Employee Engagement
Platform
A retention strategy for the
City of Aurora
MY ROLE
Initial Research & Solution from 2017-2018:
I led the employee evaluation redesign committee for over a year. I held focus groups and interviews to get employee feedback and buy-in. I also researched best practices and analyzed survey results. As a committee we came up with some changes to the evaluation form and I presented these changes to several groups of key stakeholders including the City Manager and Deputy City Managers, the IT department and to a leadership summit of 500 supervisors.
​
New Iteration 2019:
I recently did a new iteration for a better solution. I then presented this redesign to key decision makers at the City including the HR director. My new solution is outlined in this case study.
Timeline
Initial research, focus groups, surveys, interviews, first iteration of a redesign= 7 months
​
New iteration of the employee evaluation form, & designed & presented a new concept, an employee engagement platform, to upper management of the City of Aurora= 2 months
Team
I led a committee of 6 employees to research & draft a redesign of the employee evaluations.
I later reiterated this design
and created a new platform
to attempt to solve the root problem this organization
was facing.
​
​
Tools
-
Adobe XD
-
Lucid Chart
-
Illustrator
-
PowerPoint
THE CHALLENGE
“US businesses lose
$11B/year due to employee turnover.”
(US Bureau of National Affairs)
An employee satisfaction survey concluded the annual review process was a problem that may be contributing to high turnover rates:
56% of non-supervisory & 70% of supervisory employees answered no when asked “do you feel the annual review format and process does a good job of evaluating you as an employee and providing useful & thorough feedback?”
Because of the high employee turnover and increased dissatisfaction, an innovation team called "SHIFT" was created to work on initiatives that would attract and retain high performing employees. I was asked to join this committee and then tasked with leading a sub-committee to tackle a project to overhaul the employee evaluation process.
​
Our Task:
Because turnover is high and everyone hates the employee evaluations, we need a new evaluation form and process to improve employee retention.
How will we know if it works?
​
-
Retention statistics will be analyzed before and after the pilot and years after to see if there's an improvement.
-
Focus groups, interviews and surveys will be conducted to see how the employees feel about the new product.
-
Supervisors will be asked to rate their employees on performance before and after the pilot.
A decline in turnover rates, an increase in productivity for employees, and a rise in overall engagement.
​
Solution:
As a team, the committee I led redesigned the employee evaluation form. We had also uncovered there was a big picture problem that needed to be addressed. I decided to further explore this problem in my own time, redesigned the evaluation form again and created an employee engagement platform to solve for the bigger problem. All of the steps I took to do this are outlined in this case study.
You may also save time and skip right to the solution....
RESEARCH & DISCOVERY
First task, find out if we are solving the right problem:
Do we just need a new employee evaluation, or something else?
In order to correctly define the problem, we analyzed the survey results in detail, held focus groups and individual interviews.
Research Results
What we found out:
​
-
Employees feel supervisors are checked out - can't respect supervisors who aren't present.
-
Supervisors are not giving constructive feedback and may only focus on negative information.
-
Employees want more mentoring, coaching and goal setting from their supervisors.
-
The current review is not tied to performance or incentives, creating a culture of mediocracy.
-
Employees feel the rating system is flawed, 3 options is not enough, their values are subjectively rated instead of performance or productivity, and everyone gets the same rating typically.
-
Almost everyone can agree that the current evaluation process is a waste of time and all parties dread them at the end of the year.
​​
​
​
What happens when managers lack management skills:
​
Is it the Supervisor or the System?
- I reviewed the Gallup studies (2015) to understand why these problems might be occurring
and what might be done to help.
​
​Why Supervisors Fail:
-
Only 1 in 10 people possess the talents needed to be an effective manager, training & development can only help another 20% improve.
-
Most supervisors are promoted based on tenure, experience and ability to do their current job, not on their ability to lead.
​
Why Should We Care?:
-
Managers account for 70% of the variance in employee engagement.
-
Disengaged managers cost the US economy $319 - $398 billion annually.
​
How Do We Improve Employee Engagement?:
-
Improve communication between employees and supervisors.
-
Supervisors and employees should align goals.
-
Supervisors should give constructive feedback and focus on employee strengths.
​​
​
New Problem Statement:
​​
Supervisors need a more effective solution to help them provide meaningful evaluations, feedback, goal setting and employee development, in order to increase employee motivation and engagement.
​
(A new evaluation form will be considered but the problem is greater than just needing a new form.)
​​
Design
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree & I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
-Unknown
Affinity Map & Personas
This was the best way for me to organize all of the research data, visualize it, and think about who I'm making this for, before deciding what to create.
Site Map
Since the City comprises several departments and job types, we needed a way to provide these tools to supervisors who might have minimal tech experience and not a lot of patience to learn anything too complicated. A dashboard with very simple capabilities was the best option to house these tools. I mapped out how a supervisor might access the tools and later tested the information architecture during the usability tests with wireframes, by asking participants to complete different tasks.
Wireframes
I did some research to see what solutions exist for employee engagement, and if there were any unmet needs that I could include in my product. There were some similar products out there, but most were too robust with countless features and capabilities, we really just needed a way to give supervisors the tools they need to lead their people. So I came up with an idea for a simple and upfront dashboard that just had what supervisors need for employee development, nothing extra. I decided I better do some usability testing on these wireframes since I hadn't tested the information architecture yet. I wanted to make sure supervisors could find the tools and if they understood how to use them.
Dashboard, Alerts, Goal Setting, Document Feedback
New Quarterly Employee Evaluation
1:1 Meeting Generator
Usability Testing
Who was tested: 5 employees from the City of Aurora
Hypothesis 1: Users would easily be able to start an employee evaluation.
Result: 5/5 users were able to start an evaluation on the first try.
​
Hypothesis 2: Users would easily be able to start 1:1 meeting prep. ​ Result: 5/5 users were able to start a 1:1 on the first try.
​
Hypothesis 3: Users would understand how to set a new goal.
Result: 2/5 users were able to set a new goal right away, 4/5 completed it eventually
​
Hypothesis 4: Users would understand how to mark goal progress.
Result: 4/5 users were able to mark their progress on goals.
​
​
Conclusion: The goal setting tool was the only area of confusion, this could be moved to the tabs on the left.
Style Guide
City of Aurora Branding Guidelines
The City already has a style guide of branding guidelines they follow. I used the colors, typography and logos from the branding guide and made my own style guide for the employee engagement website.
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
Solution
A one-stop shop for easier, more effective employee management and engagement.
​
Manager Dashboard
The employee view would be very similar.
Employee differences: employees wouldn't have an evaluations tab or a quick notes tab, and there would be a few different options under the other tabs. For example, for the 1:1 tab, the supervisor has a prep work option, where the employee would just get a list of optional questions to bring to the meeting and instructions on bringing goal sheets and other suggestions on how to come prepared.
1
2
3
4
5
6
​
Managers can access forms to fill out and use for in-person meetings with the employee, they can also send these forms to the employee through the platform and save them to the employee's file.
​
Managers can run reports to see all evaluations, 1:1 meetings and goal setting forms were gathered for a selected time period. This type of documentation helps for yearly evaluations when the manager needs evidence the employee deserves a bonus, or as proof for disciplinary purposes.
​
The goal graphics are there to quickly show the manager or employee (all managers and employees will be able to track their goals via their view of the platform) their goals and how far they have come. Having the goals front and center allows everyone to focus on goals, which promotes productivity instead of complacency.
​
The goal setting tool can be accessed and new goals can be added by clicking on the + icon next to Add New Goal.
​
Each goal has an update button, clicking on those buttons brings up the goal sheet that corresponds with each goal so progress can be updated.
​
The Team Activity feed is for anyone on the team to interact with each other by giving kudos, or updates on projects. The view can also be switched to the entire organization so whole teams can be recognized by upper management.
Dashboard Tour:
1
2
3
5
6
4
The Engagement Tools...
Employee Evaluation
Original Evaluation Form
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
​
Mixed feelings about the rating scale, most employees under the impression everyone gets “achieves” which sounds like a participation trophy
​
Supervisors are confused about how to rate the Core 4 objectives, i.e. how do you objectively quantify a person’s integrity?
​
Employees also feel their supervisors don’t know how to effectively rate them and they aren’t being given good explanations of why they just achieve integrity for example. They aren’t receiving effective feedback.
​
Supervisors are confused how to rate leadership for employees who aren’t in leadership roles. “Leadership” means different things to different people.
​
Supervisors are confused about how to come up with objectives and often leave that side blank or just fill it in with tasks that the employee completed or was already working on instead of setting some solid goals for the future.
​
Employees felt their performance wasn’t considered and they were just subjectively being judged on personality traits like integrity. The objectives side was meant to be for performance, but this was unclear to supervisors and many didn’t know what to do here.
Supervisors just give a total rating of what they think the employee should get. The employee could exceed in every category but the supervisor could still give them “achieves”.
1
Original Evaluation Form Problems:
2
3
7
4
5
6
New Evaluation Form
1
2
2
3
4
5
6
6
​
Changed the rating scale to colors. Words felt more personal, no one wants to be told they just “achieve” at their job, like they’re a C student. With colors the supervisor can just speak to how the employee’s goal is to stay out of the red and what they need to do to make that happen. It’s a softer way of developing an employee and helping them be productive at work instead of labeling them, labels are hard to shake.
​
Performance was added with criteria on what to look for in performance as well as an example of what a supervisor might say about performance in the text box. This gives the supervisor some tips around what they should be evaluating and how to give feedback. The example I gave in the text box was a teaching moment for supervisors, telling them how to explain why the employee was in the red on one of the criteria, possibly the employee is new and just hasn’t had the opportunity to show they are accomplishing their job description.
In the leadership section there is an icon to click on for examples if the supervisor is stuck on how to evaluate leadership in a non-supervisory employee.
The evaluation leads with strengths & accomplishments so the employee feels valued and the good things they do are noticed, they’re not just getting a participation trophy.
And for each of the Core 4 objectives (performance and integrity are pictured) criteria is given to better define how each objective might be translated into tangible work efforts. This way both supervisor and employee have a clear picture of what is to be evaluated and it becomes less subjective.
A calculator would be added so an automatic average of color ratings would appear at the bottom of each page and an accumulative total score would appear on the first page. This way the supervisor couldn’t just make up what score they think the employee should have, it’s based on real data.
1
2
New Evaluation Form Solutions:
3
4
5
6
Another Iteration
After using colors for the rating system, I realized this might not be the best option for someone who is color blind. Red also felt a little harsh and could create the same feelings as the words did in the old version.
New Solution: Sliders! The goal would be to move the slider all the way to the right by the end of the year. So as in the last version, each person is only competing with him/herself. They are no longer being compared to everyone in the department for the limited number of excellent scores allowed.
1:1 Meeting Tool (new idea)
1
1
1
1
2
​
Prompts managers on what to talk about in an effective 1:1 meeting for employee development & engagement.
By clicking on each + icon, lists of questions for each topic of conversation appear. The manager can choose to add any of these questions to the form to prompt better conversations around the topics of development, productivity, goal setting, & support.
​
* This tool makes planning meetings painless and easy for managers. Structured meetings are typically more efficient. The less pain involved in having 1:1 meetings, the more likely it is both manager & employee will have these meetings and actually get something out of them.
​
​
1
2
1:1 Meeting Tool Solution