Projects dedicated to labour market improvements in Poland that are funded within the framework of the Human Capital Operational Programme (HCOP) are perceived by financing bodies as successes when they are completed on time, within budget, and meet all specifications set in the project plan. Impact, product and result indicators are crucial for EU-funded projects. According to the rules, the national ministries try to achieve the indicators at the national level and divide (disaggregate) the indicators within regions using an algorithm.

As research shows, some of the indicators are averaged for an entire region and are not always adequate for the local situation in the district. The investigated local and regional labour market organizations measure projects’ effects by referring to the rates imposed at country level, but research has shown that sometimes these indicators have forced project managers to focus on the artificial rates, not on the quest for value creation for stakeholders through projects.

This paper is based on the analysis of evaluation reports on the implementation of the monitoring indicators for the HCOP and a subset of the data obtained from a broader research on project management in the Polish public labour market organizations. The main aim of this paper is to draw attention to the problems with the current method of setting and monitoring indicators for EU-funded projects and programs dedicated to labour market development. The author argues that the current method of determining HCOP indicators causes public organizations to place all their attention and focus on achieving top-down imposed indicators, which are often artificial and incompatible with local realities, rather than focusing on realizing value for stakeholders. This means that the success of HCOP projects is mostly defined by meeting indicators, instead of bringing value to the society.