BNZ is New Zealand’s third largest financial institution. Established in 1861, and a subsidiary of National Australia Bank since 1992, BNZ employs more than 5500 people.
The bank provides online services and has more than 400 automated teller machines and 180 stores and partner centres throughout the country providing
retail, business and institutional banking.
A four-time winner of Best Small Business Bank, BNZ has been recognised by the United Nations for promoting workplace diversity.
To ensure the bank’s performance management remains at the cutting edge.
The Mariner7 online performance management tool.
BNZ has made performance management a key business process that underpins its success by creating a platform that engages people and encourages them to take ownership of their performance in a way that supports their values.
In 2006, when BNZ implemented its current performance management system, myPerformance, the bank made a smart move away from its former paper-based system to Mariner7’s cloud-based system. It was, at that time, cutting-edge technology.
To ensure the bank’s performance management remains at the cutting edge, Mariner7 has designed an entirely new front end for yPerformance which BNZ implemented in June, 2016.
The new front end has been designed to address the expectations that today’s employees seek from their organisation’s web-enabled performance management system. With its more contemporary look and feel, it provides an easier, faster and more enjoyable user experience.
BNZ’s Head of Reward and HR Services Pam Markham-Barrett and Manager HR Services Chris Casanelia say it’s more intuitive and simpler to navigate than before and it reflects the BNZ’s focus on continually improving the user experience and employee engagement with the system.
“People will be able to do everything they need to from the landing page,” says Pam, adding that BNZ’s branding at the front end and
throughout the system provides a ‘welcoming and familiar feel which has significant appeal to staff. That’s important because people who work for BNZ are passionate about the brand.’
Chris anticipates the more welcoming, easy-to-use front end will encourage people to provide better feedback. “People value that we have made an effort with the look and feel – and you can’t underestimate the importance of ease of use,” he says.
myPerformance is a key tool for BNZ and its business units – everyone in the organisation uses it, BNZ has invested heavily in it and it is an
important platform on which BNZ can build its performance and its culture.
It is also an effective means for the bank to introduce and reinforce business and workplace strategies, visions, goals and expected behaviours,
and it helps employees understand how they can contribute and what’s expected of them. The new front end provides additional structure for
these to be communicated.
In addition, it can easily be customised for the whole organisation or for individual businesses and teams. Goals can be regularly reviewed and
actions to deliver them can be adjusted as the business environment changes. People leaders and employees are able to engage in
ratings-based or conversation-based performance reviews as required. With the recent emergence of a worldwide trend towards more
conversation-based, forward-looking reviews than those based on ratings, the upgraded front end provides BNZ with the capacity to adapt to the trend should it choose to do so. Pam says that BNZ plans to retain its current process whilst it monitors the success of this trend. “We need to be certain that any change we make will genuinely enhance the outcomes of BNZ’s performance management process.”
Mariner7 has frequently made changes to myPerformance since its implementation to ensure the system continues to support the delivery of
up-to-date BNZ policies, strategies and performance standards. The upgraded back-end functions of the system will make future changes and customisations more efficient and the enhanced user interface makes the system easier to use, more intuitive and friendly.
As an organisation that places great value on being a leading-edge employer, BNZ is highly focused on keeping myPerformance in top shape,
and sometimes requires Mariner7 to achieve fast turnarounds for system changes.
“Mariner7 has been very reactive to changes we have needed and has often responded in a very short time,” says Chris. “They’ve never missed a deadline – even when there’s been a short timeframe to deliver. We have a very good relationship with them – their flexibility is refreshing and their agility is great for us.”
KPI templates, which cover the employee role, are set by people leaders for their employees and loaded into the system. With little effort,
employees record a detailed account of their activities as regularly as they like. Employee data remains private until the review, providing the
employee with an opportunity to make changes before their manager can access the information. At review time, the information forms a basis for discussion and assists in opening up the conversation between the people leader and the employee.
The system reinforces employees’ understanding of responsibilities and expectations around goals. It also communicates what is required to meet customer needs and the level of quality required in delivering them, and its users can track progress and delivery of goals against expectations.
The BNZ’s two-pronged scoring system, measures and rates employee performance outcomes and the demonstration of the BNZ behaviours, and presents opportunities for employees to describe how they have delivered on both.
A high level of trust is built up between managers and their team members, and the system encourages them to meet targets and deadlines and to communicate at review time with greater confidence and clarity.
Progress and delivery of goals can be tracked clearly against initial expectations and, with all objectives, employee notes, discussion notes and
ratings stored in one repository, information can be easily retrieved for subsequent referral.
In a nutshell, myPerformance provides transparency and structure around performance management. Pam says: “We get a helicopter view and can report on the detail … it gives a good record of the conversations and our Employee Relations team finds that invaluable.
“We have a high degree of trust in Mariner7. We have invested with them and established a good relationship. There have been no outages, the product constantly delivers what we ask for, and Mariner7 has never failed to deliver on time, even though our deadlines are sometimes very tight. You can’t ask for too much more from a partner than that.”
Chris Casanelia
BNZ - Manager HR Services
BNZ has made performance management a key business process that underpins its success by creating a platform that engages people and
encourages them to take ownership of their performance in a way that supports their values.
The partnership with Mariner7 since 2006 has been instrumental in moulding the system to the requirements of BNZ as they have evolved and it is this partnership that will underpin the continual growth and improvement of the system.
