Sam’s Club
Performance feedback at an actionable scale.
Many companies use a data-driven framework for what success looks like in their business, analyzing sales numbers and driving for organizational optimization. For Sam’s Club, the challenge was in finding ways to assess both the concrete and the subjective qualities inherent to success in the Club. To solve for this, we developed an approach to deliver a mix of business-level data and holistic assessment directly to Sam’s Club associates, presenting a personalized, actionable view of job performance. We called it Associate View.
Our goal was to develop a single digital view where associates could track their performance, and see available tools to improve their success in a measurable, impactful way.
Research
The design of Associate View involved associates at every point of the process. Our team was onsite in Clubs every week, working with the Sam’s Club team to explore what success looked like for them and understanding first-hand the factors that shape and influence their work. Our weekly cadence of concept, design, evaluation, and refinement allowed the team to quickly refine the design, exploring a future-leaning vision of individual performance while grounding it with the realities faced by associates on the ground.
By founding this work with the lived experience of associates, we’re able to ensure that the tools we design reflect the in-Club reality of the Sam’s Club team, delivering a tool that is supportive and empathetic.
During our time in club we:
Interviewed associates, probing what success looked like both individually and collectively.
Shadowed associates through the club to understand the situational factors that impact performance.
Reviewed tools, both physical and digital, that Associates use to manage their day-to-day work.
Worked with managers and team leads to understand their view of success and how they support their teams.
Design
The time it takes to stack a pallet to the amount of fat trimmed from a piece of beef, evaluating and associate’s job performance is a nuanced and highly contextual act. To accommodate this complexity, Associate View was designed as a flexible array of metric-based modules, reflective of each associate’s work.
Laid out in a single scroll, each module represents one facet of an associate’s performance, comprising everything from how quickly they unload a truck to how much overtime they’ve earned.
Each module allows for more in-depth inspection by enabling associates to tap and learn about the actual data describing their performance.
Associate Focused, Business Flexible
Associate View seeks to acknowledge the efforts that often go unnoticed, highlighting associate’s hidden work and providing recognition of their successes. Balanced alongside these celebratory moments are educational touchpoints to help guide an associate back on track when their performance needs attention.
A Tapestry of Data
The heart of My Performance is a tapestry of data, an associate’s accomplishments presented through a flexible framework of modules separated into three unique categories:
Tasks & Relevant Information
These modules support associate’ success by clearly articulating their work, expectations, and information that might impact their day including task lists, work schedules, reminders, and critical data points.
Performance
Performance modules show associates how they’re performing, highlighting areas of achievement as well as areas of improvement.
Motivation & Goals
Motivation modules highlight how associate success is shaping professional trajectory, rewarding high performance through a combination of small rewards and long term acknowledgment.
