First Harrison Bank – A Community-First Bank
First Harrison Bank was established in 1891, as the Savings & Loan Association of Corydon. Today, the bank has eighteen neighborhood locations in Southern Indiana and Bullitt County, Kentucky.
First Harrison Bank has been voted one of the Best Places to Work in Indiana four times and has established a reputation over the years for excellent customer service. First Harrison Bank employs over 235 staff and prides itself on access to leadership and employee engagement.
Overview
First Harrison Bank wanted to replace its outdated Excel-based performance review and merit pay processes to create efficiencies, analyze performance results and trends, and engage staff in better and
more frequent discussions around performance & career planning. Since starting with emPerform, First Harrison Bank has completely automated reviews & pay for performance planning, resulting in significant time savings, and better accuracy security and quality of performance reviews.
The Challenges
Before implementing emPerform, First Harrison Bank used Excel spreadsheets to facilitate performance and merit reviews. The process was administratively time-consuming due to back-and-forth communication – increasing the potential for error and security risks. Also, because the processes were not automated, First Harrison Bank was unable to summarize and centralize their employee performance data or gain valuable insights into history and performance trends.
Their HR team wanted to streamline and boost efficiency in both their performance management and merit pay review processes and empower managers to have more effective discussions with employees.
“We knew there had to be an easier way. We also wanted to move away from retaining so much paper and to transition to a digital storing solution,” said Jill Keinsley, EVP, HR & Administration at First Harrison Bank.
“We have a number of young employees who are very focused on career growth and opportunities. They crave feedback and want to know how to advance to the next step in their career. We needed a solution that could support those discussions,” said Jill.
First Harrison Bank learned of emPerform through the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM). “We knew emPerform had a lot of great features that would meet our needs, like automated scheduling, digital storage, feedback, reporting, goal setting, compensation planning, and succession planning. It has everything we needed!” continued Jill.
The Impact of emPerform at First Harrison Bank
Since launching emPerform, First Harrison Bank has experienced brilliant results for HR, employees, and managers.
We knew emPerform had a lot of great features that would meet our needs, like automated scheduling, digital storage, feedback, reporting, goal setting, compensation planning, and succession planning. It has everything we needed!”
Jill Keinsley, EVP, HR & Administration, First Harrison Bank
Centralization of Performance Data
Using emPerform, HR teams have cut administrative time by 50% or more, and are better equipped to address any performance issues in a timelier manner.
“We have definitely become more efficient by using emPerform, and I feel our data is much more secure. Also, employees and managers can easily document progress throughout the year leading to more thorough and productive feedback and discussions,” said Jill.
Elimination of Paper and Excel Spreadsheets
“emPerform has completely eliminated our need to email and print paper and spreadsheets,” said Jill. “This was particularly beneficial during the pandemic when we had employees working from the office and home and had no access to printers. Our HR team doesn’t have to worry about bulky files anymore because all employee reviews and histories are online and secure in emPerform.”
Enriched Performance Discussions and Feedback
“Performance conversations have been enriched by emPerform. There’s more documentation to discuss because employees and managers can easily make notes and send feedback using emPerform tag. This has been particularly beneficial as we tried to reduce face-toface interaction and sharing of documents, etc. during the pandemic,” said Jill.
Better Consistency & Quality of Performance Reviews
“emPerform has helped 100% with the accuracy and consistency of reviews and scoring,” said Jill. “The forced comments and manager rating assistant tools in emPerform help ensure accurate scores and comments are provided. We can trust our competency scores and analyze results across our teams to determine where further development is needed. We could not do this easily using
Excel.”
Centralization of Performance Plans
“Our employees and managers like how easy it is to access everything online in one place – Development Planning, Career Planning, Corrective Action Forms & Performance Appraisals,” said Jill. “Everything is centralized and online for easy access from anywhere.”
Automated Compensation & Merit Planning
By moving from Excel-based compensation sheets and email, emPerform has helped First Harrison Bank establish an efficient and consistent compensation and merit review process. HR teams and managers now have access to key performance information that helps managers manage their budgets and provides them with an easier way to model pay scenarios.
“We use emPerform’s compensation module for our merit review and annual bonus process. Once the merit pool has been determined by our Compensation Committee, that information is added to the system and emPerform provides managers with pay recommendations based on the employee’s performance rating and where they fall in relation to the midpoint of their salary grade. This helps our leaders manage their pay budget and also provides them an easy way to model different pay scenarios if they feel an employee is deserving of more or less than what the system recommends, while also keeping them within budget. The bonus information is also uploaded into emPerform, so managers have easy access to all pay information for discussions with their staff,” explained Jill.
First Harrison Bank will continue to refine and build out their reviews, development plans and performance management processes with emPerform. They plan to add additional customized forms and would like to make use of emPerform’s Nine-Box Talent Matrix for succession planning purposes.
First Harrison Bank will continue to refine and build out their reviews, development plans and performance management processes with emPerform. They plan to add additional customized forms and would like to make use of emPerform’s Nine-Box Talent Matrix for succession planning purposes.
“emPerform has been a great solution for First Harrison Bank and I highly recommend it!”
Reduce your performance management overhead and better engage employee development with emPerform. Intuitive, complete & flexible employee performance management software.
