Professional Services Firm Builds Up the Bottom Line, Saving $100,000 Per Year with New Employee Performance Management System
Company Profile
WHPacific, formerly ASCG Incorporated, was founded in 1981 and has grown from a single-discipline, local consulting firm to a large, multi-office firm with approximately 700 employees. It offers a full range of architectural and engineering services. The company is headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska, and currently has offices in 17 cities across eight states.
In 2001, as a quickly-growing professional organization, WHPacific was looking to streamline and better track its employee performance management (EPM) process. It also wanted to assure its highly-skilled employees that annual appraisals and goal-setting were well-managed and objective. WHPacific selected and implemented Halogen eAppraisal™ to automate these processes.
Challenge
In the past, WHPacific had relied on a paper-based system to manage annual employee performance appraisals and goal setting for its employees. Managers would prepare and complete a paper employee evaluation form and then provide a copy of the form to anyone else the employee worked for. This sometimes meant HR had to gather four or five evaluations for a single employee. The employee performance appraisals then had to be compiled and vetted by HR before being shared with the COO and CEO.
“To keep a pulse on our team and assist with corporate and individual goal-setting, our CEO and our COO read every employee evaluation,” said Juliana R. Cobb, House Counsel/VP, Administration, WHPacific. “However, with offices spread across the United States, most of our completed appraisals had to be manually mailed to them. When handling this much paper, things were occasionally lost, resulting in wasted effort, as well as employee concern.”
Once an appraisal form was completed and had received sign-offs at all levels, it would be sent back to the manager who would meet with the employee to set key performance goals for the next year. This process could take as much as six months from end-to-end. “This [paper process] was taking far too long and ate up too much time for our HR team,” said Cobb. “We were concerned that we lacked accountability and the ability to track the status of appraisals, and we needed to ensure that we were being consistent with reviews across the company.”
Solution
Cobb began looking into automated EPM systems in late 2001. Among her “must have” requirements were ease of use, as well as robust reporting functionality. She was also looking for a hosted solution so that WHPacific’s IT department would not be burdened by the implementation. “We had already been through a few lengthy software implementations. Any new software implementation had to be easy. I had to be able to do it myself.”
After completing the Halogen eAppraisal demonstration, Cobb recognized its ease-of-use and value-add features. “Our managers liked that they could just click a button and automatically send the appraisal out for third party review. The most impressive advancement was that we could now strategically weigh various elements of the appraisal,” said Cobb. “Categories on a form could be uniquely weighted and the form would generate an overall score. The algorithms in the software allowed us to improve from just scoring every evaluation criteria equally, which enabled us to set performance goals in a very individualized way.”
WHPacific has been able to structure Halogen eAppraisal around five basic employee evaluation forms for each of its processes. “The system has proven to be very flexible enabling us to redesign and re-invent our forms as we evolve,” said Cobb “This past review cycle we made improvements that made it simpler for managers to rate employees. As the administrator, being able to constantly improve our processes has been relatively easy.”
As a professional service firm, WHPacific’s greatest assets are its employees, as revenues rely on their knowledge and productivity. A key advantage of automating the EPM process is being able to effectively manage talent, maximizing their abilities by providing timely and relevant feedback on their performance.
“Our firm is spread out over eight states, and moving to Halogen’s web-based system provided us with a number of key features that enabled us to track the progress of reviews, move documents and file final appraisals with the least amount of paper,” explained Cobb. “At the end of the day, this means we’re focusing on providing quality feedback to our employees, and enabling them to act on that information so we can constantly improve our revenue and the services we provide to our clients.”
Results
Since implementing Halogen eAppraisal, WHPacific has experienced significant cost and time savings, improved the depth and quality of feedback to employees, and streamlined the process for managers and executives, all without the need for in-house IT support.
Time and Cost Savings
WHPacific has experienced significant time savings in its EPM process since implementing Halogen eAppraisal. “Before eAppraisal we had a process that was taking six months from start to finish, and often did not complete successfully. Now we are able to complete the entire 600-plus person appraisal process consistently in just three months,” said Cobb. “Perhaps more importantly, I now have the ability to monitor and account for every person and every step along the way in that process.”
Halogen eAppraisal has also helped WHPacific streamline their employee performance appraisal process, making it more efficient with each review cycle. “Over time we have been able to eliminate steps and simplify the entire process. Ultimately, this leads to even greater time savings for our team,” added Cobb.
In addition to time savings, WHPacific has realized substantial cost savings. “My estimate is that we save about $100,000 in productive time each year, which in a billable, professional services organization such as ours is significant,” stated Cobb. “Cutting overhead and freeing up our professionals gives us more time to service and sell to our clients.”
WHPacific’s CEO has also experienced a personal improvement in the company’s EPM process. “Halogen’s solution provides me with visibility into the appraisal process and I can easily look at any or all evaluations in a matter of minutes,” said John McClellan CEO. “As CEO, I review and approve evaluations for our senior-level people and our new system has greatly simplified the review process for all involved, saving us time and money.”
In-Depth Reviews with Hard Metrics
With a staff consisting mainly of highly trained professionals, WHPacific provides all employees with a comprehensive review, which includes a combination of hard metrics for incentive compensation, and conventional evaluation measurements for salary reviews. “Our EPM system has enabled us to incorporate various measurements of performance in a single program,” explained Cobb. “Our employees appreciate having a complete snapshot of qualitative and quantitative measures of their performance.”
Hosted Delivery for Controlled Costs
Using Halogen’s hosted delivery of eAppraisal, WHPacific is able to eliminate the need for any in-house IT support for the solution and Cobb automatically receives program upgrades, maintenance and technical troubleshooting support.
“In-house IT services are very costly, and our IT people, like most, are very busy and focused on our core corporate network needs. Understandably, keeping an in-house EPM system up to date with patches and new versions wouldn’t be their highest priority,” said Cobb. “I like knowing I can rely on Halogen. We are kept up to date with new software versions as soon as they come out. With our service, tech support is readily available and our costs are controlled. Best of all, I know that Halogen’s core focus is their technology, so we are getting a best-of-breed solution.”
WHPacific continues to use eAppraisal for its company-wide performance appraisals and is looking forward to continued improvements in key metrics. “This year, with a recent simplification of our appraisal form, we are aiming for just six weeks from opening the EPM process to shutting it down,” said Cobb. “Halogen is a great partner for us and is constantly working with us to further improve the technology and the process. I would recommend Halogen to anyone looking for an EPM solution.”
