Harcourt Education

Need:

During 2002, Harcourt Education, part of the Reed Elsevier Group, was experiencing cultural change. The company was shifting to become a global organization, creating new challenges and new competition. This also revealed a need to establish consistency throughout its people processes, as well as tools to systematically manage individual performance. Despite this, managers lacked confidence in their abilities to handle effectively these new people processes, especially performance management discussions with subordinates. Furthermore, employees were wary of a system that lacked clarity about links to pay as well as other matters.

Solution:

Harcourt Education worked with DDI to radically shift performance evaluation, with self-appraisal as the starting point. Also, the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) format, a model based on behavioral evidence, was introduced. Self-nominated senior managers served as training facilitators, sending a strong positive message about how the new system was viewed as a business-owned, rather than an HR, process.

Results:

The programme received highly positive course evaluation from the 140 managers and 500 staff, and positive feedback from course facilitators. Winning managerial support early in the process was highly important. And managers continue to report their learning was useful in their jobs, not just for appraisal training.