Performance Appraisal at Telespazio: Aligning Strategic Goals to People Development

In 2011, Telespazio, a leading company in the aerospace industry, was dealing with the implementation of its new organizational model, a global matrix structure that the firm had adopted in 2010 to foster the process of international growth and integration. The challenge for the HR team was to align the HRM system to the company’s new demands in order to improve strategic and organizational change. In this scenario, the case study focuses on the enhancement of the PAT programme, the performance appraisal system that Telespazio first introduced in 2005. The first part of the case illustrates the existing performance appraisal programme: what is assessed, who is in charge of the assessment, the steps involved. It ends in April 2011, when the HR team meets to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the system. The second part of the case describes the major revisions that were made to the appraisal programme, and brings a new challenge for the HR team: extending the implementation of the revised appraisal system worldwide to all of Telespazio’s foreign subsidiaries by the end of 2014.