Performance Reviews Revamped at Decathlon

That’s why the most successful companies monitor employee performance at regular intervals to improve the exchange of communication between managers and employees, thereby improving work relationships and boosting productivity.

At Decathlon—the world’s largest sporting goods retailer, which employs over 80,000 people in 1400 stores spread across 45 countries—monthly performance reviews have been a mandatory part of work life for the past decade.

“They have become like a religion for us,” says Matthieu Leclercq, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Decathlon, about the monthly employee evaluations. “In fact, managers are even incentivized by bonuses to carry out monthly performance evaluations with the entire staff.”

With its focus on regular evaluations, Decathlon is spearheading a growing trend among companies today to go beyond traditional performance reviews (which all too often do not yield valuable results because they are badly designed, time consuming and not done regularly enough) towards new and better ways of evaluating employee performance.

But this isn’t always easy. In the past, multiple Decathlon stores faced significant challenges when it came to the efficiency of their monthly evaluations.

All that changed in 2017 when the company decided that their internal performance review software, Backfeed, needed improving and started working with Zest as a more sophisticated and advanced solution. Not long after the “best practices” and key functionalities of Backfeed had been integrated into Zest, Decathlon stores in France, Philippines, Israel, Japan, Morocco and England adopted it as a solution.

Quicker – and more rewarding – than a coffee break

Zest’s Check-in module transforms performance reviews from a cumbersome and dreaded process to a valuable, enjoyable, productive and—most importantly—positive experience that takes no longer than your average coffee break.

“The monthly feedback is very simple and quick to complete for employees,” says Julien Monfort. “They can do it directly from their tablet.”

But beyond its user-friendliness, Zest’s Check-in module creates a regular flow of communication between managers and employees, resulting in more constructive feedback, clearer targets, and better skill development. The module also allows managers to set goals and manage their implementation, as well as enabling them to gauge the levels of commitment and motivation for each of these targets.

“Through surveys and moods,” says Julien Monfort,“Zest allows us to evaluate not only the well-being of our employees but also to analyse the responses and define concrete action plans to improve the well-being at work of our teams.”

For managers at Decathlon, Zest makes it easy to monitor levels of employee engagement, moods and identify concrete action plans to improve their overall wellbeing.

Decathlon recently won first place in the category for promoting the wellbeing of its employees. “Our persistent focus on monthly performance evaluations is one of the main reasons we won this award,” says Leclerq.

Decathlon’s “early adopter” decision to embed regular performance evaluations into the very core of its structure has undoubtedly contributed to the company’s global success. Bolstered by Zest’s tailor-made Check-in module, the right digital environment is created to allow that mindset to flourish to its full extent—enabling managers and employees at Decathlon to reap the rewards of improved communication for many years to come.