Southeast Asia
Eliminating human errors and addressing anonymous concerns in performance appraisals.
GROW — 360 Feedback Tool
Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Singapore, APRW is one of Singapore’s earliest and largest independent integrated communications agencies focusing on Public Relations and Digital Marketing. A multi-award-winning agency, they design and deliver bespoke communications solutions and successful marketing campaigns for our clients across the Asia Pacific. The organization consistently works towards the vision of “Personal Excellence. Team Excellence. Professional Excellence”.
Over the years, APRW has grown and expanded its reach to establish its first overseas office in Indonesia, become the sole Southeast Asian representative in IPREX, a global platform of communications agencies and lead landmark initiatives for clients across the region.
For APRW, tracking and measuring employee performance had become a time-consuming challenge. The process, which involved designing questionnaires, launching them, following up with reminders, and analyzing data, was done manually across multiple platforms, making it highly prone to human errors.
Additionally, the small size of each department, with fewer than seven employees, made it difficult for everyone to feel safe providing candid feedback.
The HR team quickly realized that they needed to leverage a digital tool to address these critical issues.
"We needed a user-friendly platform that could provide an overview of the gathered data on a dashboard. This would give us clear insights and allow us to focus on developing action plans for our employees, which is crucial for their development.”
Neha Khare, Human Resources Manager
THE SOLUTION
The digital shift in performance reviews
Since 2021, APRW embarked on their digital transformation by implementing EngageRocket’s GROW 360 feedback tool to identify areas of improvement for the employees and plan their development journeys.
EngageRocket’s GROW
360 feedback & peer evaluations
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. By leveraging EngageRocket’s platform to capture self-appraisals and peer feedback in real-time, APRW can now measure a comprehensive set of employee competencies, providing a holistic review of each individual’s performance.
The GROW platform has significant flexibility, allowing 360 feedback rater groups to be flattened at the peer level. This provides employees with the psychological safety they need to give honest feedback, even within their small teams. As a result, employees have begun to share valuable and candid insights in response to open-ended questions.
"Adopting an employee experience technology solution with advanced analytical capabilities like EngageRocket has allowed us to meet a higher standard of excellence as a team, both individually and professionally."
Rebecca Ng, General Manager
After three years of using this transformed process, the APRW team can now prepare and launch their surveys with impressive efficiency, completing the entire process within just 1-2 weeks.
This digital shift has enabled the APRW team to conduct performance reviews more frequently on a bi-annual basis.
EngageRocket's intuitive dashboard allows every team to identify competency gaps, analyze individual learning priorities, and map out their development plan with great accuracy — all streamlined on one centralized platform.
The HR team is relieved from the tedious task of tracking down employees during the review cycle. EngageRocket’s platform automates the entire process, sending timely notifications and follow-ups across multiple communication channels, ensuring everyone stays on track.
Neha estimates that the new review process is up to 70% more efficient than the previous method, emphasizing EngageRocket’s ease of use, ability to cater to their specific needs, and the responsiveness and helpful guidance from the customer success team.
"With EngageRocket, we’ve been able to meet our needs seamlessly, and the tool has made our HR tasks significantly easier. The automation of surveys has greatly reduced the amount of manual work required, streamlining our processes and allowing us to focus on more strategic initiatives.”
Neha Khare, Human Resources Manager
Furthermore, the quality of the feedback has improved thanks to the anonymous setup done on EngageRocket platform.
Following the survey, the APRW committed to taking impactful actions based on the insights.
1. Increasing face-to-face feedback sessions with directors from once to twice a year
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, instead of once previously.
During these sessions, employees can discuss their detailed reports generated from the platform with the directors covering their strengths and weaknesses, and seek guidance on how to improve their performance and career prospects.
2. Enhancing reward-scaling
The streamlined evaluation process allowed the management team to have a better and clearer assessment of employee performance.
As a result, this enabled the organization to design rewards such as promotions, bonuses, and salary increments for each individual.
3. Creating personalized employee training and development plans
Looking ahead, APRW team plans to explore creating personalized employee training and development plans using trending data from review feedback.
The survey questions have been tailored to reflect the competency expectations for each role, allowing the organization to identify areas of growth and better align individual development plans with relevant upskilling courses.
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 enhance the efficiency of their performance management process while addressing the specific customization needs of a small team.
Having a well-defined goal from the outset helped them establish the criteria for identifying their needs and requirements, as well as setting up communication plans. This careful planning contributed to the smooth setup and optimization of the tool.
Following up with impactful actions
Taking action after performance reviews is crucial in demonstrating the organization’s commitment to the input and career progression of each individual. Actions may include providing rewards and recognition or creating personalized learning plans. This approach not only acknowledges employees’ contributions but also reinforces high-performing behaviors.
