By Cliff Stevenson, Principal Analyst, Talent Management and Workforce Management
At O.C. Tanner’s annual summit this week in Park City, Utah, one of the big stories is the general release of their Align product.
Align is a tool to help facilitate better performance development for individuals and teams. I enjoyed listening to O.C. Tanner executives discuss the philosophies that informed the development of Align, such as the need for more personal one-on-one discussions, the value of frequent and meaningful recognition and discovery, and the culture transformation required to create a more coaching-oriented atmosphere. These are all things that have been covered in Brandon Hall Group’s larger market research (which I’ve written about once or twice…).
However, as great as it was to see a product addressing the needs of organizations in a changing world of work, having the opportunity to speak with someone who’s actually used the new product over the last year (as part of an early pilot program), was even better!
Keri Smith, Director of Human Resources for HHHunt has been using Align at a company that isn’t exactly the type of place we usually picture when we think of an organization embracing rating-less performance management. Instead of a knowledge-worker-filled, West Coast tech firm, HHHunt is an East Coast real estate development and management company with a massive blue-collar workforce that isn’t exactly the target demographic for a useless $400 juicer … if you follow my meaning here.
Even when I write about the sweeping changes happening in PM. I usually use examples of larger organizations or highly-adaptive startups. Yet despite not fitting into a neat stereotype of a forward-thinking organization, HHHunt had the support of its top leaders and line employees (something that Keri assures me is necessary for lasting, positive change in this type of project) to create something truly different and useful for their employees – a frequent check-in, rating-less model centered around employees rather than on data collection for administrators.
They even created a new marketing campaign around the initiative called Cme (which looks much cooler in its graphical representation) to emphasize the greater visibility this type of performance management brings to employees. Playing with that marketing concept, they list five main pillars of this new approach: connect, collaborate, challenge, coach, commit.
I’m assuming HHHunt had not been reading our research extensively before instituting this program (although doing so is always a good idea!), so I was very pleased to see that coaching was a major part of their program, since our most recent research revealed that most organizations have not taken that step when creating a continuous conversation-type model, but those that had were much more likely to attain success.
Seeing the organizations and vendors that support them listen to and understand the needs of their employees is encouraging and from a research perspective, validating. Personally, it gives me great pleasure to see that not only did O.C. Tanner and HHHunt do what the research suggested they should do, they also did the right thing for their employees and both companies see continued success as a result.
Perhaps it’s the mountain air, but these types of stories make me feel optimistic for the future of performance development.
–Cliff Stevenson, (Twitter: @CliffordDarrell email: [email protected]) Principal Analyst, Talent Management and Workforce Management, Brandon Hall Group