Swisscom improves clarity, transparency and engagement with Halogen’s solution
Swisscom Hospitality, a division of Swisscom AG, provides a suite of highly refined information and communications technology applications for hoteliers.
A company on the forefront of innovation, Swisscom Hospitality provides full coverage of Wi-Fi networks for more than 2000 hotels. The company is growing in terms of products, services and geographical locations, which reach across the world.
To continue to drive innovation and success, Swisscom is building a world-class workforce of client- and results-oriented people who turn innovative ideas into real solutions for their customers.
Since implementing Halogen Performance™, Swisscom Hospitality has been able to:
- Create a transparent and fair performance management process that builds engagement and trust
- Build a corporate culture that embraces high performance and corporate key values
- Link employee performance directly to corporate goals
- Allow managers more face-to-face time with employees, increasing engagement
Swisscom Hospitality’s strategy for building and retaining high performers includes a significant amount of variable pay dependent on employee performance. With its former manual performance appraisal process, Swisscom found it difficult to manage on many fronts. Tracking manager feedback, keeping the process consistent across departments, meeting deadlines, and providing a clear and transparent process were next to impossible on paper.
Transparency builds trust
“Employees can’t be engaged unless they trust that the performance appraisal system is transparent and fair for all,” says Andras Kemeny, Vice-President of Human Resources for Swisscom Hospitality. “It was very important for us to have a rigorous and consistent system that could objectively handle the process, and we knew Halogen’s solution could help us provide timely, quality performance appraisals and feedback.”
Swisscom Hospitality’s new process makes it easy to input and track feedback and sign-offs from the employee’s direct supervisor, a second level manager, and HR. “This makes it all very transparent and fair for the employee,” says Kemeny. “Employees are reassured knowing the evaluation and comments are not just the opinion of their immediate supervisor.”
Flexibility was another major part of Swisscom’s decision to choose Halogen. “Because performance-based variable pay is such a significant percentage of our total compensation, our performance evaluation system is accordingly quite complex, based on numerous performance factors including individual, corporate and theme targets,” Kemeny explains. “Unlike more rigid systems, Halogen Performance gave us the flexibility to meet our unique needs, and customize our own processes and forms.” He adds that Swisscom also selected the Halogen Single Sign-On feature, providing even more ease of use.
Kemeny says that the system is helping managers respond to employees’ needs for regular, timely feedback and communication. “It’s a very structured and easy-to-use tool, where you can clearly see the objectives and objectively track progress and provide comments and feedback on year-round basis.”
Building a corporate culture that supports company objectives
Swisscom Hospitality has created a corporate culture focused on team work, quality, customer focus, individual performance and ongoing development. “Halogen is helping us build that corporate culture by focusing our employees’ efforts on the attitudes and activities that in turn support our company goals. Their performance ratings are a direct reflection of how well they are contributing to our core values.”
The system also helps managers and employees easily see an individual’s strengths and see where there’s a need for training. It’s now possible to objectively determine which employees are ready for a promotion and where there are development gaps that need to be addressed. Kemeny says this also fosters and supports a culture of coaching.
“The Halogen solution ensures managers remain in regular contact with their staff so they can provide the necessary feedback to help employees develop and learn. The Feedback Central feature is the perfect place to document event situations and those entries can catalyze informal and formal discussions with supervisors.”
Halogen Performance lightens the workflow load
Swisscom is also using Halogen Performance to consolidate workflows. According to Kemeny, this has resulted in two major benefits. First, using the system’s automated reminders means the HR department no longer has to spend significant time reminding and pushing others to complete the annual process. Secondly, the automated system saves managers’ time, allowing them to spend more time coaching and communicating with their staff.
“Instead of spending time processing spreadsheets, looking for archived notes and email chains, and reminding people to do things, we can elevate the process and focus on more high-value activities like coaching our people,” says Kemeny. “I would certainly recommend Halogen to other companies — it’s flexible, easy to set up, and the level of service from Halogen is unmatched in quality.”
Summary
Since implementing Halogen, Swisscom Hospitality has been able to move from a time-consuming and labor-intensive paper-based process to a dynamic, interactive performance management system that drives employee performance through its clarity, transparency and objectivity. With time savings realized through automation and structure, Swisscom managers are able to spend more time providing feedback and coaching to increase employee engagement and foster a higher-performance culture.
