Matt Planells, People Development Manager
Outdoor & Cycle Concepts Ltd (O&CC) is the largest premium outdoor retailer in the UK, with well-known high street brands including Cotswold Outdoor, Snow + Rock and Runners Need.
OCC wanted to move to a new approach for managing colleague appraisals, which would have benefits for employee development, retention and business resourcing. This involved switching from a manual paper process to a digitised, standardised system across the business.
The People Development team at O&CC worked closely with the Breeio team to deliver on strategic priorities for the new system. These included…
The need: A consistent approach to performance reviews would help ensure quality across the organisation, regardless of department, location or manager.
How does Breeio help? Moving to a single process, housed within O&CC's existing and familiar Learning Management System (Breeio), enables consistency, ease of access, and an ability for the organisation's leaders to have confidence in the quality and regularity of performance reviews across the business.
The need: Helping managers and colleagues to have more visibility of the review process would help them to be better prepared for the review meetings and to gain more input/insights from them.
How does Breeio help? Providing the review forms in advance enables colleagues to know what to expect and prepare for their meetings in advance. Managers can see their team's development records, schedule meetings, and keep track of learning. All this in a user-friendly, intuitive and visually appealing interface that saves time.
The mobile-friendly/multi-device review form is easy to access from a head office or shop location, and enables a collaborative approach for an improved conversation.
Even from the pilot phase, it was evident that the conversations were much better. People Development Manager Matt Planells says:
Throughout our pilot stages and into the first round of reviews, our manager population have overwhelmingly fed back that their people are more engaged and better prepared for their performance reviews.
The need: O&CC wanted to get an easy-to-access overall view of appraisals across the organisation, to help them understand development needs, as well as to identify resourcing requirements (e.g. filling capability gaps by identifying talent in other locations).
Managers needed reports that save time and help them report back to head office more efficiently, as well as having all their teams' records in one easy place.
How does Breeio help? The business has easy access to a whole raft of reporting to show performance across the organisation. Managers can easily access information at team and individual level, identify training needs, and save time preparing for review meetings.
A talent grid (similar to the one shown here) helps managers and the organisation identify, develop and retain talented people.
It's also much easier to support colleague mobility, with colleagues who move between stores, or managers joining a team no longer needing to carry their records with them, as their information is all within the system.
And for the People Development team, there is a reporting console that gives them:
An example of Breeio's Review System reporting console - data is not based on O&CC.
The People Development team and leaders can also use reporting that see which stores are facing challenges , and where particular managers might need support.
The need: With a workforce that includes full-time and part-time employees in head office and in stores, as well as weekend, seasonal and zero contract colleagues, it was important to O&CC that a new appraisal system would be flexible and allow managers and team-members to set how frequently they meet.
How does Breeio help? The system empowers managers to set frequency of reviews appropriately, keep track of how often they meet, and to schedule future dates for the next meeting.
The need: Having a view of where employee talent is currently located across the business, alongside what and where the resourcing gaps are, would better enable the business to match these up for resourcing and succession planning.
How does Breeio help? Analytics can be used to spot where talent currently is, as well as development plan insights and career aspirations - for example, a visual matrix based on the talent development grid can be used to help fill resourcing gaps effectively, as well as to identify learning needs and trends across the business.
An example of Breeio's talent matrix report - data is not based on OCC.
Questions can also be included in the performance review that help match these resourcing opportunities - for example, asking colleagues whether they're willing to relocate - therefore allowing the business to create reports on who could be approached internally for vacancies.
Managers can see previous records of those colleagues who have moved between locations, which helps them get up to speed quickly with development needs and career progression.
O&CC's People Development team are exploring further benefits of Breeio's Review System. They are interested in the 'conversation' side of the system for capturing other types of interactions, including one-to-ones, end-of-probation reviews, feedback, observations and group conversations. This would mean all performance conversations and reviews can be found in one place.
We'd love to talk more about how your organisation could benefit from Breeio's People Performance system
Contact the support team at hello@breeio.com.
