffs reaching well into the thousands across the globe.

For Vrbanac, she believes the key to thriving in the tech space is blending performance management with a sense of authentic compassion.

Fostering empathy, ensuring accountability

“I think in tech overall, navigating that delicate balance around fostering empathy and ensuring accountability - it has been challenging at times,” Vrbanac tells HRD. “Often that model of ‘move fast and break things’ tends to be the technology world’s… unofficial motto. Maintaining that innovation agility is really important, but equally important here is the compassionate work environment.”

At Axonify, they’ve successfully managed to do both - with neither one being sacrificed. The commitment to building programs rooted in values ensures that speed is not compromised for empathy.

“We really wanted to build a process where those two can coexist,” says Vrbanac. “And it's not an ‘either or’ situation. They both can coexist. And thankfully, with our leadership team, they understand that [they can build] great experiences while driving for results. You don’t have to do that at the expense of the employees’ experience.

“We're consistently iterating, designing, gathering feedback, and co-creating with leaders and employees.”

Finding value in engagement surveys

In the past year, amidst an acquisition, Axonify took a deliberate pause to revisit its mission, vision, and values. This strategic move aimed to ensure clarity of focus and direction in alignment with the company's growth aspirations.

Meanwhile, metrics at Axonify encompass employee experience, engagement, eNPS, ARR per employee and turnover. The business partner team actively dissects engagement survey results, co-creating actions to address areas that need improvement.

"I really find the value in our engagement survey metrics that speak to 'I feel I can grow at the company,’ and ‘Am I happy with my relationship with my leader?’” Vrbanac says. 

Using AI to evolve leadership

Looking ahead to 2024, the overarching goals for the people and culture team revolve around enabling growth, building for scale, and creating an extraordinary people experience, according to Vrbanac. The key focus is on organizational enablement, driving people programs and technologies. Executive and leader development, competency frameworks, and the implementation of the enhanced performance management system, GPS, are pivotal aspects.

“We're also focusing on PNC, operational efficiencies as well as upskilling the team in terms of data analytics,” she says.

“Also looking at where we can evolve our technology with AI - where we can also make it more self-served in some of the tools that we use for the employees and leaders. What we're focusing on is creating that great employee experience, which supports enabling the organization.

It will be a busy year, she says, where they strive for high achievements: “It's a really dedicated and fantastic team that I get to work with. So I'm super proud of that.”