Commvault moving beyond reviewing employees to unlocking employee potential

Commvault empowered meaningful check-ins, enabled continuous learning and performance management, simplified development planning, improved succession planning data, increased visibility.

We’ve moved from talent rankings to talent mapping. We use the nine-box grid style map. It’s more visual, and it helps us focus on coaching and development."

Joe Ilvento Chief Learning Officer and Worldwide Director of Talent Development, Commvault

Commvault is a global leader in enterprise backup, recovery, archive and the cloud, helping companies worldwide activate their data to drive more value and business insight. A publicly traded company, Commvault employs more than 2,700 highly skilled individuals across markets worldwide.

In the technology industry, the biggest HR challenge isn’t finding enough candidates, it’s finding and retaining the right ones. For Commvault, improving the ability to attract and keep in-demand candidates led to a powerful shift in the company’s talent management strategy.

“In a tech environment, you have to craft a culture where people not only want to come to work, but a culture that supports ongoing development and retention,” said Joe Ilvento, Commvault’s chief learning officer and worldwide director of talent development. “We began transitioning from a performance review process to an ‘unlocking potential’ mindset. While our objective to drive high performance stayed the same, we moved from using goals to creating priorities, and from talking about the corporate career ladder to facilitating a corporate career lattice. We knew that unlocking employee potential would help employees get better at what they do.”

Leadership realized a shift in their talent management strategy also required a shift in technology. Unlocking performance required software that enabled continuous coaching, communication and development. Any new technology also had to unify learning, performance, succession and compensation to align with Commvault’s view of talent management as a repeating cycle, not a finite or annual event.

After reviewing multiple vendors, Commvault implemented Cornerstone’s unified talent management solution. To encourage user adoption, Commvault created direct access to Cornerstone modules via an “Unlocking Potential” tab on their website. The learning and performance portal blends with the rest of Commvault’s website to create a seamless user experience.

Commvault also used compliance training to drive adoption. “When there’s an opportunity to have every member of the company touch training, you want to leverage that,” said Ilvento. “We added links that enabled employees to explore new courses based off of saved searches. For example, an employee interested in improving communication could click on a link that showed a short list of recommended courses on communication and select the one or more that best meets the need.”

Transformed static annual reviews into meaningful, ongoing check-ins. With Cornerstone Performance, managers can provide feedback and easily connect with employees. Instead of performance ratings, managers use semi-annual Talent Snaps, which are conversations focused on near-term deliverables. “We still work off an annual merit cycle, however the conversations are now ongoing in the form of check-ins, career conversations, and coaching where managers provide continuous insight and support,” said Ilvento. “It’s a proactive approach that’s focused less on fixing gaps and more on building strengths.”

Enabled continuous learning and performance management. Cornerstone aligns with Commvault’s vision of talent management as an ongoing cycle. Employees can access their curriculum from anywhere, while managers can track and report on training and performance. Commvault can also reprioritize tasks and plans on the fly. “Businesses today have to be able to pivot. What you’re working on today may change tomorrow,” said Ilvento. “The ability to continually reprioritize is key to adapting to business needs and drivers.”

Simplified development planning. With Cornerstone Learning, managers have a jumpstart on development planning. “Managers use the templates to quickly craft individual plans,” said Ilvento. “Cornerstone also enables us to merge multiple development plans. With one click, I can see all the plans together.”

Improved quality and quantity of succession planning data. Ilvento and his team use Cornerstone’s talent grid to better plan succession around employee experience, potential, performance and career goals. “We’ve moved from talent rankings to talent mapping. We now use a talent grid. It’s more visual, and it helps us focus on coaching and development.” Increased visibility. Via Cornerstone’s graphic dashboards, Ilvento and his team can track learning and performance in real time. “We use the dashboards to get a feel for uptake on a program and what it might look like going forward. From a CLO perspective, the dashboards give us increased visibility into employee priorities, training and performance.”