We were excited to welcome Christine Pickard, Daktronics, and Nicole Nuttbrock, Larson, to our January Lunch & Learn to discuss changes they have made to their annual evaluation process. Both companies have gone through the process of eliminating their traditional evaluation process.
Daktronics
Christine had initially shared the changes made by Daktronics at DisruptHRBrookings back in August. Take a look at her video here.
Daktronics had the conversations around changing their evaluaiton process because everyone “hated” the process. After talking with leadership and staff, they rolled out a new process which has regular conversations (weekly, bi-weekly or monthly) between a supervisor and their employee to talk about the day to day needs. During this time, they coach for behavior or performance issues that need to be addressed.
On a quarterly basis, they meet for a reflection period: what did the employee learn, where can they improve and what do they want to work on?
Then each year (around the employee’s anniversary), they will meet to discuss career goals and do a compensation summary for the employee. Supervisors only need to enter information for HR around the goals (reflective plan) and the compensation summary. All other documentation stays with the supervisor.
At Daktronics, everyone participates in this new process. They have had great feedback that supervisors and staff love the new process, they feel it is less stressful and has eliminated a lot of roadblocks because now the information doesn’t need to go through all levels of supervision and HR to be approved.
Daktronics has found that these regular meetings have been able to address issues before they get too big and allow the supervisors and employees to focus on responsibilities & performance looking forward, rather than backware.
You can review the presentation they used to share this change on this link.
Larson
Larson has recently moved to a similar process, but look for 3 check ins each year each quarter. Supervisors are encouraged to do more if they are able.
Each check in is about looking foward and the expectation is supervisors address issues when they happen and not wait for the check in. During the check in, the supervisor asked 4 questions of each employee:
- What am I doing well?
- What do you need from me?
- What would you like to do differently?
- How can I help you with your career goals?
Larson supervisors like that they are not boxed into a specific conversation, no need to “check the box.” They do have 5 questions the supervisors are asked to answer and share with HR, but not with the employees. They have a toolkit that each supervisor has to review the process and share with their employees.
Supervisors have a separate annual meeting with employees to discuss their merit increase, but this is not done as part of a check in.
Final Thoughts
In both cases, the feedback from employees is they like the instant feedback and supervisors are able to address the performance and move on. Christine and Nicole both mentioned this helps bring out the best in people as no one is waiting around for feedback. Not everything about the 1:1 between supervisors and employees is shared with HR or even upper leadership, which each organization expects to build trust throughout the organizations.