Case Study - Somerfield Kwik-Save: Lifting Performance

There was much at stake when Robin White and the Organisational Development Team at one of the UK’s biggest employers in retailing – Somerfield and Kwik Save stores, began researching and designing a new Performance Management system.

The key risks of not completing the project were:

• Poor staff morale due to inconsistent standards of performance review and reward
• Low commitment and enthusiasm for performance management leading to poor motivation and a general lack of direction and purpose.

The mammoth task involved several months study to identify need. This led to development of a framework communicating twelve core elements of the new 'Lifting Performance' system, a set of core competencies and the planning and design of communication workshops for 2500 Senior Managers, Executives and Branch Managers at 35 locations.

The main drivers of the project were:

• To ensure that performance was evaluated consistently and fairly
• To gain a greater commitment and enthusiasm for performance management
• To empower staff to take a greater responsibility for their own performance and development

Robin, a management development specialist who at the time of the project in 2002 was Somerfield’s Management Development Manager, needed to be sure that communication of the core elements and inter-linked help and advice back-up were 100 per cent effective. He chose OPC as the project partner because of its track record in helping staff at all levels understand and get behind new initiatives through fun workshops and inspiring and thought provoking presentational material.

Robin said: "All the elements are intrinsically linked and work together to lift performance. A piecemeal approach would have ruined the project. It was essential to get everyone behind the system from the beginning.

"I designed workshops with OPC to re-frame performance management for participants - helping them to find powerful mindsets for implementing the new approach. These were run for large groups and used cross-functional frontline staff as trainers to demonstrate how the project crossed all functional boundaries. Because the workshops are well structured they are easy to run and don’t take as long and as much time as conventional training."

At the heart of the campaign were a fresh set of set of “company behaviours” - key standards that the organisation required its employees to demonstrate – those that it felt demonstrated its values and were performance and results enhancers. These included Drive for Results, Self Development and Customer Focus which is about demonstrating a commitment to understanding and exceeding the expectations of customers, both internal and external.

“The OPC process demonstrated so much of what we were trying to achieve with this project. It’s fun and involving structure coupled with relevant content, enabled participants to really explore their own views on this area – rather than have another set of ‘How to Manage’ rules and regulations to swallow. People became quickly engaged by the workshop messages. The OPC process is also designed to encourage feedback, thus enabling us to use the views of all those involved in the continued developing of this piece of work,” Robin said.

The 35 workshops ran from April 2003 to September 2003 at various locations in the United Kingdom.

Another key element was the design of a support network though a web site launched as part of the integrated learning approach. With the content designed and written by Robin, this site provided useful information enabling staff to begin using the newly developed process.