Onbe is Connecting People and Processes with Lattice

The Challenge/Evaluation  

When industry leaders daVinci Payments and North Lane Technologies merged to form Onbe, a digital payment solutions provider, the leadership team had a lofty goal: unite two disparate companies into one well-oiled machine. 

As with most mergers or acquisitions, Onbe faced some growing pains. Each organization had its own processes and tools. Some groups were using HR or performance management software, while others were still relying on manual processes. Most challenging was the Onbe HR and leadership teams didn’t have a single source of truth. They were still pulling data from multiple places for insights they could use to drive goal setting and action planning. 

Developing a fully integrated, high-performing organization required transparency and communication from the top down and bottom up.

To establish and foster a new Onbe culture and set the company up for even more growth, the organization began evaluating people management tools that would promote collaboration and speed consensus. Lattice fit the bill. The Onbe team was immediately impressed with how Lattice offered one platform that combined surveys, performance reviews, goals, action plans, and clear communication channels for employees at all levels in the organization.

“Lattice offers many more features than we had seen with other solutions. It was one of the few where we didn't have to do add-ons to roll out the different processes we were planning in 2022,” says Kate Ferry, Onbe's Senior Director of People. “Ultimately, Lattice provided everyone in the company with one engagement and performance management tool, enabling us to consolidate processes so all employees could participate. It is helping us to create one Onbe.”

Using Lattice at Onbe

No matter how good the solution, if people aren’t using it, it’s not going to get positive results, so Onbe’s first hurdle was to ensure people would participate and engage.  

“Before we implemented anything, we knew we had to create processes that were easy and meaningful for employees,” says Kate. “We trained them on how to use Lattice, but we also communicated the reason we’re switching to this new platform. We have been transparent and open throughout the whole process, and that has helped us gain buy-in because people know why we were doing it and what to expect. It has set us up for success.” 

The team started right away with an engagement survey to take the pulse of the organization. 

“We launched our first survey in February, and we uncovered 10 themes or areas of focus for the company, which became the foundation for creating our action plan in Lattice and setting company, team, and individual goals,” says Kate. “For example, one of the biggest themes that came out of our first survey was employees were concerned about a lack of career planning. They were vocal about not knowing how to grow their careers at Onbe.

“We’ve turned that into a directive to educate staff more thoroughly on career opportunities,” explains Kate. “We want to make sure that employees have a clear path to develop — whether that's across the company or upwards into management. Communicating that to our staff is important to us, and Lattice will empower managers and employees to have stronger conversations around career growth.”

Another theme that surfaced was Onbe employees felt they weren’t getting enough touchpoints with managers, so the company will roll out the one-on-one feature to boost communication and interactions among management and staff. They will also use Lattice to bolster management and peer-to-peer recognition. 

 “We give Employee Shout-Outs during our monthly All Hands meetings. The current process of gathering them worked, but by moving them into Lattice, employees can see their Shout-Out as soon as it is submitted, and read all the other Shout-Outs all in one place.  Additionally, we'll use the private manager feedback component, and the ongoing feedback is going to be powerful coupled with Lattice’s performance review features we’re using.”

The Results so Far 

While Onbe is still early in the migration to Lattice, the solution is helping to enhance the company’s goals of transparency, communication, and collaboration. Engagement is high for the performance reviews and engagement surveys, and Kate credits the software’s ease of use for that. 

“Lattice’s fully integrated suite is doing much of the work for us and allowing us to streamline processes. We didn’t want performance reviews and collecting feedback to be this big heavy lift for managers and employees. Lattice has given us the ability to be efficient but effective. Now, we can focus on the bigger goals and track everyone’s progress.”

Kate is excited to add more features to Onbe’s processes, including the onboarding and offboarding surveys. And she looks forward to the next round of performance reviews and engagement surveys to gain insights she and her team can use to continue to strengthen both employees and the organization.

“The employees and teams see the value of the platform,” she adds. Now, it’s up to us to act on it and make the right changes.”

Takeaways 

• Onbe chose Lattice because it offered an all-in-one people management software with the features they needed without add-ons.
• Onbe achieved effective buy-in with its employees by introducing Lattice with small groups and keeping surveys simple and punchy.
• Thanks to Lattice, Onbe created an action plan that formalized career planning processes at the company and increased employee engagement.