Customer Stories 
Summary
Although long regarded as one of the best places to work among leading American manufacturers, Generac Holdings Inc. recently recognized that their fragmented and piecemeal approach to managing talent (including 60 different HR systems) needed a radical rethink. Enlisting the help of Avature, Generac developed a unified talent ecosystem capable of managing the entire employee lifecycle – from interest to retirement. Placing a premium on flexibility and configurability, Generac achieved their goal of improving the employee experience while unifying company-wide talent management initiatives.
About Generac Holdings Inc.
Founded in 1959 and headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Generac Holdings Inc. (also known as “Generac”) produces best-in-class home standby generator systems. A member of the Fortune 1000, Generac offers a wide range of power products in the marketplace, including portable, residential, commercial and industrial generators.
A Comprehensive Talent Experience
Together with Avature, Generac developed a new talent roadmap that now incorporates all of the core pillars of talent management, including career and professional development, performance management and succession planning.
This process was crucial to consolidating all employee-related information in one central location – the talent profile. Generac’s workforce is now empowered to define their skills, capabilities and career/development goals and store this data on a single framework. Once captured, this comprehensive repository of employee data can then be leveraged by management to evaluate employee performance, development and potential growth opportunities.
“Using an online system that’s easily configurable really changed the game for us,” said EVP of Human Resources, Ronda Matschke. While HR stakeholders were previously “spending a lot of time compiling paper assessments for calibration meetings,” now “HR and managers simply view the talent profiles online and make real-time adjustments during the talent-mapping process, all in one streamlined step.”
Agility is at the heart of this new performance and talent management approach – and something increasingly important in these turbulent times.
Generac can now manage goal setting through a flexible technology that allows management to assess and shift goals as priorities change and to provide employees with ongoing and actionable feedback through mid-year and year-end performance reviews. Their integrated system further aligns departments and organizational leaders as it measures departmental performance, providing Generac with visibility into the health of the talent pipeline across the organization.
The Results
So far, the impact on the company has been considerable.
First, HR stakeholders are spending less time on traditional management tasks (an average of 40 hours saved per HR staff) as they take advantage of Avature’s powerful automation features. Second, manager buy-in has increased significantly as team leaders take ownership of a more efficient talent management/employee appraisal framework. Whereas they were simply administrative or compliance managers before, today they are “talent champions.” Finally, employees are now actively participating in a rewarding and dynamic talent experience capable of adjusting to the needs of the business while contributing to each employee’s career and development goals.
“The flexibility and configurability of Avature has been a game-changer for us. Our team is empowered to make many configuration changes on their own as we roll out and finetune our processes. The talent management team has been able to utilize the customizable reporting and dashboard tools to streamline process administration for HR partners. And Avature has the flexibility to accommodate our evolving needs with enhancements to the system and user portals.”
Ronda Matschke
EVP of Human Resources at Generac
The Future Looks Bright at Generac
With plans to further bolster their talent life cycle with additional solution components for succession planning and internal mobility (i.e., a “flexible individual development planning process” that will empower talent to “outline their development goals” across multiple performance periods), it’s safe to say that Generac has laid a strong foundation for future HR initiatives.
