Case Study: Manitowoc County achieves merit-based pay and streamlined performance reviews with Insperity PerformSmart

PerformSmart helps county government build a performance appraisal process from the ground up

Manitowoc County, Wis., a 435-employee county government, needed to replace automatic, contract-driven pay increases after the state ended collective bargaining in 2011. With many staff never having experienced formal performance reviews, county leaders faced a major culture shift and sought an affordable, user-friendly system that offered coaching for supervisors and could be customized for 27 different departments.

They chose Insperity PerformSmart, built custom templates and suggested text for each department, and invested in eight months of supervisory training followed by a year of conversations about expectations. Using PerformSmart daily to document performance made reviews smoother, enabled reliable reporting to support merit decisions, increased employee engagement, strengthened supervisor-employee relationships, and allowed the county to tie pay fairly to individual performance.

Manitowoc County

Sharon Cornils

Personnel Director