Overview Usually, corporations are the trend setters for new business initiatives and technology solutions, and governments are followers. But in this case, a municipal government – the City of Houston – is leading the way with one of the most advanced, integrated, best communicated talent management initiatives in the industry – called HEAR – utilizing Saba’s performance, learning and collaboration applications. Learn how their holistic approach to talent management drove improved performance, engagement and revenue. Business Challenge The challenges City of Houston faced was a complex array of talent-related processes across 22 diverse city departments, combined with inconsistent, often ineffective, communication between managers and their team members. In addition, City of Houston was experiencing an accelerating wave of retirements in the middle management ranks, with as much as 30% of the staff in certain departments reaching retirement age next year. Business Benefits More engaged, unified City employees who understand where they fit in to the mission of the city Improved employee performance across the city organization Increased revenue (taxes and fees) and decreased people costs (reduced turnover) - netting a 280% ROI

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The Solution — “HEAR”
The HR team and COH leadership felt so strongly
about addressing the complexity problem and
manager-employee relationship problem, they created
a multi-faceted talent management program called
“HEAR” — Houston Employee Assessment and
Review. The acronym HEAR was purposeful in its
focus on “hearing” and “communicating.” At the
highest level, the HEAR goals focus on the employee-
manager partnership, on-the-job success, and
employee engagement and development.
Case Study
Change is no longer
rapid, it’s dizzying... and
we wanted to find a way
to get out in front of it.
Noel Pinnock, HEAR Liaison
Industry: Government
Employees: 22,000
Saba Solutions:
Learning@Work
Performance@Work
Collaboration
Usually, corporations are the trendsetters for new business initiatives and technology solutions, and
governments are followers. But in this case, a municipal government — The City of Houston — is
leading the way with a progressive, holistic approach to Talent Management.
City of Houston’s holistic
talent management
components driving key
organizational goals.
Two years ago, The City of Houston (“COH”)
developed one of the most advanced, integrated, best
communicated talent management systems initiatives
in the industry. In fact, the City of Houston was one
of the first government agencies to develop a broad-
based talent management program, for its 22,000
employees, using one of the most advanced talent
management systems in the country.
The Challenges
The challenge City of Houston faced was a complex
array of talent-related processes across 22 diverse
city departments, combined with
inconsistent, often ineffective,
communication between managers
and their team members. In addition,
COH was experiencing an accelerating
wave of retirements in the middle
management ranks, with as much as
30% of the staff in certain departments
reaching retirement age next year. All-
in-all, it’s “dizzying” change, for sure.
City of Houston

2. Case Study City of Houston
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• Culture (people-centered, quality-of-life driven, service-
focused, offering recognition and appreciation)
• People (work plans aligned with goals and objectives,
coaching, gap analysis, feedback loop)
• Process (Consistent, valid, reliable, flexible,
accountable)
• System (Saba’s Learning, Performance and
Collaboration applications)
At the City of Houston, every person knows how their
goals map directly to the mayor’s five pillars of success
for the city (shown in the graphic above, with the central
pillar being “Quality of Life” for residents). To reinforce
that, COH wanted to create a bottom-up approach
to communications. They felt they needed to get all
the issues on the table so they could proactively solve
them and reach an even higher level of success. Their
philosophy is, “There’s no issue we can’t solve together.
We just need to know what they are.”
Saba’s Talent Management Suite
The City of Houston chose Saba because of its deep
foundation in learning (“the bridge to change” for COH)
integrated tightly with performance, development plans
and collaboration — all key elements in powering the
HEAR program. And because it was engaging and
intuitive to use for its 22,000 employees, the learning
curve was very flat and the adoption curve was very
steep. Plus, the Saba platform’s flexibility allowed COH
to easily configure the system to meet its exact needs.
The mission of HEAR is to “provide a balanced
approach to performance management that supports
a culture of high performance by developing and
celebrating employee accomplishments and service,
and contributions to the residents of the City of
Houston.” The goals of the program are to (1) improve
employee performance and management efficiency,
and (2) create a positive city culture.
With the help of Saba’s Talent Management Suite, the
City of Houston developed a sophisticated, integrated
talent management program that incorporated:
Policy and process meet
application. Several challenges…
one solution.
Dr. Modeane Walker
Sr. Staff Analyst

3. Case Study City of Houston
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Specifically, following the HEAR principles, employee
performance has increased by approximately 10%
(measured by an increased number of “4’s” and “5’s”
on performance reviews relative to the previous year).
As a result, service quality to residents has increased
by an estimated 5%. The HEAR team is expecting
similar or greater performance and quality gains in the
next 12 months.
The impact of the City of Houston’s HEAR program
was so profound that the City of Los Angeles asked
the COH to help them launch LA HEAR and conduct
“train-the-trainers” sessions to roll it out.
In fact, the City of Los Angeles has coined their
hybrid model “CLEAR” — the City of LA Employee
Assessment and Review — citing the need to ensure
employees are CLEAR on how they measure success.
The Results to Date
Powered by Saba, the City of Houston’s HEAR
program is seeing value in five key areas:
• More engaged city employees who understand
where they fit in the mission of the city
• More productive employees as a result of clearer
goals and better communications with their managers
• Better quality of service provided to city residents
• Increased revenue (taxes and fees) and decreased
people costs (reduced turnover) — netting a
280% ROI
• A more positive city culture
We felt it was important to
fully empower our workforce by
showing them what ‘success’
looks like for each employee.
Noel Pinnock
HEAR Liaison