Rapidly growing health plan provider, Capital District Physicians Health Plan, Inc. (CDPHP) recognized that its paper-based employee performance system could not provide them with the consistent or complete employee performance and talent management capabilities the organization needed to meet its dynamic needs. To meet these needs, CDPHP selected Halogen Software and is now able to:
- Understand its workforce potential and groom possible leadership successors from within and reduce risk;
- Align the goals of all employees with those of the organization, increasing employee involvement and focus; and
- Assess existing and potential talent gaps and build development plans that address these gaps.
Company Profile
CDPHP was founded by Albany, NY area physicians in 1984 as a not-for-profit individual practice association (IPA) model health maintenance organization (HMO). CDPHP and its affiliates have grown to serve nearly 400,000 people in 29 counties throughout New York State. It provides quality health care at a reasonable cost for its subscribers and operates as a model for the delivery, financing, and administration of health care services.
Challenges
Never ending cycle times: CDPHP's paper-based employee appraisal system took approximately two months from commencement to completion, which given its quarterly timing, meant the human resources team was constantly administering the process.
Lack of consistency: Another big problem was there were no clearly defined steps for those involved in the review to follow, nor were start and end dates predefined in the process. In addition, the paper-based system lacked an accurate method of monitoring the status of the employee appraisals. This meant, in reality, the process varied considerably from department to department.
Lack of intelligence for succession planning: The organization's quarterly performance appraisals included a review of job competencies as well as core values and behaviors. However, the information collected during each cycle could not be turned into any type of actionable intelligence for the organization as the process of generating reports was far too time consuming and labor intensive.
This meant CDPHP's existing employee appraisal system provided limited data resulting in holes in the organization's broader understanding of its employee performance, especially as it related to information required for succession planning. As a result, CDPHP did not have the information to accurately understand its workforce potential and its areas of retention risk, let alone groom possible successors from within and reduce risk.
The organization identified all the shortcomings of the paper-based method and began the search for a new system.
Solution
CDPHP began to research web-based employee performance and talent management systems with the following objectives in mind:
- Cut the review cycle time by 25 percent;
- Ensure consistency of the process throughout the organization; and
- Gain better insight into its workforce with valuable intelligence on core competencies, values and behaviors and make them a bigger part of the appraisal process.
An internal team at CDPHP was selected to research the various options and sit through demonstrations from various vendors, including Halogen Software and SuccessFactors.
The shortlist of vendors were judged against a list of criteria the organization wanted the new system to meet, the most important of which were goal-setting capabilities, ease of use, and value and efficiency. Halogen's eAppraisal™ solution came out on top, meeting all of the organization's needs.
In addition, the team at CDPHP was impressed with the ability to incorporate succession planning into the employee performance appraisal process via Halogen's award-winning succession planning solution. Halogen eSuccession™, which follows the proven best-practice talent pool model, was selected as an integrated module to complement eAppraisal. Using this approach, CDPHP is able to identify the skills and competencies required to support the organization's three to five year strategic plans. This gives the organization the ability to cultivate the necessary skills and competencies in high-potential employees with talent-pool focused career and development planning.
"Once we had decided on Halogen, we immediately began the implementation process," said Susan Karavolas, Director of human capital management at CDPHP. "It was a good experience for everybody involved and it was surprisingly easy. With each review cycle, participants find it easier and easier to use."
Benefits
CDPHP is excited about discovering new ways to use the powerful features the Halogen solution offers. The new system has already enabled the organization to better align the goals of its more than 800 employees with those of the company, and to effectively use the intelligence gathered during the appraisal process to reduce future risk and develop internal talent via succession planning.
"The way I envision it, our process is transforming our approach to talent management," said Karavolas. "We are moving away from seeing it as just an employee performance appraisal to an opportunity for employees to manage their careers and development. We now have a fully developed process made up of many important components - appraisals, goal setting and succession planning - which make it so much more than a simple employee performance appraisal."
Using the many reports available through the new system the organization has a better understanding of standout employees, and whether they are a top or low performer. This type of valuable reporting was simply not available using a paper-based system.
CDPHP has also begun using Halogen eSuccession for its succession planning process. The first step in this process was the organization's midyear review. Beginning with the management level, five questions were asked to gauge which managers were at high risk and which had high potential. Of the organization's 100 managers approximately 77 were rated as being high potential.
Based on industry best practices, the next step for CDPHP was to identify its talent pools. The organization has identified three talent pools within its management level - entry, mid and executive. With those three talent pools the organization has a leadership development program that focuses on the behaviors and traits that are linked to competencies within each talent pool. This ties everything together. The next step is fine tuning the pools and competencies and then assessing the gaps that exist for its 77 managers identified as having potential to move up in the organization. The plan is then to take that data and work on building specific development plans for each manager.
"We are going through a corporate change in strategy, and with that, our processes and systems are changing," said Karavolas. "By using Halogen eSuccession, we are able to identify talent needs that we may have as we continue to evolve. Now we have the power to address new areas as they emerge and successfully support our long-term vision."
Halogen has met all of CDPHP's expectations. The organization now has a single, consistent process and all participants - from senior management to entry-level employees - is involved and invested in it. CDPHP has been so pleased with Halogen's enterprise-class employee performance and talent management solution that it has already recommended Halogen to other organizations in the area.
