About Adobe

• Adobe is computer software company headquartered in San Jose,

California.
• Previously focused on the creation of multimedia and creativity
software products
• Adobe has around 13,500 employees globally
• Broad range of customers from Multinational Brands to Individual
Customers
The Crossroad

• Adobe decided to transform from an 18-24 month Product Cycle

company to a Cloud Based Software Company.

• New Product Offerings- 3 Cloud Based Services:

• Creative Cloud
• Adobe Document Cloud
• Adobe Marketing Cloud
Work Culture
• During 18-24 Month Product Cycle:
• Employees were used to a routine against long development cycles
• Employees were not agile
• Despite strong retention, high performers would leave after annual bonus to
join flourishing start ups

• Required employee culture post transformation:

• Created internal pressure on employees since they had to move out of their
routine and into a fast- moving product development company
Adobe’s Cultural Change
• Decided that Annual Performance Reviews were time consuming,
slow and negative
• Adobe put an end to the Annual Performance Reviews
• Introduced the “Check-in”- 2 way on going dialogue between
manager and employees
• This resulted in:
• Dramatic efficiency gains
• More effective Performance Management
• Higher employee engagement and retention
The story of checks-in
• In 2012, Adobe’s then Senior Vice President of People Resources, Donna Morris,
was feeling frustrated with annual performance reviews.
• Process was – complex, bureaucratic, and paperwork-heavy that it ate up
thousands of hours of managers’ time.
• Created barriers to teamwork and innovation, left many employees feeling
undervalued and uninspired.
• She planned to to abolish the performance review format and determined to
catalyze change, creating something better for Adobe employees and the
company as a whole.
• Donna and her team solicited feedback from all across the company introducing
Check-in, an informal, ongoing dialogue between managers and their direct
reports that has employees feeling more engaged and empowered.
 Adobe’s open-source Check-in toolkit
(align to the three phases of Check-in – Expectations, Feedback, and Development)

Expectations Feedback Development

Managers set clear
expectations around
deliverables, contributions,
and behavior to help
employees achieve their
business and personal goals.
• Expectations discussion
guide for employees
• Expectations discussion
guide for managers
• Expectations worksheet
Managers and employees give each
other ongoing, constructive
feedback. Employees see how
they're progressing against the
expectations, and managers find
out if they should be doing anything
differently to better support their
employees.
• Feedback discussion guide for
employees
• Feedback discussion guide for
managers
Employees drive their own growth
by creating actionable career
development goals around
learning and experience.
• Development discussion guide
for employees
• Development discussion guide
for managers
• Individual development plan
Implementation of Changes
• The shift from an Annual Performance Review to a Check-In process took
over in just 9 months.
• Faced significant challenges to meet the global requirements because of:
• Work Councils in countries like Germany and France
• Legal regulations that have specific processes as in China
• Disbanded the earlier team who executed the Annual Performance
Reviews and roles like Business Partner, ERC & Talent Development became
more critical.
• People Resources focussed more on building manager capability ensuring
they are equipped to set expectations and have ongoing performance
discussions.
Implementation of Changes
• While overall distribution of salary increase remained the same, the
managers tended to show more differentiation at the high and low
ends of performance.
• Enough training sessions and one-to-one People Resources
Discussion were given so that the process could be executed
smoothly.
• Focused on building a comfortable way of providing feedback.
• Adobe also implemented Adobe Connect, a web conferencing
solution for training sessions and posted multiple tools and videos to
the intranet.
Challenges of the new system
• Navigating the global requirements.
• Intense Change Management.
-Changing roles and responsibilities
-Training managers and building their capabilities
• Addressing concerns of employees.
Outcome of the change
• Frequent performance feedback conversations.
• Non-regrettable turnover and involuntary attrition rates increased by
2 to 3%.
• Stronger employer brand.
• Smooth transition from core software offerings to a cloud-based
model.
• Motivated employees working together effectively.
Conclusion
Some key learnings from Adobe-
• Executive sponsorship is critical.
• Manager capabilities and development will make or break your
success.
• Communicate early and often.
• Build a shares services model.