Situation:

A globally renowned travel company recognised that its existing approach to performance management was no longer fit for purpose to deliver their ambitious strategy and leverage their unique culture. The performance management approach was applied inconsistently and viewed as ineffective in releasing the full potential of its ~9,000 global employees. Hundreds of thousands of hours were being taken up, with little, to no impact on personal performance or business results.

Task:

Our client needed a new performance approach that created a positive employee experience that in turn drove an exceptional experience for every customer. Seen as a key process that would symbolise change, an innovative method of re-design was essential – one that brought to life the company’s strong brand, new values and strategy.

Action:

We designed two ‘Performance Labs’ based on our own Springboard Event™ philosophy of Discover-Frame-Create-Release. A design team of 15 representatives from across divisions and functions within the business worked with the team at Up! to create collaborative events that ensured all areas of the business could collaborate, contribute and co-design their new approach. 70 employees from across multiple geographies and 10 business areas came together across two days in Oct and two days in Dec. Here they explored academic, external benchmarking and internal insight to make sure the recommendation created was bold, considered and created a great employee experience for everyone, irrespective of grade or area of the business. The resulting proposal also aligned to existing technical frameworks, was app-enabled and redirected the focus to quality, value-adding conversations.

Result:

Within 16 weeks, we had designed, facilitated and delivered outputs from an Executive Team workshop and two ‘Performance Labs’; identifying the ‘why’, ‘what’ and ‘how’ for the new recommended approach. The resulting proposal was created “by employees for employees” and the outputs included a visual narrative of the new approach, supporting high-level project plan, a communications plan and investment case for piloting. Following a presentation of the recommendation to the Executive Team, the ‘test and learn’ phase is underway.

The Labs were also recognised as a powerful way of creating stronger connections between employees in different business areas and inspiring groups to think differently about the way they tackle some of their biggest challenges.

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