BACKGROUND

Our client for this assignment was a forward looking charitable housing association with over 300 employees, managing over 2000 homes and providing care and support services for more than 500 people.

WHAT EXPERIENCE DOES OBSIDIAN HAVE IN THIS SECTOR?

We have worked with three social housing organisations and a wide range of other not-for-profit organisations

Nature of client's problem

The client had introduced a new performance management process two years ago. This had been generally well received but the HR Director felt that not everyone was applying it to best effect, with there being pockets of both good and bad approaches. We were asked to conduct an audit of the application of the new process with the aim of ensuring that the resources put into the performance management process added maximum value.

Obsidian's experience in this problem area?

Obsidian has considerable experience both of designing and implementing individual performance management systems from scratch, of reviewing and improving existing systems, and of auditing how well a system is being applied.

Objectives of Product/service offered by Obsidian

To provide an external review (‘audit’) of the operation of the housing association’s new performance management processes and provide feedback and recommendations to the association.

How the assignment was carried out

• Review of existing data.

  We first reviewed relevant results from a recent employee engagement Survey, HR records of plans from Managers showing when they would carry out appraisals, and numbers of appraisals on file in HR.

• Review of completed appraisal documents

  We reviewed a representative sample of completed appraisal documents to assess quality and consistency of approach e.g. had SMART objectives been set, had development needs been identified.

• Focus groups

  We then conducted focus groups to discuss what had worked well and what problems had been encountered both as appraiser and appraisee.

• Report

  We provided the client with analysis and an overall report on what we had found, together with concrete and pragmatic recommendations as to action that they should take.

Benefits for the client

• an impartial review of how well and consistently the new process is being applied, identifying problems and perceptions that could have festered if they had not been revealed
• the audit itself providing a reminder to people of why the process is important and the importance the association places on it, spurring them on to carry out the process well
• clear improvement actions that are making a real difference to the number of people receiving appraisals and the quality of those appraisals