Hi team,

Wow, what a quarter! We made some significant changes to better support all of you, with the intent of making it easier for you to do what you do, best. We had a terrific May conference and I see the continuing momentum from our time together. We are still focusing on both the team experience and our client experience and toggling back and forth between the two – sometimes we have to put more effort on the client experience, and other times, our team experience. They are both very important, and we will continue to find that balance as we grow.

We have a renewed energy around collecting and responding to feedback, both from our team and our clients: our CSAT initiative, the effort we’re putting toward client engagement, making our team feel heard, and focusing on our culture. The reason we made many of the significant changes this quarter was in response to your feedback. We’re trying to do a better job of affirming that you’ve been heard, and sharing the “why” behind decisions, even if we can’t act on a request or don’t have a solution yet.

We’re continuing forward on our action plans to better support you, so that you can better serve our clients and give them a great experience. I hope that you’ve already seen some of the effects of that renewed focus on the client experience, and that it is making your jobs easier, too.

I want to share what’s happened since we announced the realignment in our client service models and the changes in our leadership and what you can expect to see, this quarter and beyond. Your leadership team is continuing to dig into what we can do to help you be most effective, emphasize personal connections over processes, and make sure you have the tools and resources you need to WOW our clients – and if you have an idea, we want to hear from you.

Here’s the latest:

• Team leadership. We are reaching out to our current clients to talk about our realigned client service models for recurring services and project work under the umbrella of Managed Services. We are also reconnecting with all of our former clients – over 300 – to check in with them and discuss their needs, and any opportunities for us to help them optimize their investment in UltiPro.
• Resources for you. We want to give more autonomy back to the team and clear the way for you, by giving you more control over your business and the guidelines to rely on for consistency in the way we treat our clients, with the freedom to think outside the box in providing great client service. Your managers are here for you to lean on when you need help navigating that process. I would rather have a team that feels empowered and confident instead of simply “doing as they’re told.” Your managers are not here to give orders but to free you up to do your best, and back you up when you need us.

We are looking at project management processes and client assignments to understand and prioritize the most pressing needs, as well as those systems or processes that need to be reevaluated. Capacity planning and resourcing are also top priorities. We are engaging the team on ways we can better manage these processes, define project ownership and create a clear escalation path. We want to provide additional clarity to managers and all team members and make it easy for you to ask for help, and above all, respond to our client’s needs in a very personal way. I want us to anticipate clients’ needs and be more proactive and less reactive, rely less on email, and pick up the phone. Involve your practice manager. Build those relationships. Let us know how we can help. We’re listening!

• Communication and collaboration. We are discussing how we can better share information so that we all are on the same page regarding client and project health and team member needs for support, and roll up our sleeves together to offer solutions. We need to revisit how we deliver service, what WOW is, and what our team needs to deliver that experience. I want to make sure that we are doing a warm hand-off as we all work together to serve our clients well – not pitching work over the fence at each other. One of our first targets has been revamping the structure and content of our huddles to pare down the information shared to focus on actionable items and what team members need help with.
• Building a bench. We are focusing on building our bench strength, and this means not only recruiting A players, but also providing mentorship to our own Mosaic rock stars with the potential to take on a greater role on the team. We are looking for top talent, with solid experience, who can quickly ramp up and take on assignments. Our goal is to identify where we have skill deficits, and see how best to fill them, through additional orientation or training, shadowing opportunities with senior team members, or finding and hiring those “unicorns” that are the right fit for Mosaic at the right time. We are looking at the possibility of pairing newer consultants with veteran team members to help develop their skills and grow our own talent, or possibly, creating a junior consultant position that could relieve the tactical workload of our more senior consultants and free them up to focus on higher-value, client-facing tasks. Matt is leading an initiative to evaluate our compensation and has reached out to several people on the team to get your perspective. Ultimately, our goal is to set our people up for success.

 

Our Priorities

Our priorities for the next quarter line up well with all of these areas that we feel are important to helping us sharpen our focus on the client experience and our team experience. They are:

• All Mosaicians & New Hires are Scored against a Scorecard (Krystyn Sadler)
• Evaluate Structure of Recurring Services with Recommendations for Changes Presented to Management (Lisa Mathis)
• Evaluate Structure of Professional Services with Recommendations for Changes Presented to Management (Karen Fanelli)
• Client Experience: All Accounts have Defined Owner, Escalation Path & Communicated To Client (Cherie Barnier)
• Align Incentive / Comp Plan with Organization’s Goals and Communicate to the Team (Matt Hill)

I think we are off to a good start. How do I know what we are doing so far is creating traction? I feel it in our team’s engagement, your suggestions for improvements, and your feedback on what we are doing so far. We are hearing from past clients and former team members who want to be a part of what we are doing here at Mosaic. I think our future success lies in giving all of you who are client facing the best possible tools and support to help build relationships and grow our business.

Remember, even though we’re all moving at a mile-a-minute pace most days, my door is always open to you. If you have questions or concerns, you can always reach out to me.

Thanks to everyone for your energy, enthusiasm and support. We’re on our way!

Your biggest cheerleader,

Vicki

 

Mosaic Team,

We’re almost halfway into 2018 – hard to believe! – and we have really hit the ground running. Our relationship with Ultimate Software is growing in some very exciting ways! Because of our exclusive focus on UltiPro, Mosaic has made ourselves an expert and reliable partner for Ultimate and carved out a name for ourselves as a “go-to” solutions provider for complex issues. It’s been so rewarding for me to witness this evolution as we’ve become more efficient, more capable, and more diverse in our service offerings. We’re able to bring more to the table for Ultimate and our clients, and I see great things down the path for us as this relationship continues to grow.

Every year, we’re invited to participate in some key Ultimate events which give us opportunities to learn, network, and find new avenues to support Ultimate and our clients:

• Ultimate Sales Kickoff at the beginning of each year. The Ultimate Sales Kickoff brings together Ultimate’s sales team with product and service partners, including Mosaic, which allows us to reconnect with Ultimate’s executive sales leadership, mid-market and enterprise sales team, sales managers, and the ERM teams.
• Connections, Ultimate’s customer conference in March. Connections gives us the chance to see and talk with our partners at Ultimate and current and prospective clients – it’s the Ultimate networking event of the year!
• USG Advisory Summit in April. The Advisory Summit is an opportunity to learn more about Ultimate’s roadmap for the future, where they are rated among competitors, and to network with other product and services partners.

We came home after Connections with some important takeaways, not just about new products and services, but about our relationships, areas where we bring value, and Mosaic’s growing reputation among our clients and partners.

Here’s what we learned:

• Mosaic’s reputation with Ultimate is outstanding. Once upon a time, we were competition for Ultimate. Now, there’s a growing appreciation for Mosaic and how we can support them. Ultimate understands the full value of partnering with us. Over time, we have proven ourselves to be a reliable, innovative, can-do partner who can take on the unique and sticky client issues that Ultimate cannot accommodate and shine. We have really shown Ultimate what we can do with some challenging and complex clients and projects: Emcore, CableOne, Sun State, and Jayco/Thor. Our team has done outstanding work and created some real traction with Ultimate, from helping them to win deals to getting projects over the finish line. We have a tremendous opportunity with Ultimate’s ERM, mid-market and strategic teams. While networking with the Ultimate sales team at their Sales Kick-off, their top salespeople said of Mosaic and our table, “this is where the winners hang out!” What a great compliment to us!
• Ultimate is using their relationship with us to grow their business! Ultimate has shared some exciting new products and services that they’ll be rolling out in 2018 that generate a lot of strategic and tactical opportunities for us. It was great to hear direct from executive leadership at Ultimate about some exciting new products and services coming down the pike, and start to put the pieces together for how we can dig into new areas, broaden our expertise and expand the services we offer to Ultimate as they introduce this technology to the marketplace. Here’s a few things we heard about:
  • Workforce Management (WFM), a time & attendance tool that will be offered to some customers as a replacement to UTM. Although, they will not be forcing current UTM clients to transition to WFM anytime soon. That means that Ultimate, and Mosaic, will be supporting 3 T&A solutions for the foreseeable future.
  • UTA implementations. Ultimate would like to rely more on Mosaic for help with UTA. Currently, 24% of Ultimate’s UTA work is going to partners, and this will increase to 40% — a huge opportunity for Mosaic.
  • Perception, a survey tool that can translate data into usable formats for strategic HR and organizational development purposes. This will be sold as a Core supplement or standalone module and is a huge upsell and consulting opportunity for Mosaic.
  • BenefitsPrime, Ultimate’s solution to enhanced benefits administration. There’s an opportunity for us to roll this out with PlanSource. We may ultimately build a practice around BenefitsPrime.
  • Launch, a renamed activations methodology that includes a new data migration solution tool that should reduce data testing efforts by 50%. This is slated to roll out in Q3.
  • A self-developed master tax product – that some Ultimate clients are already using — that they plan to fully migrate to during 2018.
  • Surge, a backlog of technical, interface, data conversion and BI work. Ultimate needs resources to reduce their backlog by the end of the second fiscal quarter of this year. This is another great opportunity for Mosaic to back them up and build our business.
  • Open Enrollment/Life Events outsourcing: Ultimate is outsourcing a lot of this work to free up internal resources to focus on BenefitsPrime – another great opportunity for Mosaic to lean in.
  • Enterprise activations – Ultimate is formalizing and socializing its outsourcing arrangement with Mosaic to pull five opportunities to give us at least one on the front end to work directly with clients. This marks a significant internal change of mindset.

All of this allows us to increase our footprint with our clients. Once we develop familiarity with these new modules such as BenefitsPrime and Perception, we can upsell these tools and through helping Ultimate relieve pressure points and taking on residual work, we can build our relationship with them and do more for our clients – good opportunities which also generate revenue, a win-win.

We’re positioned well with Ultimate, and with the right people at Ultimate. Our experience and competencies have won us a seat at the table as they look at ways to build their business, and what is emerging is additional openings for us to step in and fill the gap for Ultimate as they are concentrating on certain products and services for their clients. I can’t wait to dig in to these new areas of opportunity.

• We’re creating Mosaic stories. We’ve talked a lot about storytelling and creating an experience for our clients. As we tackle new business opportunities and develop new ways of working together to offer innovative solutions for our clients, we are continually adding to our Mosaic story. I love hearing about the creative ways you serve our clients and the best practices that grow from our team working together to problem-solve and help our clients make the most of their investment in UltiPro. From top executives to VPs of Ultimate’s enterprise groups, the Ultimate sales team told stories at this year’s conference of how Mosaic has helped them. There has been a notable change in mentality from the beginning of our relationship, when they wanted us to go through the services team to be vetted to determine if we were the right partner for their clients, to putting us right up front with their sales force, working with them directly as a team for their clients. Ultimate’s ERMs and sales team come to us because of the uniqueness of an opportunity and their confidence that we can not only handle it, but knock it out of the park. We’re viewed as a boutique firm with the capability to help clients in need. We specialize in clients who are challenging, high profile, and complicated. We have the ability to handle their needs and help not only with a tactical, hands-on-the-keyboard solution but also deliver client peace of mind.

As you all know, we’ve had those clients with complicated problems, demanding timelines, or unusual needs that we’ve been able to fulfill when no one else can. And this is why Ultimate is referring clients to us – because we deliver. Our team has got to move from “why are we getting this?” and get into the mindset of “this is what we do, and what we do well.”

I think that’s the central theme in our own story: we provide a great experience, and we figure out how to solve our partners and clients’ problems and make them – not us – the hero of their story.

Thanks for your great work for our partners and clients. You make Mosaic shine!

Your biggest fan,

Vicki

MOSAIC TEAM,

We had a fantastic quarterly planning session in Nashville a couple of weeks ago and I think it’s safe to say that we are going to do some great things in 2018! I was excited to get to spend time with all of you and see the alignment among our team as we talked about the next quarter, year, and what Mosaic will look like, a few years down the road.

2017 was another incredible year – thanks to each and every one of you and what you do for Mosaic and our clients. Here are a few highlights:

• We made a difference and inspired confidence for 184 clients.
• Our Client Engagement team brought on 75 new Mosaic clients, and closed 227 opportunities.
• We worked on 371 projects that generated over 54,000 billed hours.
• We broke through our sales target of $5.6 million to close the year at $6.2 million in total sales.
• We ended the year with a solid 82% utilization rate, 61% return clients and 42% recurring revenue. We’re trying to land on the right mix of net new and existing clients. Our goal is to get to a 50/50 ratio within the next three years.
• We exceeded our financial target for the year with total revenue of $8.7 million,
• Our team grew to 62 Mosaicians by year-end.
• All in all, our combined effort resulted in Mosaic growth of 45% for 2017.

Wow! What an amazing year.

But our accomplishments in 2017 go far beyond the numbers. We stabilized variation in our utilization by better forecasting, predicting needs and assigning resources for better balance across all practices. We created new roles dedicated to helping our team problem-solve and develop innovative solutions, collaborate better across practices, and make sure everyone has the support and resources they need to get the job done. This also allowed us to create some exciting new career opportunities for our experienced Mosaic team members – a win for everyone!

We had some changes on our team over the past year as people moved into new roles, or moved on to opportunities outside of Mosaic. I like to think that we prepare people well for anything they want to achieve, and sometimes, that path leads them away from Mosaic. We effectively managed changes in our team composition with incredible teamwork – people filled the gap when a team member moved on, or teammates were dealing with a personal situation and needed emotional support or professional back-up to keep things going smoothly. It is so awesome to see the way this team cares for one another – and for our clients!

I think 2017 was a watershed year for us in client service because we not only grew the number of clients we serve, but we laid down in stone how we will nurture and grow those relationships and expand our footprint. We defined an account management strategy and rolled out our CSAT, our first client satisfaction survey, which will give us important feedback from our clients about how well we’re serving them, where we’re WOWing them, and where we can improve.

We improved our benefits and kept premiums the same for our team. We were so proud to be able to pay out a grant payment to our participants in our Mosaic deferred profit sharing program this year. We performed Mosaic’s first compensation review to ensure that we are competitive. We began performance management to give our team the feedback you’ve been asking for in a formalized way, and also make sure those important conversations between managers and team members happen on a regular basis.  We closed Q4 in February with a very special mile marker: Mosaic’s 7^th birthday. We had to a lot to celebrate in 2017.

I want to quickly recap how we finished Q4 and give a look ahead to our company priorities for Q1:

Our Q4 Company Priorities

Roll-out MTE Performance Management– Krystyn Sadler

Our People & Culture team focused on roll-out and full adoption of our MTE performance management process in UltiPro. Our goal was to fully develop and deploy our performance management system in 2018. Our managers have begun 1:1s with their direct reports, and most of you have had at least one at this point. The performance management system is loaded and being tested in UltiPro, and we’ll begin quarterly and annual reviews this month. You asked us for feedback on how you are doing and support in developing your Mosaic career, and our team delivered. Kudos to Krystyn and her team for this massive effort and making this a reality.

Clear Client and Project Communication from SOW to STOS – Matt Hill
This priority rolled forward from last quarter, and we continue to work on our communications strategy and roadmap to guide our internal and external interactions and support better information-sharing. We established owners of the updated or newly created tools at our last quarterly meeting, and over the last quarter, these tools were socialized by practice managers and put into use as part of their internal and external communications process. Over the past quarter, we identified additional resources for setting and managing client expectations, client check-ins and project transitions. We will continue to identify resources and tools needed by our team for transparent information-sharing and timely hand-off of internal information and consistent, professional client-facing communication to build long-term relationships and show them the value we can bring.

Address Top 5 Clarizen Pain Points – Denise Maddox

Denise and Andy conducted a survey to get everyone’s input on the top five Clarizen areas that need immediate attention to help our team use Clarizen more effectively. The goal was to improve processes, fields and workflow to support ease of use. We used the team’s feedback to help target the most immediate needs and prioritize the necessary changes. Our team actually identified seven pain points which we’ve addressed with additional staff resources, changes within Clarizen to enhance flexibility on project resource assignments and reporting, Clarizen training, and a Clarizen playbook. Our newly created staff positions provide additional support and enhance workflow — Paula Scott as Resourcing Manager and Andrew Stewart as Solutions Architect, and Todd Fouss as Professional Services Manager – and also allowed us to create new career paths for experienced and valuable Mosaic team members to continue to grow professionally and mentor other team members.

Remote Desktop Roll-out– Matt Hill

Over the past quarter, we converted to a remote desktop server for increased security and speed and enhanced file storage and sharing capabilities, as well as back-up of important company information. The server will offer better security for both Mosaic and client information – no sensitive data will be stored outside this environment. The remote desktop is now fully developed and deployed and our new shared file system is created. This quarter, we will move to the remote desktop system as Mosaic’s official operating system and transition company files from ShareSync to our new file system. Big congratulations to Matt, Andy and Peyton and to our remote desktop pilot users, who helped us test the system and work out the kinks before introducing it to the entire team!

Develop Account Management Guidelines and Structure – Cherie Barnier
As you all know, our client experience is a top priority at Mosaic. Cherie has done a fantastic job defining and developing account management guidelines to share information more seamlessly between our services teams and account management to ensure there are no gaps in our support to clients and that we can deliver consistent and professional service. This structure will help us to set and manage client expectations effectively and build and foster great client relationships as our account management and service teams walk hand in hand throughout the client service process. Thank you, Cherie, for tying it all together for us and providing us a foundation to work from!

Our leadership team has a one- and three-year strategic plan. In looking at our goals for 2018, we considered, what do we need to accomplish this quarter, to make those one-and three-year goals happen? This formed our company priorities for the upcoming quarter.

Our Q1 company priorities:

Recruiting Dashboard Complete with Adoption of “A” Method in Hiring (Krystyn Sadler) Finding the best talent that is the right fit for our organization requires intent and strategy. We have decided to adopt the “A” method for interviewing and hiring new team members and we’ll train our hiring managers in this approach. We’ll also utilize the UltiPro recruitment dashboard to track where our applicants are in the process to make sure they have a good experience.

Company Adoption and Tracking of the Performance Management Process in UltiPro (Krystyn Sadler)
We have our performance management strategy designed for our team. The intent is to have frequent conversations about how you’re doing and where to further develop over the next quarter. We will be having our first review season with everybody – whether quarterly or annual – this quarter, and developmental 1:1s are already underway. We want to invest in our people and continue to refine our training and development strategy. Our people are our most important asset.

 Define and Document Single Vision for All Recurring Services, Assess Current State vs. Desired State (Karen Fanelli)
We will develop a strategy to enhance consistency across all practices and identify and pilot ideas for additional services that will provide value to our customers. This strategic vision focuses on improving customer stickiness, improving our financial and forecasting predictability, and proving us to be a differentiator in the HR/Payroll services industry.  The vision will include what the optimal client experience means and an action plan to execute.

Review and Re-energize the Mosaic Client Experience (MCE) (Cherie Barnier) We will review the current the client experience, expand the vision and strategy with clear paths to execute and engage with all clients in delivering against Mosaic’s core purpose to make a difference and inspire confidence.

Define Alignment of Pipeline, Resourcing, and Hiring Strategy for All Service Lines, Assess Current State vs. Desired State (Mike Webb)
This priority is step one to us aligning our sales pipeline with recruiting and resourcing so we can have a 90-day view ahead in the organization. The goal is to even out our peaks and valleys for all team members — consultants, managed service representatives, sales and our People & Culture team – and identifying how we can make things easy.

This team, tactically and professionally speaking, is at the top of our game. I am humbled to work with all of you. Your jobs here at Mosaic continue to evolve as the company grows. I think our challenge is, as we grow as a company, to make sure our people grow too, all while maintaining our culture and core values.

In 2018, we are continuing to focus on the heartbeat of our company –  the team experience and the client experience. So, what does success look like? We want to keep finding those “unicorns” with the unique blend of skills and experiences that are a perfect fit for our team and our culture. Good communication internally and externally and a consistent experience for our team and for our clients is a priority. We’re focusing on developing soft skills and elevating our team members, so you can grow – supporting you in becoming experts in areas you’re passionate about and creating leaders to grow our business. We know that ultimately, a great team experience leads to a great client experience.

Thank you for your incredible work this year. I can’t wait to see what we do together in 2018.

Your biggest cheerleader,

Vicki

MOSAIC TEAM,

THANKFUL! That’s exactly how I’m feeling today.  I hope you and yours had a wonderful Thanksgiving. As we head into this holiday season of gratitude and giving, I want you to know how much you mean to Mosaic. Mosaic would not exist without you. I am so thankful for each and every one of you. Just prior to our quarterly meeting, I attended a presentation by James Lawrence, the Iron Cowboy, an extreme endurance athlete who’s completed 50 Ironman competitions, in 50 states, in 50 days. At one particular event, he offered to help a young man with cerebral palsy complete an Ironman and pulled him behind him in a boat, behind his bike, and in a wagon as he ran. His takeaway from this experience was that this young man could do none of those things – and he thought to himself, “I get to ride my bike today. I get to run today.” And that really resonated with me:  I get to get up and do this, with all of you, every day. And I’m so grateful for that. I hope you feel the same way.

It was great to spend time with some of our team last week at our quarterly meeting. I always enjoy the face time, the conversations we’re able to have and the collaboration. As I’ve said before, it is always important for us to stop and review where we’ve been, where we are and where we’re going. Sometimes we get so involved in our day-to-day business that we don’t realize how far we have actually come. When we take a step back, it’s really powerful to realize all we have accomplished in 2017. None of this would have been possible without everyone’s dedication and commitment, so, thank you!

During the meeting, the management team sat down and talked through the format and value of our quarterly meetings for our team. We want to support our team in being successful, so, what does that look like? Success for Mosaic is simple — we want to provide the very best client experience. That starts with our consultants focusing on what they do best: helping our clients. With that in mind, we decided to make quarterly meeting attendance optional for client-facing team members. You are always welcome to come, but going forward, you will no longer be required to attend any company meeting except our annual meeting in May.

For those of you who weren’t with us, I want to share some highlights – and some decisions that have transpired as a result of our discussions, and your input, at the meeting.

• Benefits. I have some exciting news to share! As a result of our discussion and projected cost savings on quarterly meeting travel, we have decided to recoup those costs and reinvest those saved dollars into our benefits for 2018. We took another look at our benefits plans for 2018 to see where we could make medical coverage more affordable for our team. We were able to roll back premium costs so that our team will see no increase in premium cost for next year. We know how important medical coverage costs are to our team and we’re happy to be able to take this extra step to keep your health care coverage as affordable as possible.
• Benefits is a hot button issue for all employers, Mosaic included, and trust me, we want to be able to give all of you the best we possibly can. Mosaic absorbed a 37% increase in cost of benefits this year and stepped up our share from $3,300 per individual to $5,200 per individual. We’re really pleased that we were able to identify some additional company savings to reinvest back into our medical plan to relieve some of that pressure I know that everyone feels and help even more. Our People and Culture team will be sending information on our 2018 premiums to everyone soon and will be happy to walk through everything with you. You can also tune in for our last information session this coming Wednesday, November 29 (which is also the last day of open enrollment!)

 

• Turnover. Team turnover can be a sticky subject but it’s something we need to talk about. Turnover is relatively common, and while we hate to lose a Mosaic team member, we understand that sometimes, people need change to continue to grow. I think some turnover is normal for a company of our size, at this time. We look at the progress of the folks on our team as a badge of honor, and we encourage folks to feel good about taking a leap elsewhere if that’s truly the best move for them. Sometimes, people move on, and we need to be okay with that. I used to think everyone would want to spend their entire career with Mosaic but the reality is, we need to give people the freedom to do what is best for them. We are absolutely dedicated to offering you a place where you can spread your wings and grow to your greatest potential – but we should also be proud of giving people a good base to build their career on and prepare them for success, anywhere they choose to be

 

• Q3 Company Priority Review. We had another awesome quarter. All of our company priorities were in the green and 100% completed. Hats off to everyone who worked diligently to complete these priorities! Some of them were very big and meaty but necessary. Below is quick review of what we accomplished. If you would like to check out the presentation I presented on Thursday, see here: (Q3_Review_final)

 

• Define Communication Structure by Role – Vicki Hill

We focused on defining Mosaic’s business language and developing clear communication. We now have company tiles that are being used to better manage our business. These tiles have a consistent look and feel and metrics that are being reported on. Although this priority is complete, it is a living, breathing document that we will continue to work on and tweak.

• Personal Growth and Enrichment Program – Mike Webb

Every quarter, and in every Petra session, our Petra Coach Marshall tells us: “You must grow your people.” This program is designed to invest in the growth of our people and focus on you, people, coaching, teamwork and our business model. We want to help you know yourself, identify your strengths and understand your team members, and work styles, better, to be more effective. Mike has already defined a few team members to participate in a program pilot. We’ll be test-driving the program in Q4 and roll it out to everyone in Q1 2018.

• One-Year Product and Services Roadmap – Matt Hill

We wanted to create a full roadmap of products and services so that we can solidify our relationships with existing clients, grow our repeat business and expand the services we’re able to offer current clients and Matt did exactly that. He has some awesome ideas and I am not just being partial! He’s identified six opportunities to provide additional product and/or service lines or enhance/expand current product and service offerings. A plan is being developed for deploying these opportunities in 2018.

• MTE- Performance Management l – Krystyn Sadler

You asked, and we heard! We know that everyone wants to know the answer to the question, “how am I doing?  And what is my career path at Mosaic?”  We made this a company priority to give visibility into the process, create opportunities for developmental conversations between managers and employees (not just the tactical 1:1’s) and create a clear career pathway for our team. Krystyn undertook this priority and dominated it! We’ll be rolling out performance management in Q4, starting with an UltiPro buildout and training for managers on the process, and beginning the actual performance review process in 2018.

• MTE- Compensation Review – Krystyn Sadler

This is another company priority that was created based on your direct feedback from survey results. All positions were matched to 3-5 surveys on a national salary structure. The current market data reflects that 93% of our positions are in market! That is a huge win for us! We will be having individual communications to each team member about the results of the compensation review and what comes next, during early December.

• Create clear client and project communication from SOW to StoS– Matt Hill

The end goal for this priority was to provide consistent communications experience for internal and external clients. Matt and team created a process map with documents and information exchange points and templates to create consistency and guide our internal and client-facing communications.  Next quarter Matt will be customizing communications plan to specific needs.

In case you missed my email regarding our Q4 priorities, they are below:

• Roll-out MTE Performance Management – Krystyn Sadler

With groundwork laid for our performance management process, we are focusing on roll-out and encouraging full adoption of our MTE performance management process in UltiPro. Our Q4 goal is to fully develop and deploy our performance management system in 2018.

• Clear Client and Project Communication from SOW to STOS  – Matt Hill

Continued from last quarter, we’ll continue to work on communications strategy and roadmap to guide our internal and external interactions cycle and support better information-sharing. We established owners of the updated or newly created tools at our quarterly meeting, and they will be socializing them with their teams and making them a part of their internal and external communications process.

• Address Top 5 Clarizen Pain Points – Denise Maddox

Prior to our quarterly meeting, Denise conducted a survey to get everyone’s input on the top five Clarizen areas that need immediate attention. The goal is to improve processes, fields and workflow to support ease of use. We’ll use your feedback to help us target your most immediate needs and prioritizing the necessary changes.

• Remote Desktop Roll-out– Matt Hill

Mosaic is converting to a remote desktop server for increased security and enhanced file storage and sharing capabilities, and back-up of important company information. The server will offer better security for both Mosaic and client information and will be available to all team members.

• Develop Account Management Guidelines and Structure – Cherie Barnier

I think everyone understands that our primary focus is our clients: they are our number-one priority!  Cherie is working to define and develop account management guidelines and a structure to help us deliver consistent and professional service. Once complete, these guidelines will be our standard operating procedures for anyone who serves a client.

I hope everyone takes time this season to spend with their family and unplug from the hustle and bustle of everyday work life. I am very grateful that I have been blessed with the opportunity to make a difference and inspire confidence in each of your lives and all of you make a difference to me, and to so many. Here’s to our team!

Your Biggest Cheerleader,

Vicki Hill

 

MOSAIC TEAM,

 

It was great to spend time together as a team at our quarterly planning session and talk about the good things going on at Mosaic. Our planning sessions are always a nice reminder of where we’ve been and where we’re going. I often say that every quarter at Mosaic is like a year at another company, and this quarter was no different. Things are moving fast around here! Our challenge is to manage that change well, both internally and externally.

We usually have a seasonality to our work but this summer, we didn’t slow down – and I think that trend will continue. This quarter, we’ll hire 20 people – that’s right, 20 people! To give that some context, we’ll expand our team by a third by the end of the year, which is incredible. We’re on track to exceed our revenue projection of $8.75 million by the end of 2017. We’re a very different company and in a very different place than we were last year, and that’s exciting!

As we grow, we’re getting better at change management. We want to be sure we continue to provide a great experience to our customers, and avoid change fatigue for our team. We have to be intentional about the goals we set for growth and the way we approach them – that’s why quarterly planning is so important.

Our leadership team spent time together before our August quarterly meeting reflecting on the past quarter, discussing our plans for the next quarter and most importantly, making sure we have the framework in place to set each of you up for success. Marshall and his crew led us through another successful Petra strategy session to create clear and concise personal priorities. I challenge you to work with your manager to do the same.

Looking back at Q2
We set some important priorities in Q2 and had many successes. However, we also have some priorities that experienced little or no movement last quarter – so I want to encourage everyone to embrace this process, engage, and focus on forward momentum in Q3. For some motivation, follow the lead set by these team members in Q2. I’m proud of their efforts! I know we can all do great things this quarter, so let’s get to work – I’m counting on you!

R3-Phase 1 of 3: 100% Service to Sales and Sales to Service – Dave Burkitt

Our goal is an 80% return rate in 2017 for completing a service to sales form at the end of every project greater than 40 hours. We carried this priority over from Q1 and continued to focus on it, since this helps to feed our pipeline of recurring revenue. Dave assumed ownership of this priority during Q2 and has done a great job at the reins.

LER – % Complete used for Managing Operational Performance  – Mike Webb

Our goal this quarter was to have the correct LER for all service lines and adoption of Labor Efficiency Ratio (LER) in our management and operational reporting. LER is a financial metric (LER=Revenue/Direct Labor Cost) we are incorporating to measure our operational performance. A big thank you to Mike and Andy for putting in the hours to get this complete and accurate! This allows us to measure our results, going forward.

MTE- Fully Develop and Document Onboarding Process – Krystyn Sadler

Wow! We’ve come a long way in our HR department and I’m so proud of Krystyn and Kristen. We onboarded 12 new Mosaicians this past quarter.  Like all new processes, we had a few bumps along the way, but overall, we’ve seen a huge improvement in our onboarding process and I was so happy to see it take off. A big win for our HR team!

MCE – Service Delivery- Consulting Services stage break w/recommended actions – Eric Russell

Eric, with the help of Ceci and the rest of the team, has taken the Consulting Services MCE guidelines and rebuilt them. The goal is to better the client experience and allow us to replicate it, and the effort put towards this priority by the team got us closer to our goal. Great work to everyone involved!

Forecasting and Resourcing – Denise Maddox
Denise and her team created a process and visualization in Clarizen that allows engagement managers to create and track sales pipeline projects and the soft allocation of people for those projects. It also allows everyone in the company to view forecasting by project, resource and timeframe.

Q3: Locked and Loaded!
Now that our Q3 priorities are set, it’s time to hit the ground running! Work with your manager on priority setting and be sure to raise your hand if there’s a quarterly priority that fires you up and you’d like to help one of our company priority owners move that priority forward.  Rachel will be our Align champion and she will be ensuring that priorities are being entered and updated throughout the quarter. Be sure that your priorities are set up in Align by Wednesday, August 30.

If you’re a client-facing team member, remember that we want you to focus on creating an exceptional Mosaic customer experience, so we’re only asking you to create one individual priority this quarter. This will allow you to focus on what you do best – serving our clients and helping build our future pipeline of business!

You all received a rundown of our Q3 goals prior to our August quarterly meeting. If you’d like a reminder, you can check them out below:

Define Communication Structure by Role – Vicki Hill

We’re focusing on defining Mosaic’s business language and developing consistent, clear communication so that we’re all pulling in the same direction. This includes not only Mosaic’s voice but also the way we communicate in person, both internally and externally.

Leadership Development Plan by Role – Mike Webb

Great leaders begin with good coaching and mentoring and that starts with investing in you. We’re looking at the tools and resources our team needs to grow professionally or into leadership roles.

One-Year Product and Services Roadmap – Matt Hill

As Mosaic grows, we want to create a full road map of products and services so that we can solidify our relationships with existing clients, grow our repeat business and expand the services we’re able to offer current clients. And congratulations to Matt on his new role as Chief Strategy Officer!

MTE- Performance and Compensation Management Tool – Krystyn Sadler

To improve, we must measure and define where we are. This quarter, we’ll define the Performance Management and Compensation strategy and implement it in UltiPro. Our end-of-quarter goal is to lay the groundwork for doing performance reviews in UltiPro in 2018. We’ll also work on compensation gaps and a plan for correcting them.

Communications Strategy for Service Delivery – Matt Hill

During our planning session, we identified the need for a communications strategy and roadmap to make sure the right information is being shared with the right players to support successful sales to service and service to sales transitions – both internally, among the Mosaic team, and with our clients. This will help us set and manage expectations, communicate better as a team, enhance our customer service and make sure everyone’s on the same page regarding project goals and outcomes – and create a pipeline for recurring revenue in the form of new business opportunities from satisfied clients.

Some additional thoughts from our time together that I want us all to focus on:

What makes us Mosaic? We have an amazing team. We’re doing great work, and we’re growing. We need to work to differentiate ourselves. Under the hood, it’s still time and materials.  What makes Mosaic special, and what will make us stand out? I think it’s our personality and our people. I think defining that and communicating it to our clients. As I’ve said many times, we want to be the Starbucks or the Uber of the marketplace. Uber offers a service that many other providers offer. The business model is the same – so what makes them different? It’s the interaction with the customer. I want all of us to consider this question: what will make us stand out and not just meet client needs, but WOW them – provide them an exceptional experience, make a name for ourselves, and make them want to find more ways to do business with us?

Raising the bar. Finally, we talked a lot about elevating each other. I feel like that was our theme for the week and should be our theme for the quarter. Raise the bar on your performance! If we find we’re best at; and focus on that, we can all bring our best to help move Mosaic forward. I’m challenging myself and our leadership team to do the same, from the top down. When we develop our people to do their jobs to the very best of their abilities, it allows us, as leaders, to step back from daily operations of the company and concentrate on the big picture – our strategy and growth.

I believe as we all pursue higher levels of performance, we’ll become better leaders with a deeper understanding of how to think strategically and creatively, overcome obstacles, and focus on behaviors that deliver results. At the same time, your Mosaic team will recognize your efforts and success, raising the bar for higher performance individually and company-wide.

I can’t wait to see the great things we’ll do together this quarter. Let’s get rolling!

Your Biggest Cheerleader,

Vicki

Team,

We all hear a lot about the impact of Millennials, right? They’re changing the way we recruit and hire, market ourselves, and do business. This is one influential group! And we have our share at Mosaic: did you know we have 16 Millennials – people born after 1982 – on staff? That’s 30% of our team! This surprised me – I didn’t realize our numbers were so high. And that’s a good thing.

I recently participated in an EO Think Tank in Nashville on Working with Millennials, along with business owners from a wide variety of industries. A few of the companies represented included professional services, healthcare providers, restaurants, retail, event and party planning, salon services, and more.

All of these companies had Millennials represented on their teams, some as high as 100% of their workforce. And their opinions and experiences on working with this generation were as different as night and day. Business owners talked about the challenges of recruiting, training, retaining and motivating these employees. Regardless of the industry we work in or the percentage of this generation on our staff or in our target market, it’s a common challenge we’re all trying to get our heads around: how do we engage this diverse and talented group who’s motivated by different drivers than those that we built our careers on?

I came away with a lot of interesting insights I wanted to share with you. Not everything applied to me or to our team here at Mosaic, but I thought the general insights of the group had value and wanted to pass along what I heard on to you.

Here’s what I learned:

You guys rock. (This isn’t news.) As you all know, Mosaic’s younger team members are highly creative, motivated, engaged, collaborative, and have a strong work ethic. And we love that!

You like to make a difference. Employees from this generation thrive in industries like professional services, insurance, wealth management, and home health care – serving others in a tangible way.

Culture and work environment are important. This group has high expectations when entering the workforce – as if every working environment should be Google-like with free coffee and laundry service (if only, right?)

Recognition and reward pays off. Significant progress in stature or pay is important. Unlike previous generations who were willing to put in the blood, sweat and tears for an extended period of time, a more immediate return on investment, so to speak, is important.

Show me the money! While those of us in Gen X and Y might have focused on planning ahead, retirement savings, and so on, Millennials are more focused on the here and now: making money, spending money, making more money, etc. – not thinking about retirement but more immediate life needs and wants.

Kinder and gentler. Millennials have been brought up to be much more liberal when it comes to politics and economics. This generation is more cause-driven than those that came before.

What’s in it for me? Although seemingly more tolerant, there also seems to be a sense of entitlement among this group. The recession in 2008/2009 had a big impact on this generation. For the first time in history, a highly educated generation entered the workforce carrying more school debt but earning less than the prior generation. Note to self: don’t enter the workforce during a recession!

Technology savvy. Millennials are very technology-focused. Many participants said that if they send an email to a Millennial, they’ll receive a text reply. In an effort to communicate more effectively, some are turning to apps such as Marco Polo and Slack.

We’re in this together. Group accountability is important. The success of the team and everyone pulling their own weight is important to this group. One organization uses Top Grading where everyone is peer-reviewed and the results are visible to everyone. A players continue working; B players are coached and trained up, and C players are let go. A and B players are very motivated by this approach and C players usually self-select out.

Be real. Lastly, the group talked about working with Millennials as customers and the challenges in connecting with them.  Most reach millennial customers through social media but all agreed that the posts had to be authentic. For example, a self-made video appears to be more reliable and meaningful in reaching a Millennial than a polished marketing video.

Be relevant. We’ve got to reach this group where they live. Everybody does business on their mobile device. The Wealth Management Company uses an app to entice Millennials to participate in investing. Getting a Millennial to make an appointment to meet an investment representative in an office is impossible. But if they can decide on how to invest via an app, then they are much more likely to do it. Do you agree?

A little light reading, your e-mail in-box and more…

Finally, other observations centered on professional development and time management. In keeping with our focus on good books to broaden your perspective and grow your career: a participant recommended the book The 5-Hour Work Day, which is loosely based off Tim Ferris’ book, The 4-Hour Work Week. It talks about how top performers got the same amount of work done in 5 hours instead of the typical 8-hour day – and the hourly rate was inflated to compensate for the difference. In the time saved, employees got to spend their extra time doing other things. How cool would it be to be as productive in 25 hours a week as a 40-hour week – and get paid the same? And have that extra time to devote to the things that you love?

Another participant practices the 3 D’s in his company as it relates to emails: Do it, Delete it, or Delegate it. They have been practicing this for nearly two years and he has seen an increase in productivity and efficiency. I’m going to put this into practice myself!

Isn’t it amazing how a generation can change the way people think, hire, and do business?

I think this happens with nearly all generations in the workforce —  but Millennials are definitely having a tangible and lasting effect, either because you’re encouraging all of us to shift our thinking or because you’re forcing all of us to focus on new ways of connecting, whether that means embracing new technology or new ways of relating to one another.

Either way, I’m thankful for our Millennial Mosaicians. You inspire us, challenge us, and force us to think differently. Your contribution to Mosaic helps us stay relevant and hip. And I love it when you teach some of us old dogs new tricks! By the way, does anyone know how to turn on Family Sharing on my iPad?

Carry on, you crazy kids!

Vicki

 

Team,

Communication. Do we have too much? Not enough? Exactly what IS being communicated? This has been a question we have all been asking for a couple of years. We have certainly focused a lot on quantity recently and we have created a communication cadence on the team that seems to be working well. But there is still an issue with communication, no? Maybe it’s not the quantity, but the quality.

I love our daily huddles and the opportunity to see so many faces on a regular basis. But it really is only a snip-it of what is happening in your world. The real meat of communication should be happening in your 1:1’s. Done well, effective 1:1’s are an opportunity to give and receive feedback. It is a platform in which to provide bi-directional coaching. 1:1’s are how we should be building relationships and developing trust and respect. It is how we get and receive information. If you don’t feel connected to the organization or ‘in the know’ then I bet you need to look at your 1:1’s. Oh, and don’t skip, miss or cancel these meetings if you can help it.

Since 1:1’s are so important, we thought we would try a new format. Therefore, we are rolling out a new template for 1:1’s to help improve the effectiveness and consistency of them.

Below are the 1:1 topics and a description of what we anticipate gaining from each topic covered.

DiSC Review

We will have everyone do a comprehensive DiSC assessment and then provide you each with Comparison Reports on how you work with others in your team and in the organization. As you start your 1:1, remind each other of your DiSC profile so that you can modify your style if necessary so that information is well communicated AND received.

For example, I am very outgoing and collaborative while Matt is very private and likes to work independently. I know that I need to give him space for ‘think time’ rather than force him to be collaborative with me. If we are working in a group, I need to temper my desire to make it fun and social and make sure we make progress on our goals so he doesn’t lose interest. Knowing this about each other allows us to successfully work together. And if WE can do it, then anyone can.

IN ALIGN

How do you feel Personally/Professionally?  (led by Consultant)

How are you doing/feeling? What is happening in your world? How is your family doing? Is there anything causing you stress that we need to know about or help with?  Is there anything at work that is frustrating you right now? Don’t wait until the quarterly surveys to provide feedback on the feel of the team. Be transparent! Say what’s on your mind! Of course, you should be tactful and professional. This is your opportunity to let your manager and the rest of the organization know what you need and what we can do to help you.

Coaching: Areas for Improvement (Led by Manager)

All of you are product experts – or well on your way to becoming a product expert. But as soft skills go, you can never know enough, be good enough, or be enough of an expert. Taking a step back and seeing yourself as others see you is something we don’t do often enough. We are constantly seeking feedback from our clients and from each other. It would be a shame not to use that information to improve ourselves and how we are perceived by others. This is the type of coaching you should be receiving from your manager. It is not meant to just point out what you did wrong (since we all do things wrong every day) but how to improve for the future. Sometimes it is just a small course correction needed in your communication style. Sometimes it is encouragement to have the confidence to have a difficult conversation with a client or another team member. Your manager is there to support you and help you become the best that you can be. Don’t pass up the opportunity to seek that type of feedback and coaching. And if you are not getting it, challenge your manager for it! And provide THEM with feedback on how they are delivering this type of coaching to you. It is meant to be confidence building, not demeaning.

Quarterly Priority Progress (led by Consultant)

Review the progress of your quarterly priorities and discuss any successes or challenges you have had or are having. Are you on track for achieving your priority by the next meeting? Do you need any assistance from your manager or someone else on the team?

Personal/Professional Development/Aspirations (led by Consultant)

What or who do you want to be when you grow up? I ask myself that all the time. My world is constantly changing and, therefore, I must constantly change to keep up with it. You all know how quickly our organization is changing. If you see a need or an opportunity for yourself or our company, make sure you are talking about it! Don’t assume your manager knows about it.

Start having conversations about your long-term goals. This is the perfect time to bring up any skills you want to improve on, new things you want to learn about, or a new role you aspire to be in. If you make your career and skills growth part of your 1:1 meetings, they are much more likely to become a reality.

Mosaic Updates (Led by Manager)

During this time, Managers will be communicating the necessary information to you from leadership meetings or clients/projects. We will be compiling and rolling out consistent, weekly communication to all managers so that everyone is hearing the same message. It will include recruiting needs we have, organizational changes, Always & Nevers, wins and successes, upcoming events, etc. During this conversation, you should be actively listening and receptive to the information you are being provided. Ask clarifying questions until you have a full understanding of what is happening. Do not walk away from the section scratching your head asking yourself ‘now, what did they mean by that?’ Hold yourself accountable to fully comprehend what is being communicated to you.

IN CLARIZEN

Project Review (Led by Consultant)

Surprises from projects are rarely good. Take this time for a detailed review of your projects in Clarizen. What could surprise us or the client regarding scope change, schedule change, risks, or expectations.  You should go through each project and discuss the following:

• Who is the client?
• What is the desired outcome of the project?
• Are we on track to meet the client’s expectations?
• Are there any (potential) obstacles that would prevent the desired outcome?
• Do you have any stucks?
• What progress has been made thus far?
• What are the upcoming tasks and deadlines?
• Are there any scope changes that need to be addressed?
• Are we in budget, are we on time?
• Is our LER as expected?
• Are there new opportunities that I can ‘warm transfer’ to Sales?
• When can we schedule the Service to Sales call?

First, we need to be able to support you more effectively. Second, we need more visibility into our projects to minimize service defects. Nothing catches me off guard more than a call from a client who is upset and I know nothing about the issue, Denise knows nothing about the issue and the manager knows nothing about the issue. We should not be surprised by these calls. There will always be exceptions but it should not be the norm.

Project reviews need to be happening weekly. We need to stay ahead of the project and be proactive in any challenges/opportunities we see coming. Also, your manager is here to support you. How can they help overcome or avoid obstacles by escalating issues with the client or the Mosaic team? Our clients are looking to us to see problems before they arise and provide a solution.

Schedule/Resource Load Review/Projects on the Horizon (Led by Manager)

Our goal is to make sure Mosaicains have a healthy work/life balance. Managers should be going over your schedule to ensure that is happening. Resourcing is incredibly challenging because the landscape changes daily. New requests are coming in fast and furious. Unexpected requests come in from existing clients that were not anticipated. It is hard to match resources with projects while still maintaining the right amount of billable work. Some people want more hours, some people want less. Clients want it all!

Now that we have Clarizen, we have more visibility into your current and projected workload. Be sure to review this in detail with your manager so that you are comfortable with it. It is not an exact science, however. There is some ‘art’ that is applied when trying to resource projects. But you should have a good idea of what is coming down the pipe. For a Professional Services organization, it is amazing that we now can see 3 and 4 months down the road. Thank you to Dave and Shannon for building such a healthy pipeline. And thank you to Denise and Andy for getting Clarizen to a point that we have that visibility!

Below is a example of how a 1:1 should be structured in Align and completed with information: 

1-1 Align sample

Consistent 1:1’s are a great tool for our team to feeling connected and informed. However, I do not feel like they have been as effective and consistent as possible, and I am hoping this template pushes change in our organization and how we run these meetings. Effective 1:1’s are the best way to seek feedback (as well as give it).  Since these meetings are so important, please DO NOT miss or cancel them if at all possible!!! If you have a client or travel conflict, be sure to reschedule it within the same week.

Remember, if you are not getting what you want out your 1:1, it is half your responsibility to change it. Come prepared with the items you want to talk about. Own your experience! I am looking forward to hearing the feedback on our new 1:1 template!

Your biggest cheerleader,

Vicki

MOSAIC TEAM,

WOW! We had a great Q1 planning session last month. It is always energizing to work together and it’s especially exciting to spend time with some of our remote team members. Our session was led by Marshall Martin, which provided a change in pace from Andy Bailey. Marshall will be leading the Mosaic team in future Petra sessions. Marshall has extensive experience in the professional services industry and his background compliments Mosaic. He is a great fit for our culture and I am confident his great insight and knowledge will help Mosaic continue to grow. Switching coaches was a difficult decision but the leadership team feels that his relevant experience will have a positive impact on Mosaic. The Executive team spent time with Marshall, pre-planning for this quarter and getting him up to speed. He has already hit the ground running! Andy Ferguson recorded many of our conversations during our planning session and these videos will be available soon. Below are some highlights:

LAST QUARTER PRIORITIES- Q4

As we projected, Q4 proved to be very busy and full of activity. I appreciate all of you diving in and meeting all our clients’ needs and demands. The team killed it and I am very proud of each Mosaician. Addition to the high volume of work, we managed to complete all company priorities to 100%. Congratulations to the owners of those priorities and everyone who aligned with those priorities to help achieve our goals. The sales team is focused on evening out our seasonality this year but year-end will always be our busiest time. Our goal is it prepare for it and make it less stressful every year.

Operations Management Tool: Project Data Accuracy (forecasting) – Denise Maddox 

Last quarter I talked about Clarizen and how it would be instrumental in providing visibility into our forecasting. Denise Maddox, Andy Ferguson, Matt and others who worked on this deserve a round of applause. WE NOW HAVE FORECASTING! This was a huge win for the entire organization. The sales team is now able to appropriately work on our seasonality issue and not do so blindly. Our team had some great priorities last quarter but this one deserved significate recognition. Remember, forecasting is dependent on accuracy and accuracy is everyone’s priority.

Mosaic Team Experience – Develop Framework for 2017- Matt Hill

Just as we want to continuously improve the Mosaic External Client Experience, we also want to focus on the Internal Client (the Mosaic Team) Experience. Matt worked with several team members to develop a roadmap for 2017, with stages, tasks and dates to develop each stage down over the course of the year. I am looking forward to seeing how this priority develops and to have guidelines in place.

Billed Hours – 6.4 Hours per day (416 Hours per quarter) for all consulting resources- Denise Maddox

As always, our Rockstar team continues to hit their numbers. Congratulations to everyone who made Club this past quarter, I had a great time celebrating with you in Turks and Caicos’.

MCE – Client Engagement Function Adopted and Automated in Salesforce- Dave Burkitt

To better serve our customers, the MCE Client Engagement team, led by Shannon Ferguson, revisited the MCE guidelines to ensure our processes matched the best interests of our clients and met our goal of every client returning to Mosaic.  To ensure Mosaic’s clients Return (this QTR’s priority), the MCE guidelines needed to reflect an on-going cadence beyond the sales cycle and service delivery.  To accomplish this, Shannon’s team worked with both sales and services (Engagement Managers) to  first break, and then rebuild the Client Engagement processes for Functional Consulting, Activations and Premier Support.  Shannon was able to successfully implement processes such as the Sales-to-Service handoff call as well as the Service-to-Sales call, which are now being tracked in Salesforce and soon to be Clarizen.

Shannon worked extremely hard to improve our processes around the client engagement process and  will continue to do so as we move forward and begin to track Returning Client engagements.

CURRENT QUARTER- Q1 COMPANY PRIORITIES

LER in use driving resource utilization- Mike Webb

The goal this quarter is the adoption of Labor Efficiency Ratio (LER) in our management and operational reporting. LER is a financial metric (LER=Revenue/Direct Labor Cost) we are incorporating to measure our operational performance. We talked through LER during our February quarterly meeting and our Engagement Managers can to go through the concept with you, should you have any questions. How can you help with LER you ask? Here are a few ideas: increasing your skillset, managing projects within budget, identifying out of scope requests early, and identifying other client projects.

R3-Phase 1 of 3: 100% Service to Sales completed for engagement over 40 hours- Shannon Ferguson

This priority really goes hand in hand with our 2017 theme Return, Recur, Retain- please refer to the attached presentation. This priority supports the Return phase. We should be completing a Service to Sales form upon the completion of every project. Greater than 40 hours (with exceptions). This is a fantastic priority for you to align your priority under to help sales. Our goal is an 80% return rate in 2017 and we need the entire team’s efforts to get there by filling out this form 100% of the time.

CLICK HERE- R3 PRESENTATION

Invoicing is done from Clarizen to Netsuite error free and invoicing SOP’s implemented on all service lines- Mike Webb

This priority is near and dear to my heart. I want our Client’s to experience simplified and error free invoicing. Our current process is complex and takes too many team members to complete each month- and WAY too much of my time. The accounting team is going to lead this quarterly priority and streamline all processes and invoicing for our internal team and Clients.

MCE – Service Delivery- Outsourced Services stage break w/recommended actions- Lisa Mathis

I stated last quarter that we will be taking a MCE stage and breaking it down each quarter. Lisa Mathis will break down these stages in Outsourced Services, improve the process and build it up again. The goal is to better the Client Experience and to make it repeatable.

Please be sure to work with your manger on priority setting and never hesitate to raise your hand if you have an interest in helping with one of our Quarterly Priorities directly with a priority owner. Remember that it will take all of us rowing in the same direction to move our organization forward.

Check out some pictures below from our planning session:

Last thing, the Mosaic Client Experience was implemented to help reduce service defects, deliver consistency every time to every client, hold ourselves to a high standard and go above and beyond. It is going to take ALL of us to hit our $8M revenue goal in 2017, and I know we can accomplish it by focusing on these three things:

Your Biggest Cheerleader,

Vicki

MOSAIC TEAM,

 Last week we completed our Q4 quarterly planning session.  Only 53% of the company attended this session due to the time of year and our workload. Once again, Andy Ferguson captured these conversations via video and these will be available for all to view by mid next week. Here are the highlights.

Last Quarter Priorities

A big thank you to everyone who worked hard throughout the quarter to complete their priorities last quarter. We had MANY people with green bracelets (thanks, Petra!) for completing all of their priorities. Here is the quarter in review:

1. #1 THING: Productivity – 80% utilization for the quarter for all consulting resource: Wow!  We blew this one out of the water. Quite a change of pace from Q2 2016! I want to thank everyone for digging in and servicing so many of our clients. I know it gets busy and stressful this time of year. Leadership is extremely aware of the high numbers and it has been acknowledged. We have added quite a few people to the team in the past few months to spread the workload, but we are measured in our hiring plan to avoid over-hiring.  It will be very important for everyone to set and reset client expectations.  Reach out if you need assistance with this.  You have a team behind you ready to help support you. By the way, we had some good conversations before and during the Petra session around minimizing the seasonality of our work in 2017. Clarizen will be instrumental in providing visibility into our forecasting. We hope that these peaks and valleys won’t be so extreme next year.

2. Operations Management Tool – Implemented and In-Use: This priority was completed as well. Huge Kudos to the Clarizen team that worked diligently on the configuration and the training for time entry. We realize the implementation was not without challenges; however, we purposely made a decision to go-live in October. We did not want to go-live in Clarizen in November, December, or January.  Being able to key in time and approve it was phase I. Thank you to the entire team for your support and patience as we worked through the kinks. Now on to phase II! (see next quarter’s priorities)

3. Mosaic Client Experience – Adoption: The Mosaic Client Experience will always be a work-in-progress. We will never be able to call this one ‘done’ and we should always strive to be better.  But we made good progress this quarter again. Sarah Bolen and Mike Webb continued holding us accountable for reviewing and updating our guidelines. Ceci Spehar worked her magic and put it in a document so that it is accessible and consumable by all. I can see this starting to work as we embed it into our tools and our daily routines.

4. Activation Playbook – Deploy in Clarizen via Project Plan Templates: Yay! This one is complete! Michael, Carissa, Paula, and Towanna completed the Project Management playbook and created templates in Clarizen for the Activation teams to use and follow.  This will create the consistency we have been striving for. Thank you for all the work you put into this to get it over the finish line.  This is the only Q3 company priority that is officially marked complete and will not roll over into Q4.  Great job!

Q4 2016 Priorities

1. Billed Hours – 6.4 Hours per day (416 Hours for Qtr) for all consulting resources: Denise Maddox owns this company priority but, as always, it is everyone’s responsibility to hit our numbers. I do not think it will be an issue this quarter!

2. Operations Mgmt Tool – Project Data Accuracy (Forecasting): Now that Clarizen is in use for time entry, we are now going to focus on phase II, forecasting. For us to forecast accurately, projects, dates, hours, etc. will all need to be scrubbed and corrected. Not only is forecasting important for resource assignments and workload forecasting, but forecasting is also needed so the sales team can properly manage the sales pipeline to avoid the peaks and valleys of utilization like we experience in 2016.  Everyone is responsible for the accurate reporting of their workload but will have the support and assistance of Andy Ferguson and others on the support team.

3. MCE – Client Engagement Function Adopted and Automated in Salesforce: Now that we have our guidelines documented, it is time to start ‘breaking’ one a quarter so that we can rebuild it better than before.  Dave and Shannon are going to ‘break’ our first guideline – which is the Client Engagement Function.  This will include the Sales-to-Service handoff call as well as the Service-to-Sales call. They will also be looking for status updates on all projects so they can check in with our clients to assess our service delivery. All of this will be fully documented so that our process is well defined and repeatable.

4. Mosaic Team Experience – Develop Framework for 2017: Now that we have the external customer well on their way to consistently experiencing outstanding customer service, we want our “internal customers” (AKA You) to enjoy an outstanding experience. Matt will be working with Ceci on creating a roadmap and schedule for developing our Mosaic Team Experience in 2017.

Check out some pictures below of our planning session!

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Theme:   Another thank you to the entire team for completing your Bag ‘O Thanks priority!  We were only 7 thank you notes shy of our goal of 410.  That is impressive! Can you believe that Mosaic improved someone’s day 407 times last quarter? What an impact that has on our clients and each other. Once again, we found so much value in our attitude of gratitude, that we are extending it into the current quarter theme one more time.  We are reducing the number of notes to 6. Another reason to extend this theme is to keep the amount of ‘new’ concepts introduced in the 4^th quarter to a minimum.

Survey Results:   We all strive to live up to our core values and core purpose. However, I understand that workload, client expectations, stress and personal commitments can sometimes make that challenging. One thing that I refuse to compromise on is treating each other with respect.  We are all adults and we are all a part of this wonderful team because of our skills and level of professionalism. That being said, I would like to address some of the feedback we have received on the Petra Survey (last quarter and this quarter), the eNPS Survey, and the general tone of some emails and conversations.

The leadership team welcomes feedback early and often. You should not wait until end of quarter surveys to make your struggles or questions known. If you have questions, suggestions, or are experiencing challenges, our doors are always open. We may not always be able to fix every issue, but we will do what we can to make your job easier. If we are not able to address certain issues, we can provide the reasoning behind decisions being made.

If you have feedback to give, please do so in a respectful and professional manner. I expect to be held to the same standards. Additionally, we all know that there is a difference between complaining and offering constructive feedback.  What we are constantly looking for is constructive feedback so that we can improve. Negative complaints offer no benefit whatsoever and I would argue that it perpetuates the issue or situation the individual happens to be complaining about in the first place. I have attached this quarter’s survey results and highlighted some examples of negative feedback that will no longer be acknowledged. Please find survey results attached below with comments.

q4-2016-survey-mosaic

We recognize, acknowledge and discuss several topics on a weekly, and sometimes daily basis. We understand the seasonality in our utilization and the recent high numbers. We understand the challenges the team has had adapting to Clarizen. We know that the changes to team structure can be stressful. If you have suggestions on how to improve please continue to send them our way. If you do not, then I would ask that you trust the decisions being made by leadership and ask yourself what you can do personally to positively impact your day-to-day, your team, and the organization.

Please know that the decisions I make for this organization have a profound impact on me. The magnitude of it is not lost on me or the leadership team. I realize that I am not only impacting me and my family, but the families of 44 team members. Never would I do anything to intentionally jeopardize the growth and health of this organization. Will I always make the right decision? Absolutely not. But one is not as great as all so I rely on your feedback, your knowledge, your patience, and your grace to help me make the best decisions at the time with the information at hand.

Since this is 5D Commitment November, I would like everyone’s commitment to contribute to a positive attitude here at Mosaic. Please hold yourself and each other accountable to this commitment. Lastly, I would ask that you continue to provide feedback but that you choose your words thoughtfully when doing so to preserve the Mosaic culture we all love so much.

Thanks, everyone.  Remember, you are not ON the team, you ARE the team!

Vicki

MOSAIC TEAM,

We recently completed our 3^rd quarterly planning session. 76% of the company was able to attend this session, including many of our new hires. I always look forward to spending time with our team. The format of the meeting was a little different as we really listened to your feedback the last couple of quarters. I worked with Andy to ensure the best possible Petra Session we could have. We were able to have more open discussion time and the chance to talk through our survey results (Q3 2016 Survey – Mosaic). Dave Burkitt and Mike Webb both gave informative presentations that outlined where we are now and where we are going. Andy Ferguson captured these conversations via video and these will be available for all to view by mid next week.
One theme that came out of our Petra planning session was Assume Positive Intent. I thought this was VERY important not only in our Mosaic culture but working with clients as well. I wanted to share some thoughts with the team about this concept. Most of us are guilty of letting our minds get distracted or our harmony compromised thinking about what others’ intent could be or how we got wronged by someone. We all know that it is difficult to interpret tone in an email.  Heck, it is sometimes hard to interpret tone in a phone or Zoom conversation.  However, by Assuming Positive Intent we become more productive due to the minimization of distracting thoughts. A team that assumes positive intent will be more efficient and better at collaborating because of improved communication.  You will become someone people will be more comfortable sharing ideas with and as a result people will collaborate with you and confide in you.  It also lets others know you have confidence in them, and people will often go to great lengths for someone who believes in them. We should always believe that the person speaking has no hidden agenda. So the next time someone sends you an email that makes you feel uncomfortable, take a step back.  Assume Positive Intent and if you can not find the positive in what the person is saying, talk to them.  You may be surprised by what you learn and how much your relationships will improve.

Last Quarter Priorities

A big thank you to everyone who worked hard throughout the quarter to complete their priorities. We had MANY people with green bracelets (thanks, Petra!) for completing all of their priorities. Here is the quarter in review:

1. #1 THING: Operations Management Solution Selection and Roadmap

Matt, Jason, and Andy F. went through a vendor selection process and it was determined that Clarizen is the right tool for Mosaic. Clarizen will allow us to fully manage our projects from tasks and milestones to resources and budget.  It has case management as well.  All time entry will transition to this tool.  Our target date is October 1.  Yes, it is aggressive and it is another change, but I know we can do it! This change is a positive change and it is going to help us to be more scalable in the future.

2. Mosaic Client Experience

Sarah Bolen and Mike Webb did a fantastic job holding us all accountable for our guidelines. This priority was completed at 100%. This was a big effort and is the first step in helping Mosaic create structure as we continue to grow.

3. Activation Playbook Completion and Adoption

While we made great progress, the Activation Playbook was not fully vetted and adopted.  Denise Maddox has taken the Activation Playbook as a priority for Q3 2016, and I am confident she will get it over the finish line.   

This Quarter Priorities

Check out some pictures from our Q3 session!

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Our Q3 2016 Company Priorities were established as a group before the meeting. Managers worked with the team ahead of time to Align your priorities to our company priorities.   Here are our 3rd quarter priorities and what they mean.

Our Company Priorities:

• #1 THING! Productivity – We have heard your concerns over “Utilization”, and are changing our focus to a target “Billable Hours” for each person. The team consensus was that Billable Hours is a more tangible target to track and achieve.  Denise Maddox owns this company priority but it is everyone’s responsibility to hit our numbers.
• Operations Mgmt Tool– Now that Clarizen has been selected as our operations management tool, we are going to implement it and deploy it in Q3 2016. The following operations will be moving from Salesforce to Clarizen: Project Management, Resource Planning and Forecasting, Project and Resource Scheduling, Case Management, and Time Entry.  In parallel, we will move invoicing out of Salesforce into NetSuite, and expense reporting and management will be moved to a new tool to be selected and implemented in Q3 2016.  Matt continues to own this company priority.
• Mosaic Client Experience– Automation in tools and Adoption. This priority is rolling over from last quarter as well.  We are now looking at our documented guidelines and finding opportunities to automate some of the processes in our systems and tools.  An example is that when a MSA contract is activated (signaling a net new client) and email is automatically sent to Sarah to get out a “new client swag package”.  We will attempt to automate as much as we can to ensure consistency in our client experience delivery.  Feedback and ideas are welcomed!
• Activation Playbook- Deploy and Measure adoption. – Denise Maddox is going to lead the effort to get the Activation Playbook to a functional state and in use on all activations. Again, please raise your hand and help in any way that you can.

 

Theme:   A HUGE thank you to the entire team for completing your Bag ‘O Thanks priority!  What a treat to see Mike Webb in a duck costume! I will update with a video soon as we have it. We found so much value in that priority that we decided to extend it into the current priority as well.  We are upping the ante and want everyone to send out 10 cards this time!

Thanks, everyone.  Remember, hold each other accountable to what your said was most important! You are not ON the team, you ARE the team!

 

Vicki