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Taking the Performance Management to the New Level with ServiceNow

This federal government agency responsible for economic analysis used performance appraisals to make decisions related to employee development, promotions, and compensation. As is the case in many organisations, the performance review process involved setting specific and measurable goals for each employee and providing periodic feedback about the employee’s performance relative to those goals. With over 500 employees to oversee, the agency recognised the need to drive efficiencies with a performance management technology solution and turned to ServiceNow. 

After implementing ServiceNow to facilitate its performance management process, the agency recognised there was an opportunity to improve the system and further optimise performance appraisals. By enlisting Thirdera to implement a number of custom enhancements post-implementation, the agency has been able to improve its appraisal process to boost efficiency, employee satisfaction, and performance.

 

Company Profile

Size: 500 employees     |     Industry: Government     |     Location: United States

 

Key Challenges

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The existing application lacked a structured organisational chain approval process. Appraisal sign-off requests were sent to every level of the approval chain at once—from an employee’s manager to their executive leader. 

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Without process tracking, there was no way to determine the status of a performance appraisal at any given point. Leadership could not quickly see where the employees were at in the performance process.

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Performance appraisals hold sensitive data. Whilst the existing application had business rules in place to prevent unauthorised access to this data, the way they had been set up created a confusing user experience.

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Leadership wanted to increase user adoption by rolling out the performance appraisal application agency-wide. The agency also wanted to demonstrate the new performance application and its functionality to other government agencies.

The federal agency had already implemented ServiceNow for performance management, but the application lacked reliability. As one example, the wrong records were updated during the import process, resulting in critical errors. Furthermore, the application was not scoped to the agency’s needs. Instead, the performance application sat in the Global scope, making it a shared resource that could be modified by anyone with the appropriate role. Any changes could negatively impact the application, resulting in a frustrating lack of control.

The agency’s performance management application was also not intuitive for users, so leadership wanted to add features and capabilities to lower barriers to use. They sought to make the application simpler to interact with by allowing access to the application through ServiceNow’s Service Portal.

These challenges resulted in a disjointed and opaque performance appraisal process that wasted time, resulted in data errors, and frustrated employees and managers alike.

 

Our Solution

The agency’s leadership team knew it needed to build a more intuitive, personalised, and secure performance appraisal application. Although they had already implemented ServiceNow, they wanted to improve the application to enhance visibility and more effectively meet the agency’s goals. Given Thirdera’s experience as the world’s largest pure-play ServiceNow partner, the agency turned to Thirdera to improve and enhance its performance appraisal application.

With the help of Thirdera, the agency was able to create a custom scoped application in ServiceNow. Using ServiceNow’s Service Portal as the main interface, the organisation was also able to empower employees with a more engaging, intuitive self-service experience.

 

The Result

Control
Thirdera rebuilt the application in its own scope, which improved the control and stability of the application. Changes performed in one application scope no longer affect other application scopes.

Visibility
Employees can now check on the progress of their plan through a customised tracker. Employees and supervisors can see where the appraisal is in the process with a user interface that graphically highlights the current state of the performance appraisal.

Efficiency
The agency no longer has to deal with unnecessary approvals. Workflows now route the approval to the correct approver in the agency organisation chart. Upper management only handles approvals that first pass through the proper channels.

Security
By identifying and restricting access to particular files and data, employee data now has increased protection. Access controls on specific data fields hide sensitive data from employees based on their roles in the agency.

User Experience
Performance appraisals are no longer a dreaded event. With a simple, easy-to-use performance management solution, employee satisfaction, engagement, and adoption have all increased.


Thirdera’s technical and business consultative guidance enabled the agency to customise the application to support its broader employee needs. By streamlining the performance management process and leveraging automated workflows, leadership is no longer bombarded with requests that have not gone through the proper channels. It’s saved the agency critical time and resources, improving productivity at all levels of the organisation.

With improved analytics, the agency can now also use external data sources to provide performance ratings, salary increases, and bonus amounts for each employee. This means that the agency can ensure it acts equitably and consistently—a must when it comes to modern performance management.

Thirdera also implemented a number of automation enhancements to improve the completeness and accuracy of employee data in the application. Certain elements of the employee’s appraisal are auto-populated based on their group membership, for example, reducing time spent on data input. Employees no longer need to manually enter mandatory critical elements, improving both the quality of the data and the application’s ease of use.

Thirdera’s implementation enabled this federal agency to have a uniform, secure, and transparent performance appraisal process. With the custom ServiceNow application, the agency has been able to enhance employee performance, productivity, and morale, ultimately creating a stronger and more effective organisation.

 

About Thirdera

The largest pure-play ServiceNow partner in North America, Thirdera is a trusted Elite ServiceNow partner focused solely on improving and innovating the way our customers leverage the ServiceNow platform. Our experts possess authoritative capabilities and skillsets spanning the entire Now Platform. This extensive platform expertise allows us to understand our customers’ needs and deliver tailored solutions that solve business challenges.

Contact us today to discuss your next project, and enter a new era of ServiceNow partner experience.

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WRITTEN BY

Anna Alferova

Anna is the Digital Marketing Director at Thirdera. She is a marketing professional with experience in leading B2B multi-channel marketing campaigns and with an eye for strategy in digital and content marketing, passionate about innovative data-driven ways to deliver digital transformation.
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