Realtime Reviews
At Vivaldi, the introduction of a new employee review process marked a significant shift in how performance evaluations were conducted. Initially, the company engaged in a biannual review system that heavily depended on personal interactions and subjective assessments by team managers. This method, while traditional, posed challenges in objectivity, as it largely relied on the personal dynamics between coworkers to determine an employee's fulfillment of their duties.
In an effort to refine and enhance this process, the design department, under the guidance of the Chief Creative Officer, spearheaded an innovative approach. Recognizing the need for a more dynamic and transparent system, the department leveraged Slack, the company's existing platform for internal communication, to facilitate ongoing feedback among team members. This initiative led to the creation of a dedicated channel for discussing team performance, celebrating successes, and addressing areas of concern in real-time.
To support this shift towards continuous feedback, I developed a Slack bot designed to interact with Google Sheets via the Google Docs API. This integration allowed for the creation of individualized documents for each employee, outlining their roles, goals established with the Chief Creative Officer, and monthly performance scores. This system was named "real-time reviews," aiming to provide a structured yet flexible framework for capturing and analyzing employee contributions and areas for improvement.
The real-time reviews system was built around the concept of facilitating open and honest monthly discussions between team members and their leaders. By accessing an employee's Google Sheet, team leads could review quantitative feedback compiled from peer mentions in Slack conversations. This feedback was categorized into several dimensions, including people, process, performance, and a fourth unspecified category, offering a holistic view of an employee's progress relative to their career objectives.
As the primary, and indeed sole, developer of this system, my role involved crafting a prototype that not only served as a proof of concept but also functioned effectively for our team's immediate use. The introduction of real-time reviews represented a pivotal transformation in Vivaldi's approach to performance evaluation, moving towards a model that emphasized continuous improvement, transparency, and objective assessment aligned with individual career goals.