Using Performance Management to Build a High-Performance Culture

Company Industry – Insurance

A 75 year old diversified financial services organization with a proven track record of success
A recent acquisition doubled the size of the organization to 11,000 employees
Suffered major losses after the acquisition due to lack of preparedness and poor financial health of the acquired company
Current net revenue was (989.2M) – the largest loss in the company’s history
Only about 30% of employees currently completed performance reviews on a regular basis
Complete change in leadership team

Built a sustainable performance-oriented culture by:

Redefining the company vision and desired culture
Explicitly articulating new behavioral expectations for leaders and all employees
Creating a new performance management process that included:
- Aligning and cascading goals throughout the company to create a clear line of sight with measurable results
- Holding managers and employees accountable for behavior and results
- A strong developmental component to encourage a continuous improvement focus on performance
- Creating an explicit linkage between pay and performance and educating everyone how it works
- Providing training, tool kits, and job aids to assist managers

The year following implementation the company had it’s best financial performance in over four years, 301.1M in net revenue
In the first year of implementation, 98% of employees had performance discussions with their managers. In year two, 96% of employees had set goals for the year
94% of employees reported that they understood how their pay was derived from their performance
95% of the managers reported that they believe that the new process will help their work unit to achieve its goals

Shifting from Performance Management to Performance Enablement

Company Industry – Non-Profit

Employees and managers were deeply dissatisfied with the current process. It was too slow, too infrequent, and it required a lot of work with little payoff.
Setting goals annually did not fit with the dynamics of the business.
Employees wanted feedback from the peers they worked with, not just their manager.
The company said it wanted to be a learning organization, but the process did not reflect it.

Improved the goal-setting process to build greater commitment
Created a performance feedback culture
Integrated development planning into the process to drive success and foster a growth mindset
Clearly defined behaviors for success
Changed the compensation process and delinked ratings from rewards