Piloting performance in the City of Whittlesea

It can be risky to commit to new technology, especially if you’re introducing a new, organization-wide program. How can you build leadership buy-in for a significant investment without any concrete data to support it? That was the challenge facing the municipal government of the City of Whittlesea.

The City of Whittlesea is located in the outer north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, approximately 25 kilometers from the central business district. It is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in Australia with a population of more than 229,000 people. The city’s council plays a vital role in keeping the city running, while shaping the future of the municipality.

To deliver on their broad plan to create a “great workplace for all,” the City of Whittlesea needed a comprehensive, user-friendly performance tool. Before fully investing in a new platform, ensuring top-down buy-in was a priority, so they decided to create a pilot program that would demonstrate the value of investment.

Petar Jurcic, the Organizational Development Consultant, and Andrea Whitelaw, the Unit Manager Of Organizational Development, sit in the People and Culture Department and are dedicated to driving internal initiatives. Their team works hand-in-hand with internal customers as self-described “improvers” – whether it’s helping an individual reach their potential or an entire team or department. They believe every team member should feel seen, heard, and valued.

Working toward a seamless, holistic performance tool 

Andrea and Petar wanted to inspire everyday greatness across the organization’s teams. However, they needed the right performance tools to support their vision. While the city had already moved on from paper processes five years prior, the replacement solution they had in place was disjointed. 

“[Upgrading from paper] felt like growth and improvement – and it was. But then you realize quickly it’s still not good enough. If different parts of what you need to build the story of a person’s performance are in different places, that’s not an easy, user-friendly experience," remarked Andrea.

Their disjointed experience wasn't unique – recent studies have shown that company performance management systems have a -60 net promoter score, meaning most users are very unhappy with their solutions. When it came to their own performance tools and protocols, Andrea and Petar faced a few significant challenges.

Many team members were going through the motions, completing process for process sake. The city’s performance processes were not purpose-built, and ended up being a rote exercise rather than a meaningful channel for development. That left both managers and employees feeling frustrated and unheard.

The performance tool itself provided poor user experience. It was not intuitive for users and was unable to integrate with other key development platforms. Petar and Andrea did not have the means to capture the data and metrics to help inform the holistic needs of the organization. 

Finally, the tool had another significant pitfall – it lacked empathy, taking a more clinical approach to performance and development conversations, rather than a people-centric one. 

Proving tangible benefits to build buy-in

The City of Whittlesea had previously worked with Culture Amp’s Continuous Feedback tool. They had seen a positive response to the phased adoption of the tool and how it effectively garnered buy-in from the organization’s key stakeholders. 

To reach the standard of performance and development that would truly enable everyday greatness, Andrea and Petar again saw an opportunity in a Performance Management pilot program that would build on the success of the phased adoption of the Continuous Feedback tool.

“The pilot approach was the ideal foundation to begin from, because it allowed small groups from different departments to sample the process in the platform and provide us with unbiased feedback of their experience," explained Petar.

The ultimate objective was to enable more effective and impactful development across the organization. “We could then use that as evidence as a basis to continue the consultation across the business, giving us confidence in why we believed it would be of good benefit and being able to fine tune the self-reflection and review questions through that process as well,” Petar explained. 

To do this, the performance pilot program leveraged three key elements to demonstrate its value, showing how it would work cross-functionally in order to gain critical leadership buy-in: representative test groups, consultation with leadership groups, and a two-phased approach.

1. Representative test groups
   There were 66 test users – or trailblazers, as they were dubbed –  that were representative of the different departments and types of users that would interact with Culture Amp’s Performance Management solution regularly. They welcomed volunteers from the people and culture, economic development, and the office of the CEO. Both team members and supervisors participated to illuminate the nuance of each perspective in the process.
2. Consultation with Leadership Groups
   Andrea and Petar understood that the change management process among the executive leadership and department leadership teams would be as important as the actual adoption of the Performance Management solution. Petar took the lead on the rollout, setting clear expectations and channels of support for the participating leadership groups to make adoption as seamless as possible. Robust, honest feedback was also an essential piece to the puzzle.
3. Two-phased approach
   The city chose to begin the pilot in the middle of the fiscal year. This allowed Andrea and Petar to run two phases of the pilot program, incorporating the robust feedback from phase one into phase two. They believed that this approach would encourage the senior leaders to ultimately greenlight the Performance Management solution, since they would have a hand in shaping it. 

After the second phase of the pilot program ended, Petar and Andrea had tweaked their process, informed by the improvements suggested from the first phase. This version of the solution successfully gained the critical buy-in from leadership they needed to roll out the solution to the entire organization, just in time for the start of the fiscal year. 

Phasing in a human-centric performance process that makes people feel valued 

The City of Whittlesea had visions of connection and people-centric development when they began their pilot program. By the end, they had a tested solution they felt confident would help them achieve their goals. 

Andrea shared, "All of these things build the relationship. And without the relationship, you haven’t got a chance of building the team and the organization.”

While Andrea and Petar are still in the early stages of wide implementation, they have already seen promising results:

• Rollout to 1,100 users
  Petar and Andrea took the success of the pilot and hit the ground running, introducing Culture Amp’s Performance Management solution to 16 times the number of test users across the organization. While the full rollout was a significant jump in users, the gradual introduction of the solution during the pilot made adoption feel more like an evolutionary process tied to small calibrations rather than an overwhelming, immediate change. 
• Tailored solution
  Because of direct feedback from the pilot adopters, the City of Whittlesea’s Performance Management pilot program had already ironed out many of the kinks, in terms of user experience. As it was rolled out broadly, Andrea and Petar heard positive feedback about the solutions’s ease of setup and accessibility, even from those less comfortable with technology. This was a marked improvement over the prior hard-to-use software in place.
• Interconnected goals
  The City of Whittlesea left their check-the-box mindset in the past, finally supported by a solution that tied individual goals to those of the entire organization. This has allowed team members to focus on their own performance and development, while tying their efforts into the bigger picture. It’s helped people find their place within the organization. 

Fostering ongoing, meaningful discussions

The City of Whittlesea can now empower meaningful performance conversations happening in regular 1-on-1s and larger performance and development plan (PDP) reviews. The consistency of these discussions are helping to build a foundation of trust, support, and empathy that has given team members and their managers the opportunity to share feedback openly and honestly.

Ultimately, Petar and Andrea’s goal was to enable impactful discussions that would empower true development for the city’s employees, making them feel seen and valued. The various tools on Culture Amp’s platform, especially the people scientist-crafted questions, have supported the genuine reflection and trust building that will propel the organization forward. Not only do conversations feel more meaningful, but the team now has access to important metrics that will help guide the city to make more informed decisions across the organization.

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Empower performance your way with Culture Amp

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