Optimize Your Greatest Asset -- Your People: How to Apply Analytics to Big Data to Improve Your Human Capital Investments

Appendix GPerformance Management Case Study

VF Corporation: Measuring the Impact of Performance Management—Maximizing Performance

Background

VF Corporation is the $7 billion global apparel company that owns such brands as The North Face, Wrangler, Vans, Lee, 7 for All Mankind, Nautica, Majestic, Rustler, JanSport, and many others. Although many of these brands are VF's legacy brands, the company has grown largely through acquisition in recent years. Today's portfolio represents diverse markets and cultures. VF's leaders recognized the need to unify the brands and drive a high-performance culture across the disparate divisions, locations, and brands.

In 2010, VF launched Maximizing Performance, a companywide performance management process, to support its goal of building a culture of performance and to improve business results. A key component in VF's development of a high-performance culture was getting all associates aligned with corporate goals. With unique cultures across its many brands, VF wanted the associates to understand how their individual job roles and departments contributed to their brand and how their brand contributed to the company as a whole.

VF determined that a key indicator of progress toward a high-performance culture was the annual engagement survey. VF believed that the activities and behaviors encouraged by Maximizing Performance would be linked to improved individual performance and engagement, and that these would be linked to profitability. VF partnered ...