Before we do that, a bit of context. Vandelanotte has been active for more than 75 years. What started as an accounting firm has evolved into a multidisciplinary partner for entrepreneurs, offering services ranging from tax and legal advice to HR, digitalization, and audit.

In recent years, the organization has grown significantly to 850 employees, spread across multiple locations and representing a wide variety of profiles, including accountants, lawyers, engineers, and business psychologists.

This growth—a threefold increase over a period of ten years—put pressure on the existing performance management system. What had previously worked well in a smaller organization was no longer scalable.

The pain was not limited to HR. Both managers and employees indicated that the existing performance management system required a great deal of time and administration, while delivering too little value in return. Several recurring issues emerged:

• Objectives lacked visibility and were insufficiently linked to rapidly evolving organizational priorities.
• Feedback was often postponed until the end of the year because there was “too little time” during the year to discuss it.
• Managers primarily experienced the process as an administrative obligation with a low return on investment.

Importantly—and according to Julie, this was a key success factor—the demand for change came explicitly from the business and from employees themselves.

For HR, this was the signal to get on board—not by introducing yet another tool, but by fundamentally rethinking the process.

That is why the HR team fundamentally redesigned and rethought the performance management process in co-creation with managers and employees.

The central idea? Performance management should no longer be an annual evaluation exercise, but a continuous process. The focus shifted away from short evaluation moments linked to merit increases and towards dialogue, expectations, and growth.

The new process was built around a fixed cycle:

• Kick-off at the beginning of the year, during which annual objectives were defined and aligned.
• Two recharge moments, during which managers and employees discussed whether employees were still on track.
• Wrap-up & performance review at the end of the year to assess whether objectives had been achieved.

The review consists of a short questionnaire with eight yes/no statements. Behind the scenes, an algorithm (developed together with the Vigor Unit) allows HR to identify patterns: employees who are performing below expectations, meeting expectations, or exceeding expectations.

Everyone was reviewed, but follow-up actions were only taken in cases of underperformance or overperformance. This proved to be the key to drastically reducing the administrative burden (especially for managers).

In their search for support tools, Julie and her team explored existing performance management solutions. However, these often proved to be expensive, complex, and insufficiently aligned with the specific needs of the organization. In addition, introducing yet another tool would mean additional training and potentially more resistance from users.

That is why they decided to build their own solution, using the existing Microsoft environment as a foundation. The key data sources included:

• The existing HRIS as the source of employee data
• Microsoft Forms for collecting employee input and documenting performance conversations
• Power Automate to automatically trigger and manage workflows
• Power BI as the central dashboard

While reports mainly provide information after the fact, the dashboard at Vandelanotte has become an active and guiding tool. It also allows users to see the real-time dynamics at any moment. This is reflected in several ways:

• Management and HR have an instant overview of performance across the entire organization.
• Managers can immediately identify where adjustments are needed, without any additional administrative burden.
• Employees can find their objectives, feedback, and expectations in one central location.

From analysis to full implementation, the journey took approximately one year. The analysis phase was deliberately given ample time, followed by two parallel tracks: dashboard development and training and communication for employees. The training and communication component proved to be a very important success factor.

A shortened performance cycle was tested first, allowing the full cycle to be launched at the start of 2026. The result: 98% (!) of the organization successfully completed the wrap-up and performance review.

One striking choice in Vandelanotte’s approach was full transparency.

Employees know whether they are considered underperformers, solid performers, or top performers. This information appears in the dashboard following the conversation with their manager, together with an explanation and concrete guidance on how they can take action themselves.

At the same time, this is certainly not considered the final destination. As Julie herself explained, it remains a process in which the organization continues to grow step by step. For example, the link between performance, compensation, and promotion remains an important area of attention.

Which key insights would Julie share with anyone looking to get started with this themselves?

1. Go back to the core. Don’t start from what HR wants to measure, but from what the business and employees actually need.
2. Work with the right partners. You will never be able to successfully execute this type of project on your own.
3. Dare to iterate. The first version does not need to be perfect. Waiting for perfection often costs more time than taking action. Moreover, these kinds of initiatives need time to mature and evolve through different phases.

At Starfish, we help our clients create dashboards for their HR data. Feel free to contact us if you would like to learn more about this.

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