Russ said the best thing about this approach was the buy-in that came from people seeing their own fingerprints in the final 8 values.

What happens when HR stops guessing and starts co-designing with employees?

In this episode of The EX Factor, Meg sits down with Russ Heptonstall, Global Manager of Learning & Development at Pixelogic Media, to explore a genuinely iterative approach to building a performance and talent management culture from the ground up.

Pixelogic is a global media services company working with Hollywood studios on scripting, subtitling, audio, and mastering — operating across multiple continents and languages.

Russ shares how his small-but-mighty L&D team has built something most HR teams only talk about: a co-created, values-led performance experience that employees actually want to use.In this conversation you'll hear:

• How Pixelogic went from 50 possible values to seven that every employee across the globe genuinely owns
• Why broad, open-ended performance reviews were failing managers (especially new ones) — and what they did about it
• The "accidental" conversation that led to their most-adopted tool ever
• Why taking complexity on yourself as an HR team is actually the secret to adoption
• What iterative experimentation really looks like in practice, including the failures

Whether you're just starting out on your performance management journey or looking to make what you already have more meaningful, Russ's story is a practical and refreshingly honest look at what it takes to build experiences that land.

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The EX Factor is brought to you by Crewmojo — the performance platform built around configurable workflows that create connected employee experiences.