Understanding the four pillars of the personal performance score

The performance score is made up of value-creating time, focus, fragmentation and recovery. Read each component alongside your actual work results to decide what to adjust.

A total score should lead to one specific question

Two people can both log eight hours and still have completely different days. One works in long, uninterrupted stretches; the other switches constantly between documents, chat and meetings.

To understand how someone actually works, hours have to be read together with other signals. The DearPulse personal performance score is built from four components, so people can look at each part instead of stopping at a single headline number.

Value-creating time

This component reflects the share of computer time spent in applications and websites classified as work-related. That classification needs to match the role and the department.

A social media tool can be genuine work for Marketing, yet should be judged differently in another department. Value-creating time is therefore a signal about how tools are used; the quality of the output still has to be assessed separately.

Focused work

The focus component reflects how much working time stays uninterrupted, as measured by the system. For analysis, writing or design work, stretches with few interruptions let people carry a single task through to a clear finish.

If this metric is low, it is worth reviewing the meeting calendar, incoming ad-hoc requests, or how demanding work is scheduled across the day.

Low fragmentation

Fragmentation captures how often attention jumps back and forth between applications or pages. A high switching rate is a signal worth looking into, especially when someone is handling work that requires sustained thinking.

That said, switching between tools can be a necessary part of the job, such as reconciling data or responding to customers. This metric should be read in context, with a formula that fits the department.

Healthy recovery

The recovery component records short breaks taken after continuous blocks of work, based on configured thresholds. It brings a sustainable working rhythm into the way performance is viewed.

In the default V4 formula, the four weights are 35%, 30%, 20% and 15% respectively. Leaders can adjust the weights by department.

Use the score to pick one change you can actually make

If your value-creating ratio looks healthy but your focus score is low, the priority may be protecting one uninterrupted block of work. If you routinely work for too long without stopping, adjusting your break rhythm may matter more.

This score describes how work happens on the computer. Read it together with completion rates, on-time delivery and output quality to judge real effectiveness.

Watch the video to understand each component of the score and find the improvement that fits you best.