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Aramco Services Company (ASC), the growing U.S.-based subsidiary of the world's leading oil producing and exporting company, Saudi Aramco provides a critical link between its parent company and North American operations. However as ASC grew, the leadership team found managing their talent on paper untenable. ASC turned to Halogen for a powerful, yet simple alternative and as a result was able to:
- Launch an intuitive, easy-to-use system in under three months;
- Win employee engagement through a well structured and timed employee orientation and rollout schedule;
- See performance review completion rates jump from 65 to 81 per cent shortly after implementation;
- Align training and development opportunities with the performance appraisal process; and
- Save over 120 hours of HR administrative time.
A Vital Connection Between North American and Middle East Operations
Established in 1950, ASC’s core services include recruiting professionals for careers in Saudi Arabia; working with suppliers and vendors to provide Saudi Aramco with goods and services; providing engineering services to projects and other operations; and administering the College Degree Program and training opportunities for Saudi Aramco-sponsored students and employees in North America. In addition to its Houston headquarters, ASC maintains an office in Washington, D.C.
Finding the Right Fit
Reliant on a paper-based system for years, performance evaluations at ASC weren’t given the attention they deserved and would get hung up at review and final sign-off stages. People didn’t know where in the process their evaluations were; members of the HR team were forever tracking paper trails and following up with individuals responsible for bottlenecks. Recognizing changes had to be made, and being very much in tune with how effective an online talent management system could be, Ty Vogel, HR Administrator, tasked his team to research and compare top talent management vendors.
Armed with budgetary backing and executive support, Senior Training and Development Advisor, Derek Eppler, and five colleagues began to look at several talent management vendors, among them Halogen Software, Kenexa, Sonar6 and SuccessFactors. “Typically 65 per cent of reviews were getting done on time while 35 per cent were lost in space with some 10 to 15 per cent not being completed at all. We knew we had to act on this matter. With new management arriving in the next year we wanted to get the ball rolling.”
Following a series of proposals and online demonstrations, Eppler and his team narrowed their selection down to Halogen.
Eppler is quick to point out that the most important trait ASC was looking for was ease-of-use. “We have a very tenured workforce here; the average employee age is 47 and we have about 350 employees. We knew we needed something that was not cumbersome. The Halogen user interface was very easy to navigate. We loved the tab system. It just worked so well. All of us were sold on that.”
Transforming Corporate Culture
To counter any internal resistance the new evaluation system might meet, Eppler and team trained with a Halogen representative and drew on the support of “a lot of subject matter experts.” They then conducted six live training sessions: two supervisory-level sessions and four employee sessions to orient people with the Halogen system. “This got incredible buy-in; everyone was able to see just how simple it was to use and we saw some transformation right then and there.” After the learning sessions many of those individuals who wanted to retain the paper approach, who complained about the system they hadn’t yet seen and were hesitant from the get go “were pretty much sold on how intuitively easy it was to use and how it was going to simplify the process, ” continued Eppler.
If Eppler were to suggest anything to others implementing the system within their company, he’d stress timing the training close to the actual launch date. Everything was fresh. Content experts and HR power users were trained, up to speed and able to hit the ground running. “Don’t do it too far in advance,? he cautions. “Short and sweet works best; give only need-to-know information to kick the process off, and have good people in place to answer any questions.”
Simplicity at its Best
Simplicity and buy-in weren’t the only benefits. Eppler summarizes the conundrum at ASC prior to Halogen: “We had a couple of HR assistants who would spend a great deal of time following up on the process, trying to locate where the roadblocks were. Did the employee even fill out their self appraisal and get it to the manager on time? It was an absolute mess.” To compound matters, all of those paper copies had to be scanned and labeled and entered into the company’s data base so that they could be retrieved as electronic files. Eppler estimates that took two staff at least 120 hours; that’s time now free for more strategic tasks.
Impressed by what he considers a significant time savings, Eppler says Halogen eAppraisal also holds people more accountable to complete the process, a fundamental benefit given that ASC’s policies require supervisors to conduct an annual performance appraisal with their employees.
Additionally, Eppler notes, ASC now incorporates its dynamic training schedule into development plans during the appraisal process. Employees are able to review some 45 to 50 courses, identify their training needs and then discuss them and other development opportunities with their supervisors. “We just thought that was a huge addition to what we had in the past. So that was a big win for us. I’ve seen that used a lot. I mean a lot! ”
The entire implementation, from contract approval to rollout via Halogen’s on-demand environment, was just shy of three months. And by all accounts, execution and ongoing support services have been “fantastic.” Whenever questions have surfaced about the process or the software, “it’s just been an absolute joy to contact customer service,” says Eppler. “We feel like we’re the only customer.”
Launch year netted ASC an 81 per cent completion rate, a response that more than met initial expectations. According to Eppler, as the company continues to explore and expand its online talent management capabilities, others in closely related organizations are turning to the company for advice. “We’ve been in discussions about online performance management and our experience. Our industries, after all, are closely related. So we hope to be able to help them chose a vendor and Halogen will get a very high recommendation from us.”
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