For over 100 years, Save the Children has worked to improve the lives of children and provide emergency aid during natural disasters, war, and other conflicts. The organization’s Italian branch, Save the Children Italia, has sites in Rome and Milan and employs 219 permanent employees and 84 temporary, fixed-term contracts that support projects in Italy and abroad. Save the Children Italia has grown significantly during the past four years, both in headcount and projects. To support this growth, they wanted to find a modern HR platform that could replace their spreadsheets and manual processes, help them modernize performance management, and create a sense of community with their employees working remotely and in the field. Following a thorough vendor selection process and reading several recommendation posts by Josh Bersin, Save the Children Italia chose Bob.
Modernizing performance management
At Save the Children Italia, performance management was an annual event that included a performance review managed using spreadsheets and awarding a performance score to each employee. The organization wanted to streamline the process and move to a more modern framework of continuous feedback. They also wanted to replace their top-down performance reviews with 360-degree feedback.
Creating holistic performance management with Bob
Using Bob, Save the Children Italia has transformed its performance management process into a more holistic, positive, and streamlined experience for everyone. First, they decided to stop using performance scores because they didn’t align with the organization’s new performance strategy. They have also moved from an annual performance review to a continuous feedback model of goal setting and OKRs managed in Bob. With this approach, they can stay on top of their people’s growth and accomplishments and focus on how they contribute to the organization’s mission.
Save the Children Italia has also used Bob to improve the performance review process. In place of their annual performance review between managers and their direct reports, now they have moved to a six-month cycle and use a 360-degree feedback survey to collect feedback from managers, peers, and employees. They then use this survey as a basis for one-on-one performance discussions between managers and employees that focus on growth.
With Bob, there are no spreadsheets and no risk of human error. The entire process runs seamlessly, with automatic reminders sent to those who haven’t completed their part. Plus, all records relating to an employee’s goals, achievements, and feedback are conveniently stored within the platform and accessible for future reference.
Creating order and a sense of community
Before implementing Bob, Save the Children Italia didn’t have an HR platform. HR ran all of their processes manually using emails and spreadsheets, which took up a lot of their time and was prone to error. They also saw that it was hard to create a sense of community between people working from the office and those working remotely or in the field. As the organization grew, it became clear that they needed to make some significant changes.
Centralizing people processes and engagement
With Bob, Save the Children Italia now has a centralized HR platform for managing all of its core HR processes. They also set the default language to Italian so that all fields are clear and in their employees’ mother tongue making it easy for their people to engage with the platform.
Bob’s workflows and task lists save HR hours of manual work. For example, onboarding new employees—both in-person and remotely—is simplified with a standardized and automated list of tasks seamlessly managed within Bob that ensures that no detail is overlooked. HR has also enabled self-service for their people, allowing them to independently update their personal information in Bob, which eases their admins and payroll manager’s workload and ensures that all information is up-to-date and accurate.
Bob also helps Save the Children Italia create a sense of community for its people, who are split between their HQ in Rome and people working in the field. Save the Children Italia post all of their announcements and updates on Bob’s homepage for all to see and use Kudos and Shoutouts to recognize their people’s achievements and milestones. Having Bob as a centralized place for company news has increased engagement across the organization, helping everyone to stay informed, included, and celebrated.
Main takeaways
- Save the Children replaced their spreadsheets and manual processes with Bob, which enabled them to centralize their data and streamline their processes.
- With Bob, Save the Children Italia modernized performance management and created a holistic process with goal-setting, OKRs, and 360-degree feedback.
- Save the Children Italia localized Bob by switching the language to Italian, ensuring everyone understands all communication and enabling them to engage in their mother tongue.
- Bob’s homepage provides Save the Children Italia with a place to post company announcements and create a sense of community for people working remotely or in the field.
