Dive Brief:
- Employee performance and productivity are the top talent management priorities in 2026, with 37% of companies saying these qualities mattered most, up from 23% in 2024, according to new research from employee experience firm Perceptyx. Continuous improvement and innovation also climbed from 7% saying it mattered in 2024 to 25% in 2026.
- Cumulatively, these priorities “signal that organizations are using their listening programs to fuel output-oriented goals,” Perceptyx said. However, HR staff workload remained the top barrier to listening program success at 27% in 2026, which represented a significant increase from 2024, when only 6% cited it as such.
- Meanwhile, the second-largest barrier was budget, which jumped to 26% in 2026, up from 16% in 2025, representing a 65% year-over-year increase. The findings indicate that as companies increasingly focus on performance-driven outcomes, “the capacity required to act on employee feedback has not kept pace,” per the report.
Dive Insight:
HR workers report increased pressure “to demonstrate measurable returns from listening program spending,” Perceptyx said.
The report was based on responses from more than 750 senior HR leaders globally and suggested that the nature of employee listening at companies tends to take one of two roads. While some organizations are scaling back programs as a matter of budget, other companies are doubling down on efforts that connect listening to action, the report said. As a result, mid-maturity programs are declining in number, creating what Perceptyx called a “squeezed middle,” as organizations either regress or accelerate.
The report also showed a gap between planning and improvement. While 71% of employees said their organization shares survey results, and 59% said action plans are created, only 51% said that the feedback resulted in actual improvements — something that can threaten employee trust, other studies have shown.
Perceptyx said in its report that this “data-to-action gap” was among the top five barriers in every edition of its research, across the five years.
Bradley Wilson, global head of Workforce Insights & Innovation at Perceptyx, said that organizations that “close the loop and connect insight to manager action, development, and performance” demonstrate better performance and financial results than less mature programs.
“Organizations are at a fork in the road,” Wilson said in a statement. “Some are pulling back to lower-cost, survey-only approaches. Others are investing more intentionally and embedding listening into how they develop people and drive performance. That divergence is what defines the 2026 landscape.”