Overview
One of the world’s largest corporate travel management companies has a robust performance management process designed to inspire employees at all levels to reach their highest potential. Powered by a state-of-the-art human capital platform and the exceptional support of a world class Human Resources (HR) team, the process ensures organizational alignment around paying for performance while promoting ongoing coaching conversations as a cornerstone of employee development.
The organization’s people leaders have access to detailed communication materials – like job aids and toolkits – to guide them through the process and ensure critical deadlines are met. In addition, the HR team hosts numerous educational webinars, Q&A forums and open door sessions. They also oversee a multi-channel communication campaign with instructions and reminders delivered via email, the company intranet site and prompts from the HR platform. Finally, HR team members stationed across the organization provide information and resources to people leaders to help them successfully manage this important annual process.
Opportunity
In spite of the comprehensive support provided, people leaders were confused about what they needed to do, when they needed to do it and what was coming next. They were overwhelmed by the very documentation and communications designed to help them and didn’t have a clear sense of how it was all connected since several teams within HR managed communications for different tasks. Most critically, the organization had unknowingly created a sense of learned helpless. Deadlines were being missed and the HR team often stepped up to perform key tasks to avoid errors and keep the process on track.
Solution
MiddleWay was engaged to help streamline the communication process, simplify the messaging and materials, and empower people leaders while fostering a greater sense of accountability. After reviewing the process and materials, we came back with three guiding principles and executed a host of recommended tactics:
“MiddleWay did a great job recreating our materials, streamlining our content, and making it more thoughtful and easier to understand,” said one of the project leads. “Before they revamped things, you practically needed a Ph.D. to understand our job aids even if you’d been with the company for a long time. The new templates helped us share the steps in a user-friendly format.”
Results
The organization fully embraced the new approach and materials, and feedback from senior leadership, the HR team, people leaders and individual contributors was universally enthusiastic. The project lead explained, “We set out to make things simple, connected and user-friendly, and we got feedback that says, yes you guys really did it.” She adds that MiddleWay immediately understood what she and her team were looking for in the very first meeting. “They came back with a vision and an approach, and then executed very quickly with fast turnarounds on deliverables to achieve the goal.”
While the organization does not have a way to track an uptick in deadlines being met more effectively or the percentage of tasks wholly completed by people leaders, there is anecdotal evidence these improvements occurred as a result of the new approach. Most importantly, the HR team began to move the needle on fostering a stronger culture of accountability for the process and empowering people leaders to own it. “There is a sense now that HR is not the police,” the project lead explains. “The new approach to communications allowed us to demystify things and pivot from a tactical process owner to a trusted advisor.”