Melissa Forte

Manager, Talent and Organizational Development, SiteOne Landscape Supply

Supernova Award Category: 

Future of Work: Human Capital Management

The Organization: 

SiteOne Landscape Supply (NYSE: SITE), is the largest and only national wholesale distributor of landscape supplies in the United States and has a growing presence in Canada. Our customers are primarily residential and commercial landscape professionals who specialize in the design, installation and maintenance of lawns, gardens, golf courses and other outdoor spaces.

The Problem: 

Without a process for recognizing outstanding performance by our associates, we struggled to find a solution for maintaining employee engagement and providing adequate visibility of top talent to leadership. The inability to provide employees with a platform for peer-to-peer recognition as well as recognition by leadership led to low employee engagement and loyalty, which in part resulted in an observed higher turnover in lower-paying roles.

Moreover, without a historical database or system for analyzing performance and potential, it was difficult to promote talent from within or identify open roles in a structured succession planning model.

The Solution: 

In addition to providing employees with badges associated with learning objects, our organization explored the use of “feedback” badges and a leadership feature among customer service associates with the goal of promoting friendly competition and overall employee engagement. The badging system also created an opportunity to identify individuals with exceptional and specialized skills, such as being certified as an Irrigation or Agronomics expert.

Implementing robust reporting capabilities within the Performance and Succession modules of Cornerstone, our organization identified the appropriate platform for implementing a cadence of formal talent reviews that would aggregate year-over-year performance data and populate trended performance in the succession module.

The Results: 

While SiteOne previously used badges associated with learning objects, implementation of the Feedback badges opened up new opportunities for employee rewards and recognition possibilities. The badging, along with the leaderboard feature and robust reporting capabilities for the ‘Customers FIRST’ program within Cornerstone’s platform created friendly competition among associates and their leaders to see who could rack up the most badges (and points) for being “Customer Obsessed”, a core competency at SiteOne. In turn, this led to an increased Net Promoter Score since the program’s inception.

Moreover, badging has established newfound visibility in the organization for members of Employee Resource Groups, and now identifies individuals with exceptional and specialized skills, such as being certified as an Irrigation or Agronomics expert. The new process introducing frequent employee recognition and rewards has resulted in increased engagement and job satisfaction across the entire organization.

Metrics: 

Prior to implementing the ‘Customers FIRST’ program, SiteOne had a company-wide NPS score of 61 points, which increased to 71 points after implementation – above the standard for “world class” customer service! Since adopting the badging and leadership features, over 2,300 associates have been recognized by peers, leaders and customers. In fact, 113 of those associates have been recognized 4 times or more, thus earning a $250 bonus directly into their paychecks. SiteOne is currently tracking towards at least a 30% improvement on engagement scores.  

As a result of associate badging that allows managers to quicky identify certain skills and certifications in order to identify talent for internal promotions, SiteOne has identified and promoted over 350 associates to higher roles in the organization since utilizing Cornerstone, and has created over 200 targeted development plans to groom associates for promotions. The turnover rate for associates being evaluated using the succession module has been reduced by 2% or more in each role in just one year. SiteOne has been able to build over 250 succession pipelines in preparation to back-fill roles as leaders are promoted to their next role or separated from the company. In under two years, SiteOne has run over 60 SMP PowerPoint Reports iterations to provide key information to leadership in real-time as they evaluate their succession pool for a role. 

The Technology: 

SiteOne Landscape Supply implemented Cornerstone OnDemand’s Performance and Succession suites - cloud-based performance and succession management solutions that support people development and career progression, while capturing talent measurement data to surface performance metrics.

Disruptive Factor: 

Creating an employee engagement and succession planning program in partnership with Cornerstone is an advancement in reinventing work. We found a new way to capitalize on the collective knowledge, skills and performance of our employees, ultimately putting a program in place to retain the best talent. In an organization that struggled with job satisfaction ratings and visibility from leadership, we created a system that encourages recognition, both peer-to-peer and from the top. Lastly, this program gave the talent team a voice at the table by providing these leaders with a data-driven performance platform, which was recognized by the executive leadership team.

Shining Moment: 

Our badging program for ‘Customers FIRST’ recognition was highlighted at SiteOne’s latest board of directors meeting with overwhelming positive feedback. The board was impressed with the innovative, affordable and simple approach to associate recognition that could be provided by both leaders and peers alike. On top of that, our executive leadership team pre-reads our SMP PowerPoint Reports in advance of talent review sessions and visits to office branches.

About Your Organization

SiteOne Landscape Supply (NYSE: SITE), is the largest national wholesale distributor of landscape supplies in the United States and has a growing presence in Canada. Its customers are primarily residential and commercial landscape professionals who specialize in the design, installation and maintenance of lawns, gardens, golf courses and other outdoor spaces. https://www.siteone.com/