The Core Challenge
UW Credit Union, a credit union with approximately 920 employees and over 385,000 members, faced challenges with its legacy performance management system. Their previous tool, Halogen, was described as manual, unintuitive, and "not nice" to use.
The People Team grappled with:
- Inefficient, Manual Performance Processes: Setting up the annual performance appraisal process in the old system took days. Disciplinary actions required managers to manually print, sign, scan, and upload documents.
- Lack of Visibility: Leadership had no scalable way to understand manager-employee interactions or employee sentiment without constant, time-consuming one-on-one conversations.
- Inconsistency in Employee Experience: One-on-ones were inconsistent across the org; managers used different systems, others used paper, and some did not conduct them at all.
- Onerous Data Analysis: Demographic reporting on performance was a manual challenge, requiring complex VLOOKUPs between exported system data and the company’s HRIS.
The Solution
University of Wisconsin Credit Union chose 15Five to modernize its people strategy and create a "frictionless" experience for managers and employees alike. They prioritized a phased rollout, starting with a pilot group of managers to test the platform's intuitiveness without any prior training.
Key Features Implemented:
- Check-ins & 1-on-1s: These were the first features rolled out to establish a consistent "pulse" on the organization.
- Best-Self Review®: They implemented a "mid-year snapshot" for performance reviews to familiarize staff with the system before launching a full year-end appraisal process.
- Action Plans: The team used the action plans to digitize and streamline the disciplinary and performance improvement process.
- People Analytics: Leveraging the dashboard to gain instant visibility into performance ratings and demographic splits.
The "A-Ha!" Moment
The primary "A-Ha!" moment came during the initial pilot phase. Managers were able to navigate the platform and use features correctly within a few minutes. This confirmed that the platform was intuitive enough to drive high adoption without a massive administrative burden. Furthermore, the ease of access to data, transforming a day-long manual reporting task into a "35-second" task, solidified 15Five's value to the HR team.
What University of Wisconsin Credit Union Said about 15Five
"It was really resetting expectations... we wanted a better way to understand what managers are doing and how employees are doing without dedicating an immense amount of resources to one-on-one interactions."
— Laura Gottfredsen Suminski, VP of Talent, UW Credit Union
"Setting up our process in 15Five this year took me maybe 35 minutes... it would take me an entire day and a half in our former performance system. We are definitely far more efficient."
— Kelsey Mueller, Manager of Strategic People & Employee Experience
The Results
- Drastic Time Savings: The time required to set up the annual performance appraisal process was reduced from 10+ hours to just 30 minutes.
- High Engagement & Adoption: Since implementation, over 13,000 one-on-ones have been recorded in the system, ensuring a consistent experience across the organization.
- Instant Data Visibility: HR can now pull complex demographic performance reports in seconds rather than hours, allowing for rapid calibration and equitable decision-making.
- Improved Employee Pulse: Managers now have a "constant pulse" on their teams' hearts and minds, enabling proactive empathy and level-setting.
Learn how 15Five can transform your performance review process.
