McStain Neighborhoods Builds Human Element of Appraisal Process with Move to Web-Based System
Summary
McStain Neighborhoods, a leading developer and homebuilder in Colorado, was struggling with a quarterly review process that formed the basis for incentives in the employee-owned company. With the move to a web-based employee performance and talent management system from Halogen Software, the organization was able to:
- Reduce the administration required for the quarterly review process;
- Focus on how individual employees execute on overall corporate goals; and
- Place less emphasis on the process of filling in forms and more on one-on-one development of employees.
Corporate Profile
McStain Neighborhoods is a Colorado-based developer and homebuilder recognized both regionally and nationally for its environmentally responsible community design and building practices. For more than 40 years, McStain has created neighborhoods of enduring value that connect people to each other and to the natural environment on Colorado’s Front Range. The company received a Top Company award in 2007 from ColoradoBiz magazine, which recognizes companies for outstanding financial performance, operational aspects of their business and commitment to the community.
Challenge
As a leading residential builder, McStain Neighborhoods' workers and management are dispersed across various field locations. McStain was relying on a paper-based performance management system for their quarterly review process. The company is employee-owned and provides cash incentives to employees based on their performance.
"We were using Word documents and tables that people filled out by hand," explained Tony Elliott, Manager of Marketing Operations, McStain Neighborhoods. "With reviews being executed on a quarterly basis and forming the basis for the incentive system, performance measurement is critical to our compensation model."
In addition to the work involved with executing quarterly reviews and calculating incentives, a key priority for the HR team was to place more emphasis on the conversations between managers and employees regarding individual performance. With such a strong incentive system, managers had to clearly understand what they needed to communicate, and how to do this in a manner that improved performance and longer-term development.
With this in mind, the McStain team decided to look at ways to improve the overall process and automate their appraisal system.
Solution
McStain began researching and assessing the available commercial employee performance and talent management solutions, as well as some homegrown options, and identified Halogen Software as the best fit for the organization’s requirements.
"Halogen offered the complete package and didn’t require a massive investment of our resources to get it up and running," explained Elliott. "When compared to other vendors, such as SuccessFactors, the cost to implement and maintain the solution was extremely reasonable. The value and flexibility of the Halogen solution made it the clear winner."
Since selecting the Halogen solution, McStain employees have been trained on the system and the company has been able to easily create the employee evaluation forms required on an ongoing basis. "The solution is intuitive. I am able to execute changes on the system without support from IT, and when I do need help from Halogen they are friendly and able to quickly answer my questions. From the employee side of things, training is rarely required. When I roll out the solution to new employees, I explain our overall process so they understand our workflow and how it links to incentive compensation. However, they rarely need training on the software itself and don’t ask for help very often," stated Elliott.
Benefits
After implementing the new employee performance and talent management system from Halogen Software, McStain Neighborhoods has greatly improved the quarterly appraisal process and focused more on the human element of employee development.
"The Halogen system has made the quarterly appraisal system a lot better for us,"explained Elliott. "We have all the information from past appraisals, even the paper-based records, available electronically so we can establish a full record and accurately assess performance."
Being able to measure progress against goals over time, and driving employees to the right outcomes has been a major benefit to the organization. Now managers, directors and even executives can assess employee performance in context with company goals. Furthermore, as an organization there’s a greater employee focus on achieving organizational goals, and on thinking through and planning the steps required to meet goals on a quarterly basis.
"Going into this, we really needed to shift our thinking on employee appraisals away from being about filling out forms and doing calculations four times a year," said Elliott. "With the Halogen system, we’ve been able to drive employees towards clear goals, and get managers more engaged in developing their teams in order to achieve their goals. Now we have the right documentation and processes in place and can focus on constantly developing our employees. I am always recommending Halogen to other HR professionals, and I love to show off our system!"
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