Elevating the People Experience

The Challenge & Opportunity

At Nimbl Consulting, our ambition has always been to create an awesome workplace. Since day one, People Experience has always been one of our strategic pillars, but we faced challenges without having clear priorities and systems. Despite our good intentions, employees expressed frustrations: they loved working at Nimbl but found it difficult to navigate support, encountered inconsistencies in remuneration and promotions, had unclear role expectations, and experienced an undefined culture with differing opinions on People Experience. Moreover, our values were not remembered.

Our Approach

Discover

We reviewed employee engagement data, conducted interviews, and held workshops to understand what our vision looked like in practice. This phase helped us differentiate between symptoms and root causes, focusing our efforts where most needed.

Define

Our findings pointed to two core issues: a lack of shared understanding of people experience and the absence of clear, fair processes. Our problem statement became clear: Nimbl lacks clear direction & prioritisation for people initiatives, and subsequent processes and tools.

Develop

We formed a working group to collaboratively create lasting solutions. We started by defining what People Experience was, and wasn't, at Nimbl, along the way realising that our values were going to become the pillars of defining this. By translating these values into tangible behaviours and feelings, we laid the foundation for our culture. With those landed, we were able to weave them into every system and process we went on to develop.

Visual depicts two of our five values

We then focused on our Employee Value Proposition (EVP) landing on five priority areas: Hauora, Leadership, Performance & Development, Remuneration, Reward, & Recognition, and Diversity, Inclusivity, & Equity (DEI). We then carried out an assessment of our maturity in each segment, followed by visioning what we wanted each segment to look like. To do this, we used a people experience journey map, looking at the key parts that make up an employee’s time at Nimbl.

It was then that we realised we had created something awesome: the People Experience Ecosystem, with culture and values at its heart, guiding day-to-day interactions within our five priority EVP areas, ultimately shaping our People Experience.

Visual depicts how Culture & Values + Employee Value Proposition + People Experience create the People Experience Ecosystem.

Deliver

After our current and future state assessments, we were able to develop a clear roadmap. This enabled us to address gaps through software, tools, and processes, always tying them back to our values to make sure they came to life.

Visual depicts a detailed roadmap traversing three quarters, and organised in PX Strategy, EVP, and Lifecycle. At the bottom are key quarterly outcomes.

Examples of what we built include:

  • A new version of our existing Competency Matrix + an assessment tool to support fair & clear performance expectations and conversations.

  • A new version of our existing Professional Development Plan templates, along with further building out the roles of support for employee development (via our coaching model, “triangle conversations”, and people lead 1x1s).

  • A strategic approach to Remuneration & Reward, including key decisions such as implementing competency-based pay, a two-pronged variable reward scheme, and a commitment to align our pay band to market rate.

  • A learning & development curriculum to make clear the career pathway at Nimbl and what training support we would provide.

Implementation

Change only sticks when it’s implemented well, so we very intentionally crafted a plan considering team capacity, existing opportunities, and priorities. This began with a formal launch of our People Experience outputs with the full team, featuring a mix of presentations and interactive feedback sessions. We then began user training sessions, optional drop-ins, and content releases via our internal newsletter to continue a more detailed roll out. For the quarter that followed, we ensured we were asking for, and hearing our people’s feedback so we could make any changes necessary.

Outcomes

  • Alignment of what People Experience means; everyone knows what it is and what our focus areas are

  • Fair, clear, and transparent frameworks and decision-making

We are proud of our mahi, and our people have reflected this back. We have achieved clarity on People Experience's future vision, a roadmap of priorities, and built bespoke enablers to support our strategy. We are making steady progress in implementing the new components, and already seeing the positive impact of them.

Get in Touch

If you're seeking a people-focused transformation partner, we'd love to kōrero about enhancing your people experience. Talk to Alex Baines, our Senior Manager - People & Performance.