Royal Mail | Are your targets driving performance - or encouraging employee misdirection?

Earlier this week, Royal Mail postal workers claimed they had been told to hide mail from bosses, to give the appearance that delivery targets are being met.

Although the company defended its performance measurement approach, one individual described the behaviour in their workplace as “embarrassing and deceitful.”

In one of those increasingly rare moments of serendipitous social media relevance, on the same day the BBC published its report on the claims, this editor happened to see a completely unrelated LinkedIn post reminding scrollers about Goodhart's Law.

It refers to the concept that when measures become targets, people will try to game the system and distort their behaviours in undesirable ways.