Customer Case Study

How APRW's innovative digital transformation sets the organisation and their people up for success

 APRW_logo



 

Region

Southeast Asia

 

Challenges

Measure and improve employees’ performance during the transition to remote working.

 

Solution

GROW — 360 Feedback Tool

 

Results

  • Increasing face-to-face feedback sessions with directors from once to twice a year.
  • Creating personalized employee training and development plans: trend and monitor each individual's growth, and as a result, able to set realistic goals for further development for the employees.
  • Reward-scaling: delivers a better and clearer assessment of employees' performance, enabling the organization to better determine the reward system such as promotions, bonuses, and increments for each individual.

 

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HR TECHAPRW is the winner of EngageRocket’s Workplace Transformation Awards 2021 for the Best HR Tech Innovation category. This award recognizes organizations that implement technologies to meet the ever-evolving requirements of their workforce.

 

About Asia PR Werkz (APRW)

APRW (formerly known as Asia PR Werkz) is an integrated communications agency founded in 1996, providing insightful analysis, strategic counsel, and creative solutions to clients. Their focus includes corporate communications, digital communications, marketing communications, media relations, public affairs, and risk and crisis management across various sectors and industries.

The organization is consistently working towards the vision of “Personal Excellence. Team Excellence. Professional Excellence”. In order to deliver work of top-notch quality for clients, it is important for the largest local Communications and Public Relations agency to ensure their 50 employees are performing their best.

 

AsiaPRWerkz_team pic

 

THE CHALLENGE
Navigating through the rapid transition to remote working

 

The COVID-19 pandemic brought seismic changes and challenges to organizations as many adapted to remote working overnight. 

Similarly for APRW, tracking and measuring employees' performance during this transition had proven to be a real challenge. The HR team quickly realized that they needed to leverage technology to address their pain point.

With 100% of the workforce working from home, the agency wanted to facilitate a comprehensive evaluation process using a single source of truth.

 

"The pandemic has expedited our digital journey overnight as we needed to ensure that social cohesion with our employees working in a remote setting remains strong. Adopting an employee experience technology solution like EngageRocket with advanced analytical capabilities allowed us to meet a higher standard of excellence as a team, individually, and professionally."

APRW_Rebecca Rebecca Ng, General Manager

 

THE SOLUTION
The digital shift in performance reviews

 

APRW made the innovative move and implemented EngageRocket’s GROW platform to identify areas of improvement for the employees and plan their development journeys.

 

EngageRocket’s GROW
360 feedback & peer evaluations

AsiaPRWerkz_graphs

 

  • Flexible setup: customize questions, rater groups, selection methods, communication, and reminders.

  • Large validated competency and question banks

  • Powerful analytics

  • Data-driven learning needs analysis

  • Action planner: Set goals, targets, tasks, and reminders to encourage personal mastery

  • Follow through closely and monitor progress

 

Previously, the agency conducted performance management manually between employees and line managers. Leveraging EngageRocket’s platform to capture self-appraisals, managerial reviews, and peer feedback in real time, APRW is able to measure a comprehensive set of employee competencies, providing a holistic review of each individual’s performance.

 

THE RESULTS
APRW’s data-driven follow-up actions

 

Making the digital shift gave APRW the opportunity to conduct performance reviews more frequently on a quarterly basis. EngageRocket's intuitive dashboard allows every team to identify competency gaps, analyze individual learning priorities, and map out their development plan.

 

"We needed a platform that is user-friendly, providing an overview of the data gathered on a dashboard. This gives us clear insights and allows us to focus on action plans for our employees which is crucial for their development. In addition, EngageRocket’s customer success team provides timely support to my queries and openness to ideas and solutions"

APRW_Neha Neha Khare, Admin and HR Executive

 

Following the 3-week implementation, the HR team took several actions based on the insights.

1. Increasing face-to-face feedback sessions with directors from once to twice a year

EngageRocket’s State of the Employee Experience report found that the most impactful way to drive engagement is to invest in the quality of the feedback and make employees feel supported in their work through candid conversations regularly.

Utilizing the results from EngageRocket’s GROW platform, the HR team facilitates face-to-face feedback sessions between employees and their directors twice a year, as opposed to once a year previously. During these sessions, employees can discuss their detailed reports generated from the platform with the directors covering their strengths and weaknesses, and seeking guidance or counsel on ways to improve their performance and hence the potential for career advancement. 

2. Creating personalized employee training and development plans

With GROW, the team can trend and monitor each individual's growth, and as a result, they can set realistic goals for further development for the employees. The survey questions have also been tailored according to the competency expectations for each role, which allows the organization to identify areas of growth and better align individual staff’s development plans with relevant courses for upskilling. 

3. Reward-scaling

The more streamlined evaluation process allowed the management team to have a better and clearer assessment of employees' performance. As a result, this enabled the organization to better determine the reward system such as promotions, bonuses, and increments for each individual. 

 

 

KEY LEARNINGS
What organizations can learn from APRW’s success with EngageRocket

 

The success of APRW’s digital transformation in their performance feedback system is largely due to the team’s innovative mindset, an appropriate platform that suits their needs, and their strategic approach to the implementation. To this effect, it is prudent to consider the impact adopting a new system has on employees. In choosing the right solution, the HR team at APRW considered the support, learning curve, and adaptation that are required for optimal implementation.

Here are some of the key learnings from APRW’s successful digital transformation with EngageRocket’s GROW platform:

Getting buy-in across all levels of the organization
One of the key things that the HR team at APRW did was to ensure organization-wide buy-in. Management buy-in was critical so that they were more involved in decision-making. With management support, the HR team then inducted and briefed the rest of the company to address any concerns and ensure smooth implementation. As a result, APRW could utilize EngageRocket’s platform to its full capability which benefits the whole organization.


Setting clear goals and expectations
APRW had a clear goal in mind when they chose EngageRocket’s platform - to transform their performance management process to better suit their remote working situation. Having a clear goal in mind helped them when listing down the criteria for shortlisting the solutions, identifying needs and requirements, and setting communication plans - all these contributed to the smooth setup of the new system.


Following up with impactful actions
Taking action after performance reviews are conducted shows that the organization cares about the input and career progression of each individual. Actions may come in the form of providing rewards and recognition or crafting individualized learning plans. This also allows for high-performing behaviors to be positively reinforced. 

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