LightForce, an orthodontics technology company, had rapidly grown from 36 to over 600 employees spread across six countries. While their previous performance management processes—which were done manually on spreadsheets—worked for a while, it was clear that they needed an overhaul.

As part of a lean HR team, Laura Downey, HR Manager at LightForce, knew the company needed to prioritize performance management to sustain growth. But this focus on performance couldn’t come with the burden of a litany of tools and processes that would pose adoption issues for the team. 

In all of my experience, performance management has never been as easy as it is with Rippling Performance Management. The tool that you have here and the customization for it is out of this world. It's beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.

Laura Downey

HR Manager

As an existing Rippling customer, Laura already experienced the value of Rippling as a core HRIS and Benefits platform. By adding Rippling Performance Management, she was able to transform her company’s performance management process with no migration and little to no adoption challenges. She expected simpler performance management, but Rippling far exceeded her expectations. 

Using Supergroups, Laura and her team could customize performance reviews for every employee on their multinational team based on their role, team, department, and function.
Laura explains, “We're in six different countries, and within those countries, we have different employment types. Within those employment types, we have different types of roles and teams. We have incredibly talented and amazing people so it's critical we support their unique development and growth, and Rippling allows us to do this with easy customization.”

Before Rippling, LightForce evaluated employee performance but was limited in how they could help managers improve the quality of their performance management conversations with team members. With Rippling’s LMS, Laura and her team empowered managers by assigning courses based on their unique roles and opportunities for improvement. The result? Better and more productive performance conversations that go a long way in fostering higher-quality feedback.

There wasn't a great way for us to train managers prior to going into a cycle. Now, we're able to assign an LMS course a month before launching a performance cycle. How do you celebrate achievements? How do you develop employees? How do you have difficult conversations? How do you give tough feedback? We’re able to lead managers to have successful performance reviews.

Laura Downey

HR Manager

Rippling also helped streamline the self-review process for individual employees. Prior to Rippling, LightForce would ask employees to fill out spreadsheets and questionnaires. Employees often lost track of the disparate documents, necessitating repetitive follow-up from Laura and her team. They also had to manually track who had and had not completed these documents, giving them no way to scale. 

Rippling Performance Management allowed Laura and her team to set up self-reviews with questions, goals, and reporting all in one location. They now have an instant view into completion rates, and reminders to employees are automatic. What took them three months to complete before now happens in a matter of days.

With Rippling, we get to spend a lot more of our time focused on our performance management strategy, including cycle components and the intention behind questions. We no longer have to worry about the logistics of how we’re going to execute it.

Laura Downey

HR Manager

• Reduced self-review cycles from three months to a few days using Rippling’s performance management system.
• Upskilled newer managers by assigning courses on how to have effective performance management conversations with employees.
• Reduced reliance on in-person workshops by creating custom learning pathways for 90 managers across six countries.
• Ability to track and report on performance review cycles.