The Business Problem:

The Manager-Employee Gap 

Simms Fishing Products has a strong history of innovation and passion. Founded in 1980, their ongoing commitment to creating leading-edge fishing apparel led them to greatly expand the business in 2012 by becoming the sole fishing wader manufacturer in the USA.

The Simms team was dedicated to their mission, but at times disconnected within the vertical layers of the organization. Senior leadership wanted to improve employee engagement, but was frequently overlooking this objective to pursue other goals. 

Performance reviews were held annually, which meant that employees had only one opportunity per year to go in-depth with their managers about job performance and career growth. Moreover, concrete employee performance metrics were lacking, leading to somewhat subjective conversations that didn’t set the stage for practical improvements. 

How Rhythm Helped:

Keeping Engagement Front and Center

Simms transitioned their pre-existing KPIs to the Rhythm tool and created new metrics to improve employee engagement and performance. One of their KPIs was the Engagement Survey, which served a critical role in keeping employee engagement top-of-mind for leadership. Discussing this metric at their Weekly Adjustment Meetings drove senior leaders to proactively address engagement issues as they arose.

More Opportunities to Boost Performance 

Simms decided to move to a quarterly cadence of performance reviews. This was a large endeavor that demanded timely execution; thus, the HR/OD team set this project as a top goal in Rhythm to keep themselves accountable to delivery. Through disciplined weekly execution, they adjusted their review process and gave the team more opportunities to check in about performance. 

Moreover, the Simms team used Rhythm to make an overall mindset shift around employee performance. Their new approach would be more timely, objective, and coaching-oriented. If Rhythm data indicated that an employee’s performance was below-par, their manager would develop an improvement plan for them. This did not have to coincide with an active review; rather, managers prompted performance adjustments as soon as possible without waiting weeks or months to tell the employee that they had fallen behind. 

A Flow of Continuous Communication  

Rhythm provided tools for managers and their reports to frequently align on goal progress, job performance, career growth, and other relevant topics. Simms added weekly 1:1s to their teams’ calendars, as well as Weekly Adjustment Meetings. Every meeting had a distinct purpose and a focused agenda to help participants stay on-topic and accomplish what needed to be done. These meeting rhythms reduced misalignment and grew stronger person-to-person relationships.

The Results:

Growing Employees to Grow the Business  

Simms has an ongoing commitment to engaging and coaching their employees, strengthening individuals, teams, and the company as a whole. As they built upon their new habits, more employees decided to stay with the business for a longer period of time.  

Using Rhythm tools and processes, Simms was able to:

• Increase senior leadership focus on employee engagement 
• Multiply communication opportunities and performance conversations 
• Improve employee retention