Head of people and performance at Les Mills New Zealand on shaping workplace behaviours and articulating 'brand personality'

HR Leader attended the HR and L&D Innovation and Tech Festival this Tuesday and Wednesday past as a guest of Cornerstone OnDemand. Lara Prentice, Les Mills New Zealand's head of people and performance was invited by Cornerstone OnDemand to speak at the event, sharing insights into the HR transformation journey the business has undergone in recent years.

Ms Prentice shared how the Les Mills New Zealand people team has updated their processes and policies, explaining that "a new [HR] system won't fix broken processes". She spoke about how they have brought in a new HR system (Cornerstone OnDemand), and that this system allowed them to manage onboarding for both contractors and employees which is important for their business.

Les Mills' head of people and performance also touched on the work they've done around their 'brand personality' and employee behaviours. She explained to the audience that they discovered their people value performance reviews, despite a general movement in recent years in the HR world to shift away from formal annual performance reviews. 

Following Ms Prentice's presentation, HR Leader's editor, Shandel, had the pleasure of speaking with the head of people and performance to better understand how Les Mills New Zealand has championed chosen workplace behaviours, and really brought, in Ms Prentice's words, their "brand personality" alive.

HR Leader editor: "How have you reflected the behaviours you’d like to promote in your performance reviews?"

Ms Prentice: "Prior to reviewing our performance review process and implementing Cornerstone for our performance reviews, we had a very manual out-of-date form that was not user friendly and didn’t capture any data for reporting purposes. While we measured behaviours against our values to a certain extent, we had no way of measuring behaviour in a meaningful way."

"I’m a big believer there is no point in having people in teams like the ‘rock star sales person’ who’s toxic. They do more harm than good," she said.

Ms Prentice added: "As part of our revised full performance review we introduced a capability framework into our recruitment process and have incorporated clear expected behaviours at different levels and people need to demonstrate where they sit against them. Our values and capabilities are worth 50 per cent of someone’s performance review so people take it seriously and it shows how we behave really matters."

HR Leader editor: "What were the top features of your brand personality that you identified?"

Ms Prentice: "Our external brand personality is motivational, informal, human and passionate so when we think about our people touchpoints we try to make sure our internal brand personality reflects our external brand personality in everything we do."

"When we started our people systems and process journey, having things like an 80-page employee policy manual did not feel right for our business or people experience. We are always thinking 'simplifying processes' in everything we do wherever possible, including the language style we use in written communication like job ads and offer letters," she stated.

HR Leader editor: "Why do you think it’s important for marketing and HR to work together on brand identity?"

Ms Prentice: "It’s incredibly important we work collaboratively across all our functions to make sure with any change project we have going on we’ve taken in to account all aspects. Our SLT works very closely together, and if we think about the importance of measuring behaviour, collaboration is one of the behaviours we measure."

She expanded: "During our HR system selection, I made sure we worked closely with our head of technology and he gave us a huge amount of advice on aspects we wouldn’t have factored in. Likewise, our marketing team has expertise in areas we don’t. While we can largely design and deliver the content in the people space, the marketing team is hugely supportive in making our people resources look and feel like the brand we want to reflect, so our 'people experience' is fit for purpose."

"Our designers are incredibly talented and I’m always inspired by what they produce, from making our policies and processes user friendly to video content," Ms Prentice concluded.

Note from the editor:  Please note that HR Leader was invited to the HR and L&D Innovation and Tech Festival 2022 as a guest of Cornerstone OnDemand, but has not been paid to promote the event, by Cornerstone OnDemand or Les Mills New Zealand. The above is provided for informational purposes only.

Shandel McAuliffe

Shandel has recently returned to Australia after working in the UK for eight years. Shandel's experience in the UK included over three years at the CIPD in their marketing, marcomms and events teams, followed by two plus years with The Adecco Group UK&I in marketing, PR, internal comms and project management. Cementing Shandel's experience in the HR industry, she was the head of content for Cezanne HR, a full-lifecycle HR software solution, for the two years prior to her return to Australia.

Shandel has previous experience as a copy writer, proofreader and copy editor, and a keen interest in HR, leadership and psychology. She's excited to be at the helm of HR Leader as its editor, bringing new and innovative ideas to the publication's audience, drawing on her time overseas and learning from experts closer to home in Australia.

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