High performance isn’t hired or driven by talented, committed individuals – it’s designed for and cultivated by business leaders.

According to a new report from employee experience platform Culture Amp, organisations can create environments for high performance by focusing on high engagement and providing clear, regular feedback. The firm said sustaining high performance was not about identifying and recruiting “superstar” employees.

An analysis by employee experience platform Culture Amp investigating strategies for driving and sustaining high performance at work found that the traditional assumption that high performance was an innate characteristic possessed by a few exceptional employees was mistaken.

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Based on data from more than half a million employees at 1,500 companies, the report found that one in four employees takes more than 18 months in their role to reach high performer status.

This supported the view that high performance was not a fixed character trait, but was a cyclical outcome shaped by environment, leadership, and team dynamics, the report claimed.

The Science of Sustainable High Performance, in summary, found that performance was influenced by workplace conditions and could be cultivated over time through strategic design.

Sustaining high performance was rare: only 2% of employees could sustain high performance over two review cycles, the researchers found. This finding suggested that high performance usually happens in peaks and valleys; it could be that peak employee performance happens in concordance with delivering on projects or to tight deadlines.

The analysis found a strong connection between employee engagement and performance outcomes. Those organisations with strong engagement scores saw greater incidences of high performance, with companies that were in the top 25% for engagement having more high performing employees (14%), whereas companies in the bottom 25% for engagement had a lower proportion (10%).

Feedback appeared crucial, researchers found, with high-performing teams giving and receiving feedback more often – with high-performing employees reporting meaningfully higher satisfaction with manager feedback (83% favourability), compared with their lower-performing peers (71%).

Leadership performance was a multiplying factor, claimed the research, with employees under high-performing leaders being four times more likely to be high-performing, whereas employees reporting to underperforming leaders were three times more likely to be underperforming themselves.

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Justin Angsuwat, chief product officer at Culture Amp, said the study demonstrated how high performance was achievable with the right conditions – “so organisations should be intentional about the way they design for high performance”.

He added that when researchers examined how long it took employees to earn their first high-performance rating after joining a company, they found one in four employees didn’t reach that milestone until after 18 months in their role, and only 2% of employees were able to sustain high performance over multiple evaluation cycles.

Factors associated with high performance, established by the report, included role alignment, goal-setting practices, and a robust feedback culture.

Angsuwat added: “Our research clearly shows that sustainable high performance isn’t about identifying and recruiting ‘superstar’ employees, but rather about deliberately creating the conditions where all employees can achieve their best work. With only 2% of employees sustaining high performance across multiple review cycles, HR and people leaders need to design systems that accommodate natural peaks and valleys in performance.

“The data points to three critical areas for focus: setting employees up for success starts with onboarding and ensuring employees have a clear picture of their role and expectations; ensuring clear goal-setting frameworks that align individual objectives with organisational priorities; and implementing robust feedback systems that include manager training. By focusing on these elements, leaders can create an environment where high performance becomes a product of their workplace culture rather than relying on the exceptional few.”

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