Utilising Explorance Blue 360 to Create KLAR GROW – A Talent Development and Performance Evaluation Platform

Challenge – A Digital Performance-based L&D Partner to Power Talent Development

The London and Stockholm-based company, founded in 2020, is driven by its values of Clarity, Community, Curiosity, and Courage. It deploys its transformational investing approach to realise the full potential of its companies through growth, operational improvement, and buy-and-build strategies. It sought an external Learning and development (L&D) software partner that would support its strategy around talent development.

“We aspire to be the best private equity firm in Europe and to achieve that, the process must start with our people, who we believe are our most important asset,” explained Daniel Alsén, Investment Professional and leader of Digital and tech at KLAR. To succeed, you must attract and develop the best talent. Having improved our review process to support the growth of our people, we needed to find a digital performance-based tool that we could adapt to support our unique approach and non-hierarchical environment.”

Solution – A Flexible, Fully Mobile Service that Adapts to Organisational Requirements

In 2022, Explorance teamed up with KLAR, providing comprehensive services through Explorance Blue 360. This included crafting a tailored 360 questionnaire within Blue, configuring the setup for reviewees, feedback providers, and review managers, and generating and disseminating reports for two cohorts of staff throughout the year.

“We liked the product and the team, who also had a track record in private equity,” Daniel said. “In Blue, they offered a tool that was flexible enough to adapt to our organisational requirements and would not limit us or put in a hierarchical review process. The solution is also fully mobile, which is helpful for the team on the road. Over time, we will continue to develop and improve the tool together.”

Within the KLAR review cycle, each reviewee (the person being reviewed) completes a self-assessment questionnaire. They also pick feedback providers (the people providing feedback on their performance). After submission, the list may be modified and finally approved by the review manager. For each cycle, the reviewee writes a short impact summary, describing examples of achievements per evaluation as well as how they have addressed previous feedback.

Following the review cycle, each reviewee completes a personal development plan with personal development goals and ‘Big Rocks’. KLAR runs a yearly full review and a six-month light review.

Operations Manager Ana Jameson manages the review system and oversees the process. “The review platform we were using was a poor solution for providing feedback – very clunky to use,” she said. “Blue, on the other hand, is seamless. It is super easy to roll out and configure and for staff to provide feedback. It is also customisable, so the scale depends on how many questions you ask, which allows us to run two review types and pre-loaded questions per role. Blue, which we used to build out our talent development and performance evaluation platform, KLAR GROW, is adapted to our specific review process and unique dimensions. It is very hard to find another platform like it.”

Using the Blue system, Ana is able to send trigger reminders to users, calibrate feedback reports, and export evaluation reports. “These summary reports are available for individuals, whole departments and company-wide, and provide important oversight,” she revealed. “As well as downloading scores, we can also see all comments made throughout the review process, which gives us something tangible to work with. Without peer review it is hard to understand where you are as an individual, where you are strong and where support is needed. Managers can access insight across their departments to see where there are common development needs, so this is comparable.”

Outcome – An Evaluation System that Aligns with KLAR Values

Ana added that feedback from KLAR colleagues about Explorance Blue 360 has been entirely positive. “It is firmly positioned as a development piece to drive the business and provides valuable insight. It is important to see how others perceive you in all situations, whether things are going well or not. The mid-year review also gives you an opportunity to make sure you are on track and set professional development goals for things you want to achieve in larger projects, in work and personal life. Linking back to our values, it is helpful for identifying if colleagues are struggling with any of those goals and what support is needed.”

As a busy operations manager, with a number of other responsibilities in a growing company, Ana reserved special praise for the Explorance team.

She said: “Explorance has been really good to work with; we love the working relationship, and they are always very helpful. They are also extremely responsive, super reactive, very friendly and easy to get hold of. For me, the system has been a lifesaver. We know that when asking colleagues to put time aside to do a peer review, given they are already very busy, it must be straightforward. With Blue, there is confidence that they have to log in to complete the review, and all the questions will be pulled correctly. It is super easy to use and customisable; just a really good platform. We want to continue on the trajectory that we are with Blue.”