ALBUQUERQUE, NM – PNM Resources, an energy holding company based in Albuquerque, NM, recently launched a new eForm for employee performance reviews. For years, PNM Resources had relied on a highly-customized version of PeopleSoft’s ePerformance application that had become too cumbersome to maintain and was impeding the company’s ability to apply updates to the application in order to take advantage of new functionality.
Rather than re-implement ePerformance or invest in a delivered third-party solution, PNM Resources asked Gideon Taylor to create a new custom performance management application using GT eForms within the company’s existing PeopleSoft HCM system. It was an ideal use for GT eForms but the timeframe was tight. The new system had to be designed, developed, tested, and migrated to production within six weeks.
The Gideon Taylor team went to work creating a custom PeopleSoft-based solution from the ground up, including pre-population of employee data, an intuitive user experience, and conditional form behavior based on whether the employee was union or non-union and who was interacting with the application – the employee or the manager. In April, the new Performance Review solution launched on time and with even more functionality than initially scoped.
The solution is designed as a multi-stage process. Form logic automatically initiates the goal-setting process at the start of each employee’s performance period, enabling the employee to create their own performance plan. The form manages which goals are applicable at the start of each new plan year. It can automatically pre-populate with goals from the prior year and required company goals for the current year, allowing the employee to edit prior goals, select new suggested goals, and create their own custom goals. The required and suggested goals can be administered separately for each employee or employee group. Lists in the form setup pages can be configured to allow for different sets of goals to be displayed based on where the employee falls in the organizational structure. At PNMR, this is based on union representation and custom department groups that the company can create and configure.
Screenshot of employee setting annual goals using the Performance Review Form
Once the employee has completed the setup of their goals in the form, it is routed, reviewed and approved by the employee’s manager. While the employee is setting goals or entering self-evaluation feedback, the manager is not able to review the form until the employee has routed the plan to them for review. They are, however, able to see a status when the employee has started created his/her plan or is currently in the middle of saved updates.
The same form is then used to conduct mid-year and end-of-year reviews, gathering feedback and ratings from each employee and manager. (If an employee changes from union to non-union or vice versa during a plan year, the form will recognize their current plan is no longer valid, warn them, and automatically generate a new one for them.) Logic within the form setup conditionally governs how the form behaves and what data is presented based on the stage of the performance review process and who is interacting with the form. As actions are taken on the form (i.e. Submit, Approve, etc.), workflow routes the form from employee to manager and triggers email notifications based on the status of the form. If an employee’s manager changes mid-year, the next action by the employee will automatically route the form to the new manager, retaining the previous manager’s approvals as valid so that the process doesn’t have to start over.
Once the manager approves the employee’s performance following the year-end review, it becomes part of the employee’s record and can be accessed and reviewed when needed by the employee, manager, and authorized personnel.
In addition to meeting PNMR’s requirements and timeline, the new Performance Review solution provides a powerful, configuration-based application that can readily accommodate enhancements and support changes as the company’s business processes and requirements evolve.
About PNMR
PNM Resources, Inc. is an investor-owned energy holding company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It provides electricity and electric services in New Mexico and Texas through its two utilities, PNM and TNMP. PNM and TNMP have approximately 2,681 megawatts of generation capacity and serve electricity to more than 785,000 homes and businesses in New Mexico and Texas.
PNM Resources has a solid reputation for shareholder value, customer satisfaction and service reliability. It is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange as PNM. In 2018, consolidated operating revenues totaled $1.4 billion.
