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Application

Published June 2008

Kelley Blue Book: Writing the Book on Performance Management

  Mark Rutherford

Many organizations overlook the fact that, to thrive and retain talent, you need to have a language to talk about talent. What's important? What's being measured? How are employees and managers held accountable for business success?

In an ideal world, this accountability would include well-defined job descriptions, goals to set direction and measure progress, organizational charts that allow employees to understand where they fit in, expectations to define appropriate behavior, role-specific competencies and a process to collect enterprise and individual data and measure performance. Without the right tools and language, there is no platform for a talent conversation.

Kelley Blue Book finds considerable value in talent management-related communication, particularly around business goals. Since 1926, the publishing company has provided vehicle buyers and sellers with the most current new and used vehicle information needed to make informed, confident automobile-purchasing decisions. The company created a book widely considered to be the industry standard in placing monetary value on used and new cars.

With the proliferation of Internet use during the past decade, Kelley Blue Book successfully transformed from a publisher into a technology company. With this transition came growth. The company grew from 100 employees in 2004 and no HR department, to more than 500 employees in 2008, and a well thought-out and executed HR strategy. That rapid growth forced the company to recognize the importance of internal evaluation and placing strategic value on employees and performance to drive business results.

By adopting not just programs and processes, but an enterprise-wide performance culture, Kelley Blue Book has put an infrastructure in place that has changed the way the entire company thinks about linking performance management to strategic corporate objectives.

Liz Haut, the company's vice president of HR, recently celebrated her 30-year anniversary. Haut has risen up through the ranks at Kelley Blue Book and, during her tenure, has earned the leadership team's respect by executing business basics while constantly raising the bar to achieve the company's strategic initiatives. This hasn't always been an easy task, particularly in the face of the company's rapid growth.

"I don't believe there is a single organization or functional group that has driven the strategy of Kelley Blue Book this year more than human resources," said John Morrison, executive vice president and CFO of Kelley Blue Book.

Communication has been the key to developing organizational culture and energizing employee attitudes so Kelley Blue Book can optimize its workforce's performance. The leadership and the HR teams never stop listening and always are willing to make adjustments to processes or tools based on employee feedback.

Kelley Blue Book works to ensure employee expectations are set, communicated, discussed and measured. In doing so, the company invests energy and resources appropriately so expectations are fair, alignment is clear, jobs are defined and pay is competitive. These elements serve as the core foundation on which Kelley Blue Book's current talent management system is built.

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