DELOITTE CASE STUDY
ARCHANA LENKA
MBA HR
DELOITTE CASE STUDY
1) What was the Deloitte’s performance management approach?
Ans) The 1.8-million-hour investment was the product of a performance
management cycle serving as a primary feedback mechanism for all employees
across the entire organization, as well as a key determinant in compensation
adjustment decisions. The process involved 2 key roles: Team leaders and
counselors and culminated in an extensive end-of-year process.
Team Leads – Most professionals spend their years working on multiple
projects with a variety of different project teams and for many team leaders. As
each project came to a closure, team leaders were expected to complete a
project evaluation for each team members. The project evaluation was collated
and summarized twice a year and became a key data p oint in the year-end
evaluation process.
Counselors – Each professional in the organization was assigned a counselor.
Counselors were a resource for their counselees, providing career guidance and
navigation support and also served as an agent of the organization.
End-of-Year Process – The counselor’s role heated up, in earnest, as the end-
of-year fiscal year approached. Before, counselors were expected to collect all
of their counselee’s project evaluations. Then they would combine those project
evaluations with other performance data, like quantitative metrics and firm’s
contributions. Finally, they would incorporate qualitative insights that they
gathered by speaking with the counselee’s team leader and others and gathering
few key bullet points about the counselee’s performance and progress.
2) What are the exemplar day activities which were implemented by Deloitte?
Ans) The exemplar day activities which were implemented by Deloitte are as
follows:
Day begins with email – response to clients quickly provide updates to
managers.
Meet with the staff members on client tax project – work through
analysis for tax documents. Help staff member begin to construct “work
papers”, detailed documents consolidating all financial information
necessary to ultimately complete tax documents.
Client calls – go over outstanding items on client’s project, seeking
traditional information on some items, and clarification on others.
Review “work papers” just completed by a staff member, identifying
items needing clarification or further review by client.
Client call – Discuss details for proposed expansion in order to conduct
analysis and prepare proposal for presentation to the client.
Prepare report for client, outlining tax consequences of various
prospective expansion schedules and financing alternatives.
Review completed tax return prior to finalizing and sending to client for
final review.
The rollout and implementation process in Deloitte:
Ans) The team had rollout RPM in different phases. The first 2 phases were
about refining the design. At every steps of these 2 phases, they sought
extensive feedback about every aspect of the design. They tested things, got
feedback and then modified the design for the next phase.
The 3rd phase of the rollout was about scaling up the process. In 2015, the team
rolled out RPM to 3 to 4 client-facing service lines, and to the enabling areas in
the US.
The implementation approach was strategic. They did little experiment where
they have asked 600 people to be a part and then saw it was working so they
further scaled more to 2000 people in it. At no point in those early phases was
there a vote. It was just a test that was taken and based on the results, they made
changes and further grew. Rolling out the 3rd phase was a data phase. They
correlated check –in frequently with performance and was able to see which
direction the engagement numbers were heading to.
Steps Deloitte has taken in redesigning the Performance management
process?
Ans) Orland and Bank pointed to four indicators that together, motivated their
focus on evolving performance management at Deloitte.
1) Leadership Feedback - On an ongoing basis, Deloitte surveys its partners,
principals and managing directors to gather a general sense of how things
are going in Deloitte. The insights from these surveys help firm leaders
understand what’s working well, any areas of concern and ideas to improve
the strategy and operations of the firm.
2) The Millward Brown Study - Deloitte hired Millward Brown, an
international brand consulting and marketing firm to help Deloitte better
understand its client’s perception of the brand and the services.
3) Deloitte University – In 2011, Deloitte US opened its first Deloitte
University campus outside of Dallas, TX. The $300-million-dollar learning
facility was a step in responding to the realization that talent was Deloitte’s
path to differentiation. The DU campus was a physical manifestation of the
organization’s commitment to investing in people and ensuring that the
professionals who made up Deloitte had a wide range of formal and
structured development opportunities. The development programs offered at
DU were wide – ranging and the campus was broadly considered a success.
The DU experience served as a springboard for leaders in the Talent
organization to think more expansively about how the organization develop
talent.
4) High- Performing Teams Study – Deloitte university was a huge
investment on the part of the US partners and principals. They took an initial
study looking at high performing teams within the organization to find out
what sort of day to day experience lead to high performers. They learned
that there are 3 predictors of the high performance at Deloitte. One is clarity
of expectations. The second is a sense of connection to purpose. The third
was the opportunity to play to your strengths.