In an email to employees last week, Shopify announced plans to overhaul the way it evaluates performance.
It's the latest major change from the talent organization overseen by Tia Silas, the chief human-resources officer, who joined Shopify in April.
Shortly after Silas started at Shopify, the company launched an effort to give employees greater flexibility over the makeup of stock and cash in their compensation. The new system, called Flex Comp, launched in September.
Silas said in a companywide email on Friday that the new performance-evaluation product was a continuation of that work. The first step would be asking all leads in the company to evaluate their direct reports' performance by answering a series of questions using a new internal tool.
"As with Flex Comp, we are looking to reinvent this space and deliver performance management products characterized by better data inputs, simplicity, and clarity — an approach consistent with our values as a product-first company," a Shopify representative told Insider.
At one point, Silas' email refers to Shopify as a "high-performing sports team," which could be a nod to CEO Tobi Lütke's past notes about company culture. The email also quotes Lütke, drawing from a statement he made about product launches.
News of the revamped performance system comes as Shopify's workforce reels from the company's July layoffs of roughly 1,000 people.
Read the full email from Silas here:
tl;dr:
As we build our new performance management approach for launch in 2023, we are committed to delivering a product that better reflects your true contributions to Shopify. A product characterized by better inputs, more clarity, coordinated feedback cycles, and dedicated time with your lead. Today marks the first step towards this objective as we launch a Shopify-wide talent review to create a baseline measurement of our impact. What this is not: this is not an exercise in support of promotion or compensation changes (see "other upcoming builds" section below).
Team -
Over the last few months, we've taken an intense deep dive into all the pieces that make up our talent system and started working on builds that are better suited towards driving talent density. In September we launched v.1 of Flex Comp, which was the first of several Talent overhauls we'll roll out Shopify wide.
"There are two choices: roll products out as they are done or artificially delay some. The choice is easy when the goal is to always get incrementally better every day at Shopify."
- tobi
What's Happening
Starting Monday all people leads will take part in an exercise designed to help establish Shopify's baseline measurement of impact (aka: how is this high-performing sports team of ours doing anyway?). The new system is evidence based and will unpack many dimensions of impact - an improvement over the ambiguous old format. We'll also launch a self-reflection exercise, a chance for you to share your own thoughts and reflections around growth and development. This is the first step in getting us all on the same consistent performance foundation and rhythm company-wide.
We'll also take this opportunity to confirm the type of work that you do (ie. your sub-discipline) that will help us all standardize our language around jobs at Shopify.
What's Next
Your lead will have a feedback discussion around impact with you once complete. This should take place after November 11.
Other upcoming releases leading in to 2023
- Launching our New Performance Management approach
- Consistent internal taxonomy around job titles, groups and our structure.
- A new promotion blueprint and launch of our new level and sublevel philosophy building towards infinite growth opportunities within a given role and intended to offer greater clarity and flexibility for advancement.
We look forward to releasing these and other Talent products that will serve the long-term needs of Shopify and our people.
Thanks everyone,
Tia
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