Customer Story
How Bridge Helped Hato Hone St. John Boost Performance Conversation Uptake to 90%
Hato Hone St. John is a trusted New Zealand charity that provides ambulance services, first aid training, and community programs. Run and staffed by people who are passionate about serving their communities and caring for New Zealanders, the organization is keen to keep employees’ skills sharp while maintaining a positive and productive workplace culture. As a charity with a volunteer ethos, paid and volunteer members work side-by-side, creating a challenging and exciting learning landscape for the organization’s L&D and people professionals.
The Challenge
Nurturing Talent and Future-Ready Skills With Regular Performance One-on-Ones
Dalice Cossey, Hato Hone St. John’s Culture and Engagement Specialist, explains that the organization was in need of a solution that would help keep learners’ skills sharp in a changing world.
“As an organization, we’ve got this great talent within, and we need to develop them, keep them current, and keep them up to date with the way that the future is headed. We also have to anticipate how we need to shift and pivot as an organization to be successful in the future. We need to keep up with the times!” Dalice says.
Hato Hone St. John was also concerned with a possible increased demand for talent in the job markets of the near future and was really keen to avoid unnecessary turnover and keep existing employees happy and productive.
“People who are growing and developing in roles are less likely to leave. They’re more likely to be engaged. They’re more likely to be happy within their role,” Dalice explains.
These insights were reflected in engagement surveys as well, where employees stated that their professional growth was a key priority.
“It came out of our engagement survey that growth was a focus area for the organization. We’ve got over 12,000 people, and we had people tell us that they have skills and talent, and they want pathways, but they don’t really know how to go about it.”
Against this backdrop, Dalice explains that productive, positive, and encouraging performance and development conversations are a very high priority for the organization.
“We have an expectation that our leaders do regular one-on-ones, but they’re doing them for the right reasons, and they’re understanding the benefits,” she explains. The organization was focussed on improving the uptake of these crucial conversations across teams.
Hato Hone St. John is a large and complex organization with diverse learner and admin needs. Ease of use and an all-in-one solution were considerations when it came to choosing an LMS.
“We wanted a solution across the entire talent area: LMS, performance, and talent development ,” Dalice says.
"[Bridge has] given us a great view of the organization around how [one-on-one] conversations are happening and where they aren't, so we can support our leaders a bit better,"-Dalice Cossey, Hato Hone St. John's Culture and Engagement Specialist
The Solution
Facilitating Regular Performance Conversations With Ease
Complete with sophisticated skills features and the ability to offer personalized development plans, Bridge is ideal for helping Hato Hone St. John’s employees understand how to progress their careers and clearly link individual skills to development pathways. Bridge’s easy-to-use performance features are also perfect for encouraging regular, positive performance conversations.
Hato Hone St. John began relying on Bridge to keep development conversations on track so that employees would feel confident that their skills journeys are steadily progressing.
“We’re currently doing [performance one-on-ones] twice a year. So in January or February, we have our mid-year check-in, and then in July-ish, we have our year-end process where everyone has a meeting with their manager. They talk about the previous six months to a year, what’s worked well, and any wins that they’ve had. And then we talk about the year ahead and what the goals are going to be and how they can support what we’re trying to achieve as the organization,” Dalice explains.
“Research tells us that having a poor performance conversation is more detrimental than having none, so we're not making them compulsory.”-Dalice Cossey, Hato Hone St. John's Culture and Engagement Specialist
The Results
90% Uptake and Unbeatable Visibility
Dalice shares that uptake and completion of performance one-to-ones has been great. “We’re now up to 90%!” she shares. This is a big win for the organization. The visibility Dalice and her team gained over one-on-one completions has also been a big boon.
Because Bridge shows admins and leaders the complete picture of one-on-ones conducted, they now have all the information they need to support keeping these crucial conversations on track.
“Lots of people do see one-to-ones or performance conversations as important, but we knew that some people weren’t necessarily having them because they would get busy, and other things would become more important,” Dalice says.
She explains that Bridge turned this around and now helps keep track of conversations so that guidance can be offered when needed. “It’s given us a great view of the organization around how these conversations are happening and where they aren’t, so we can support our leaders a bit better,” Dalice said.
For Dalice and her team, using a performance tool that can empower managers to keep a conversation positive while developing their own leadership skills has been a huge win.
Dalice understands that it’s quite common for organizations to approach performance conversations as a box-checking exercise, but box-checking isn’t what Hato Hone St. John is about, especially when a negative performance conversation could actually be demotivating. Her team chose not to mandate performance conversations to assuage employees’ fears of being told that they’re not good enough.
Instead, it’s all about shifting the mindset from a stern, scary performance conversation to one that empowers employees and their managers.
“Research tells us that having a poor performance conversation is more detrimental than having none, so we’re not making them compulsory,” Dalice says.
“What we want to do is not just introduce a tool, but to build up that leadership skill set around why they’re important and how to do it in a way where your staff member feels valued and understands the benefit,” Dalice says.
12,000 +
Learners
90%
Uptake of one-on-one conversations
Visibility
That keeps crucial conversations on track
