McKinsey says more than half of employees get feedback once a year or never. 6 fixes so performance management drives development.

A Friday question for People leaders in Tallinn, Stockholm and London: if you asked your workforce when they last got real feedback — not a status ping, a proper “here’s where you stand and how to grow” talk — would more than half say once this year, or never?

McKinsey’s HR Monitor 2026 (Julian Kirchherr, Karel Eloot, Sandra Durth, Ulf Schrader and Vincent Bérubé, with Charlotte Seiler, Kira Rupietta, Kristina Störk, Marlene Senst, Séverine Fobe and Simon Gallot Lavallée; People & Organizational Performance Practice, 8 June 2026) puts numbers on that gap. Development is on the agenda. Execution is still fragmented. Employees feel it; HR often doesn’t.

1. What McKinsey actually said

In plain language, from the official HR Monitor 2026 findings:

• Feedback is still annual — or absent. More than half of employees receive feedback once per year or not at all.
• Learning participation is thin. Twenty-four percent of employees report no training participation at all.
• HR overestimates the development experience. HR professionals tend to overestimate both participation in training and the importance employees assign to development opportunities.
• PM and development are back — but fragmented. Performance management and employee development are on leaders’ agendas again, yet execution stays patchy across the organisation.
• The ask: companies need to treat performance management as a core driver of employee development, not a separate annual ritual.

The survey covered roughly 1,300 HR professionals and 5,500 employees across ten countries, with a primary European focus (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK) plus the US and China. For Ash’s ICP the useful frame is Europe/UK/Nordics People leaders — the same fragmentation shows up in mid-market stacks from Tallinn to London.

2. The mid-market hurdle: HR thinks it’s happening; employees experience annual or never

In a 200–600 person company, the pattern is familiar. HR launches a review cycle, schedules training budgets, and reports high “process completion.” Meanwhile managers treat 1:1s as project stand-ups, feedback lives in Slack nobody files, and employees wait until November for the first formal “here’s how you’re doing” conversation.

McKinsey’s HR–employee gap is exactly that story: HR overestimates training participation and how much development matters to people; employees report once-a-year feedback or none, and nearly a quarter say they had no training. You don’t close that with a longer review form. You close it by making feedback and development a weekly habit with something concrete to discuss — live goals, a short 1:1 agenda, and a place to capture what was said so the year-end review writes itself.

3. 6 fixes so performance management drives development

1. Make feedback continuous, not annual. McKinsey’s “more than half once a year or never” is the baseline to beat. Set a weekly or biweekly expectation that every employee gets at least one piece of specific, behavioural feedback. In Revolut People: continuous feedback sits in the same system as reviews, so evidence accumulates during the year instead of getting reconstructed in November.
2. Put development on every 1:1 agenda. Split each 1:1: half delivery, half “where you stand and how to grow.” Status updates alone won’t close the HR–employee perception gap. In Revolut People: structured 1:1s with agendas and notes sit next to goals, so the development half has a home.
3. Keep goals live so check-ins have substance. Feedback without a shared target becomes vague praise or vague criticism. Simple goals, revisited during the year, give managers and employees the same page. In Revolut People: goals cascade and stay visible, so every check-in opens the same picture.
4. Close the training–performance loop. McKinsey’s 24% with no training and HR’s overestimate of participation both point to development that isn’t tied to day-to-day performance. Link learning asks to goal gaps and review outcomes. In Revolut People: reviews and goals in one place make it obvious where a skill gap showed up and what to do next.
5. Write reviews from evidence, not memory. When feedback is infrequent, year-end becomes theatre. Capture notes when conversations happen so the review summarises the year. In Revolut People: feedback, 1:1 notes and goals feed the review, so managers aren’t writing from a blank page under time pressure.
6. Measure the employee experience, not only HR completion rates. McKinsey shows HR overestimates training and development importance. Ask employees how often they got useful feedback last quarter — and treat that as a People KPI alongside “reviews submitted.” In Revolut People: one scorecard and calibration views give leaders a shared language for quality of conversations, not just form completion.

The PDF goes to your work email. Curious what your current cycle costs in manager hours? Try the performance review cost calculator.

4. Where Revolut People fits, and where it doesn’t

Revolut People started as the in-house system Revolut uses to run performance. The part that maps to McKinsey’s HR Monitor finding is performance management as a driver of development: continuous feedback, structured 1:1s, live goals and reviews in one place, so feedback isn’t annual compliance theatre.

To be straight about the limits: software won’t invent a coaching culture if leaders don’t protect time for it, and it won’t make a manager skilled overnight. Those need priority and practice. What it can do is remove the admin that eats the coaching slot, and keep every conversation’s evidence next to the review. Related reads: McKinsey on development conversations and motivation, Deloitte on trust in performance management, and Gallup on manager engagement and coaching time.

Bottom Line

McKinsey’s HR Monitor 2026 is clear: more than half of employees get feedback once a year or never; 24% report no training; HR still overestimates the development experience. Performance management is back on the agenda, but execution is fragmented. For a mid-market People team in Estonia, the Nordics or the UK, the fastest win is continuous feedback plus structured 1:1s with live goals — so development is what the process does, not a slide in the year-end pack. Try it with one department for a quarter and ask employees how often they actually got useful feedback.

FAQ

What did McKinsey’s HR Monitor 2026 find about feedback frequency?

In McKinsey’s HR Monitor 2026 (survey of about 1,300 HR professionals and 5,500 employees across ten countries, with a primary focus on Europe plus the US and China), more than half of employees receive feedback once per year or not at all. Performance management and employee development are back on leaders’ agendas but remain fragmented in execution.

How big is the training participation gap?

McKinsey reports that 24% of employees say they had no training participation at all. HR professionals tend to overestimate both participation in training and how important employees say development opportunities are. Treating performance management as a core driver of development is the recommended direction.

Why does the HR–employee perception gap matter for mid-market companies?

When HR thinks feedback and training are happening but employees experience annual or never cycles, trust in the process erodes and development stays theatre. Closing the gap means continuous feedback, structured 1:1s and live goals so evidence exists before the review window opens.

How can a mid-market People team make feedback drive development?

Move feedback off the annual calendar: structured 1:1s with a development half, continuous feedback captured when it happens, live goals for something concrete to discuss, and reviews that summarise the year’s evidence rather than reconstruct it from memory.

Is Revolut People available in Estonia, the Nordics and the UK?

Yes. Revolut People is available to businesses with a registered entity in the UK, the EEA or the US, which covers Estonia and the Nordic countries.