Throwback brewery is a small brewery in New Hampshire consisting of 42 fulltime employees, of

which 28 work year round and the rest are seasonally employed.
1. planning & aligning performance: OKR (Objectives & Key results)
Throwback’s 3 main objectives are
1. to Increase revenue per existing customer:
1. Increase revenue per customer to 27.25 $ (by 10%)
2. Improve customer satisfaction by 10%, measured by reviews on sites like TripAdvisor
2. Become a “must stop” in New Hampshire
1. Overtake Maine and Vermont in market cap
2. Become the top rated brewery and restaurant in NH, measured by their local ranking in
sites like TripAdvisor
3. Improve employer brand:
1. Improve employee NPS by 10%, measured in sites like GlassDoor
2. Increase employee satisfaction by 10%, measured in a monthly survey
1.1. Main problems:
Communication Challenges
Pay Disparities and Financial Concerns
Lack of Performance Appraisal and reward management systems
Ambiguous roles, due to lack of a general manager
1.2. How? Why?
To achieve these results and address issues the brewery I suggest implementing performance and
reward management systems, to increase employee productivity and satisfaction as well as bring order
to the madness, which is currently present at the company
2. Clarifying roles:
1st step to be able to implement a performance management system is to clarify the roles. The brewery
rn has no GM, which creates a lot of pressure on Annette and also the lead server, thus I propose the
following: firstly, the front of house , as mentioned in the case, the lead servers arent ready to be
managers, however, as our company cannot afford to hire a GM and the servers have to be
continuously reminded that the team leads aren’t managers, making them the front-of-house managers
would be the best option, therefore making them responsible for also conducting employee
performance and reward management. Although training and up-skilling the current team leads would
be costly; hiring, onboarding and paying a designated GM would be more time consuming and
expensive.
On the back-of-house side, the Head Chef would be the natural choice in taking on the managers
responsibilities, including performance and reward management of the back of house employees. Head
chef, should also join front of house managers in the upskilling and training to ensure consistency in
knowledge.
These new responsibilities should also be reflected in their according job descriptions and should be
reflected in their compensation
1. Monitoring & Measuring performance:
Performance reviews should be conducted by the Lead Servers on the front of house and Head
Chef on the back of house. These reviews should be conducted on a monthly basis with 1on1
 meetings, to foster communication within the company, which is currently a major issue, and
allow employees to also express their comments and/or concerns with the newly implemented
review systems. These 1on1s should be more informal, to encourage transparency and honesty,
moreover, due to the family like culture, a very formal performance review would seem out of
place and potentially threaten the effectiveness and acceptance of these new systems.
2. Enabling & enhancing performance:
The previously mentioned 1on1 meetings would also function as a support system as managers
would be able not just to review the employees performance but, due to the less formal structure
of the 1on1s and the family like culture, also help the employee in the areas where they are
struggling, as the managers themselves are experts in their respective fields, hence further
improving the communication issue
3. Assessing & Evaluating performance: Assessing & Evaluating performance should be a mix
of qual and quant. Encourage qualitative self-assessment and peer feedback as suggested by
Annette to bring in a more democratic and participatory approach. Additionally, I recommend
supplementing the performance review system with a quantitative approach, I recommend using
the Behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS), for both the front and back of house. It is a
great option for front-of-house due to the nature of the job, as it assesses observable behaviors,
which is particularly useful for roles like front-of-house workers where observable actions
directly impact the customer experience. For instance, it can measure behaviors such as
effective communication with customers, ability to upsell products, or resolve customer
complaints effectively.
It is also the best option in the case of back-of-house workers such as cooks, brewers, and
farmers as well. This method can be tailored to assess the specific behaviors and competencies
necessary for their roles. For example:
o Cooks: BARS could include criteria related to food preparation skills, adherence to
hygiene standards, and teamwork. as well as creativity in recipe development for head
chef.
o Brewers: BARS might involve criteria related to brewing techniques, quality control,
adherence to safety protocols, creativity in recipe development and equipment
maintenance.
o Farmers: Criteria could revolve around crop cultivation practices, knowledge of soil
management, crop yield, and sustainability practices
When performing individual performance reviews it is important to consider:
4. Individual development – Has the person improved over time?
5. Average in the team – Is the person better or worse than their team?
6. External benchmark of the best practices

1. Base salaries:
Considering that the company can not afford a GM and is already paying the industry avg in
base salaries, this part of the reward management system, in my opinion, should only be
 reviewed for Lead Servers and Head Chef as they are taking on more responsibilities, hence it
should be reflected in their base salaries.
2. Short-term variable pay:
In order to improve the pay disparity situation between the back-of-house and front-of-house, I
suggest that our company implements variable pay for cooks, brewers and farmers, this would
achieve 2 things: incentivize the back-of-house to perform, thus helping the brewery seize more
market share and reach their other strategic goals; And help improve the pay gap within the
brewery, thus improving equity in the company, given that the goals are reached.
This variable pay would be payed quarterly and depend on year-on-year growth in sales using
set revenue growth goals, as this would eliminate any seasonality variation. Furthermore, this
would not create inequity in compensation, as front-of-house already has a type of variable pay:
Tips, and tips would grow along with sales.
3. Long term incentives:
I suggest that Throwback consider paying head chef, brewer and farmer in equity, as these roles
are vital to the success of the brewery, hence if they have a shared interest in the success of the
business they would be incentivized to go above and beyond.
4. Non-monetary rewards:
As its mentioned in the case that their non-monetary rewards are already above industry avg, I
believe, due to their financial constraints, they currently shouldn't focus in this area.
5. Emotional rewards:
In this aspect, the monthly employee satisfaction surveys and 1on1 meetings would be a major
benefit as it would address the issues of communication and transparency as well as it would
give employees the avenue to express their opinions, thus making them feel noticed and their
efforts seen.

Additional suggestions:
Reward policy be as transparent as possible
That Throwback Continuously review and improve the quantitative performance evaluation metrics
and goals
Re-evaluate the base salaries to address the cost of living issues

Metrics to assess the success of the implementation process:

Results from the monthly employee satisfaction survey
Employee TO
Customer satisfaction