Building a performance framework for the new Waitrose leadership programme

Laura Lane – WaitroseRupert Angel – The Greenhouse Project

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We had a problem

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The situation

The old approach was great at producing mid level store leaders

But they were not progressing and were too narrow in their understanding, networks and skill set

The old programme was not producing senior leaders and was “crowding out” other talent

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The situation

Grads recruited since

1997

6% Below Department

Manager

42% Department

Manager

15% Branch Manager

Waitrose0% Senior managers

Left the Business

And we had new Partnership Priorities

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The situation – Why change

Partner

Customer

Profit

“We will develop a clearer direction for our partners”

“We will refresh the democratic character of the Partnership”

“We will strengthen our customer offer”

“We will move to become truly multi channel”

“We will identify how we will achieve our stated goal of doubling in size by 2017”

“We will improve the resilience and competitiveness of the Partnership”

We had to realign our investment to meet the new business needs and the data we had

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The situation

New programme objectives are to create a senior leadership population fit for a multi-channel world.Longer programme, retail + head office

We need T-Shape leaders but we need to develop them in the right order

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The Insight

So we developed the programme to map the T shaped leader onto the Leadership Pipeline

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The Insight

Critical Transition

Team Leader & Individual Contributor roles

L7 level for 2 years

Managing managersL5 level

Manager role in year 3L6 level

Start developing breadth of understanding of retail and some team

management skills

Develop depth of understanding and skill

in an area of the business

Continue to develop functional expertise

and develop management skills

Be ready for a manager of managers role where

breadth of understanding and how

to manage matters more than deep

technical specialism

The new programme deliberately takes the graduates from retail into specialist roles

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The situation

We identified that the new programme has these 6 critical success levers

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The situation

Managing for high

performance

Buy in from ALL key

stakeholdersRetention

Speed to perform

Right mix of depth and breadth

Aligning to strategic roles

So what? – The key challenge around measurement

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The Complication

This is a scheme with a 5 to 7 year end goal.

This is longer than the programme

We know that graduatesseek rapid and accurate

feedback to drive their developmentin the early days

The senior leadership team will want to

know if the programme is workingand that the graduates are on

track to hit the target

The experience has tomaintain challenge and

stretch to maintain engagement

Our current performance and

measurement processes do not

deliver what we need to drive the success of

this programme

The current Waitrose performance system

is role based and annual

So one of the big questions we had to answer was

How do we measure the performance of the scheme, including the progress of our

graduates, to give the business confidence that it is going to get a return on its investment

and moves away from an anecdotal view

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The Question

Our answer – To create and implement a lightweight measurement process that measures the critical levers and allows the graduate team to communicate progress, and hopefully success, to the key players

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The answers

Performance Engagement Process

We needed a performance process that, at the start, recognises the grads are not in “a role”– The structure of the programme is to accelerate the grads through a series of retail roles to build

understanding of the stores, customers, Partnership behaviours and managing people– For the first year we are moving the graduates faster than they can be expected to deliver in a role– We are also expecting them to develop a wider degree of breadth than the typical partner

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Performance process

Time based reviews which focus on progression NOT just performance in a role

At the right transition points, so the timings are relevant

Provide a clear set of expectations to the line managers and the grads of where a grad should be at 90, 180 and 360 days

Focus on what the grads have learned and demonstrated against the scheme objectives

Maintain the dual focus on performance today in role, have they done an exceptional job, and are they meeting the schemes

Moderated and shared by the graduate team

Visualisation of performance on a detailed grid

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Performance process

0.00 1.00 2.00

Performance on Scheme

Part

nerB

ehav

iour

s

Under Performing

Under Performing

Acceptable Performance Excellent

Acceptable Performance

Excellent Performance

More importantly visualisation of performance over time – Direction of travel

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Performance process

How we track the graduates’ engagement

– Our view is that engaged and stretched graduates, who feel like they are well supported and making progress will stay with the business. And for this programme to pay back we need the graduates to stay

– We have a corporate level partner engagement survey, but the frequency is too slow for our grads, and the granularity is to high

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Engagement

Frequent 6 question survey that take less than 2 minutes to complete

• Are you happy with the scheme?• Do you feel you are learning important new skills?• Do you feel you are making progress?• Do you feel the work you are doing is worthwhile and important?• Do you feel you are you getting the support you need?

The sixth question is a Net promoter score type question • Would you recommend this graduate scheme to a friend?

From these simple questions we are able to keep a view on the “pulse” of the graduate experience

Graphs of engagement to identify where we need to focus

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Engagement

70%

80%

90%

100%

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130%

2013 Winter1

2013 Winter2

2013 Spring1

Are you happy with the scheme?

70%

80%

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130%

2013 Winter1

2013 Winter2

2013 Spring1

Is your work worthwhile and important?

70%

80%

90%

100%

110%

120%

130%

2013 Winter1

2013 Winter2

2013 Spring1

Are you learning important new skills?

70%

80%

90%

100%

110%

120%

130%

2013 Winter1

2013 Winter2

2013 Spring1

Are you makingprogress?

70%

80%

90%

100%

110%

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2013 Winter2

2013 Spring1

Are you getting the support you need?

-20%-10%

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%

2013 Winter1

2013 Winter2

2013 Spring1

Net Promoter

Good

Mediocre

Poor

How we track the schemes performance?

– The third element we want to track is the performance of the scheme as a business process– We know there are some critical foundational building blocks that a good graduate programme needs to

be successful.– We track these with the graduate and line manager population to understand trends and the changes in

directions

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Process Performance

Our model of success is built around the 5 factors of

• Clear objectives• Right graduates• Buy in across the key stakeholders• Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors• Right learning

For each of these factors we have a set of questions that we ask to the key stakeholders three times a year

How we use the data to see the shifts over time and where we need to focus

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Process Performance

50%

75%

100%

125% Objectives

50%

75%

100%

125% Right grads

50%

75%

100%

125% Buy in

50%

75%

100%

125% Learning

50%

75%

100%

125% Engagement and Motivation

50%

75%

100%

125%

Objectives Rightgrads

Buy-in Learning Motivation

Summary

..and even more insightful when graduate and line manager views are compared

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Process Performance

50%

75%

100%

125%

End ofprogramme

Goodperformance

defined

ClearMilestones

ClearFinancial

return

Total

Objectives

50%

75%

100%

125%

Right grads Able toperform

Potential tobe seniormanagers

Diversity Total

Right grads

50%

75%

100%

125%

Seniormanagement

HRBPs LineManagers

HO retail ops Total

Buy in

50%

75%

100%

125%

Right balance Clear Welldesigned

Stretching Total

Learning

50%

75%

100%

125%

Challenging Salary andperks

Shape theircareers

Role models Total

Engagement and Motivation

50%

75%

100%

125%

Objectives Right grads Buy-in Learning Motivation

Summary

We are also able to Benchmark our data and performance– Knowing trends is one thing, knowing if we are on track against other schemes and companies is another

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Benchmarking

Waitrose The rest

By using benchmark data we are able to answer the question of how do we compare

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Benchmarking

70%

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130%

2013 Winter 1 2013 Winter 2 2013 Spring 1

Overall Engagement vs benchmark

50%

75%

100%

125%

150%

Objectives Rightgrads

Buy In Learning Motivation Total

GEM Consistency against benchmark

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60%

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Objectoves Right grads Buy in Learning Motivation

GEM against Benchmark

And by putting it all on one page we can give a clear view of how the scheme is performing

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The one page view

Conclusions so far

– Early days with a new scheme

– Up front we have recognised that the new scheme objectives require a different way to answer the critical questions of• Is the scheme on track to deliver its end goals?• Are the grads on track?

– Putting in place a lightweight over the top set of measures has been important. However, the line managers and the graduates have responded well as they see the value!

– It has already allowed us to act to address some key issues and push some graduates forward

– My HR team and the senior management team like seeing the data and understanding where we are, and having an external benchmark

– Let you know how it goes in the future

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Conclusions

Laura_lane@waitrose.co.uk

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