The International Wholesale side of Standard Bank replaced its homegrown employee performance management and talent management system with a best of breed system to improve appraisal completion rates, system reliability and security, and overall appraisal quality. The new system enabled the organization to:
- Transform the process into one that is easier to use, more reliable and provides comprehensive reporting;
- Reduce the time needed to complete appraisals; and
- Raise the percentage of appraisals completed on time.
Company Profile
Standard Bank Group is a global bank with African roots. It is South Africa's largest bank, distinguished by its extensive operations in 17 African countries. Outside the African continent, Standard Bank's Wholesale Bank (CIB International, approx 1400 employees) spans 21 countries, with a focus on emerging markets.
For CIB International, employee performance and talent management is key to its ongoing strategic plan and success. The Bank is committed to an effective learning and development system, which includes developing the leadership competencies and skills of the Bank's managers and executives, and a number of initiatives to develop performance management. Because of this commitment, the Bank was extremely frustrated when previous performance management solutions failed to meet expectations.
Challenge
To support overall objectives related to performance management, the Bank moved from a paper-based process to a computer-based process designed in-house in 2001. This move was made to ensure the employee evaluation process was easier to manage and would offer complete reporting information on appraisal data.
By implementing its in-house system, the Bank had hoped to better support regulatory compliance, as well as the overall annual review process. However, there were issues with the system it developed.
The Bank's head of IT, suggested seeking an outside vendor to provide an affordable, effective performance management solution. Standard Bank's head of IT did not see the logic behind using in-house resources when proven, best-in-class systems were available. Developing an in-house system taxed the resources of the Bank's developers whose primary responsibility was to support core business functions. The IT department had already been tasked with providing infrastructure for the organization in order to grow the bank; providing an enterprise class employee performance and talent management system could not be their top priority.
Solution
The London office of CIB International made the decision to go with Halogen very quickly. "We got Halogen's contact information from our Wholesale colleagues in South Africa," said Frances Haughian, HR Consultant with CIB International. "They had been exploring using the system there and have recently decided to go with Halogen themselves."
Within two weeks of the Bank setting up a meeting with Halogen representatives and scheduling a demonstration, they made the decision to go with Halogen. "Our team needed a solution that would be first and foremost stable," said Haughian. "It also needed to be easy to use and flexible enough to maintain the same look and feel as the previous process, so that our people did not see the new system as a massive change to the way they carried out appraisals."
The Bank wanted the new solution to mirror the format of the old performance appraisal process, which included past objectives and its own set of competencies. Even though the system was new, the Bank wanted the form to look very similar to the one it had used the previous year in order to increase employee acceptance. Halogen eAppraisal™ could accommodate all the Banks requirements and in addition, Halogen had a solid history of supporting other companies on a large scale. "We needed something that could easily cope with our numbers and our potential growth," said Haughian.
After struggling to develop an in-house system for two years, Standard Bank was excited that it was able to implement Halogen eAppraisal in under a month. A Halogen trainer spent one week with the Bank in London training employees, developing end-user training and building the Bank's performance appraisal forms. Within a few weeks the first appraisals were under way.
The organization took advantage of Halogen eAppraisal's flexibility and the opportunity the solution gave the HR department to re-evaluate the appraisal process. "In the first year we used eight forms, as there were different competencies for each level of job," said Haughian. "In the second year, we changed the competency framework and we were able to reduce the number of forms to two. One was for the majority of our employees and the other was for IT, as they had their own technical competencies."
Employees have embraced the solution and their investment in the system has increased every year. There was an element of resistance to the idea of performance appraisals in the past that HR had to overcome initially, but, in part because of Halogen eAppraisal's ease of use, that issue is being resolved.
To make implementation and future maintenance as simple as possible, the Bank chose to have Halogen host the solution, taking the administrative pressure off its internal IT department. Having Halogen host the solution assured the organization that updates would be made automatically and that its information would be secure.
Results
Since implementing Halogen eAppraisal, Standard Bank has benefited from:
- Improved completion rates;
- More easily accessible performance management data that can be used throughout the year to support the Bank's philosophy of on-going performance management; and
- A more stable and secure system.
Standard Bank is continuing to shorten the time it takes to complete its performance appraisals and to further increase its on-time completion rate. "This year we are looking to have all our appraisals completed within two months," said Haughian.
The speed of employee appraisals has increased, but perhaps more importantly the quality has improved with Halogen eAppraisal. People are more comfortable working within the system and using the authoring aids and links to competencies than they were writing everything out by hand. Managers now take the time and use the comment helper to provide more constructive feedback to employees. "In some cases, managers struggled to comment on competencies. It was not very informative," said Haughian. "Now managers can click on a competency area on the screen and a pop up box appears with a list of behaviors that exist within our competency framework. The information is all there for them. As a result, it is easier for managers. They don't need to refer to separate documents."
In addition, as the Bank has implemented the solution it has taken the time to enhance its overall process, taking advantage of the powerful features offered as part of Halogen eAppraisal. "We make subtle changes each year," said Haughian. "To further help managers and reduce the time it took to complete the appraisal process we have reduced the number of workflow steps from eight to four."
The Bank's aim was to introduce a reliable, easy-to-use employee performance appraisal system. Halogen eAppraisal has provided the Bank with the stability and reliability it desired and has enabled the organization to achieve dramatically improved on-time completion rates. The Bank looks forward to watching the benefits appreciated by CIB International expand as CIB South Africa now begins its implementation of Halogen eAppraisal.
