Mascaro Uses PerformYard to 3x Review Participation

Meet the Director of HR

Jamie Gildersleeve is the Director of HR at Mascaro Construction. She joined Mascaro in 2019 — becoming, in her words, “an HR Department of One” for a $500 million company. 

When Jamie joined Mascaro, she wanted to focus on scaling the HR function, bringing back the department's credibility, upgrading inefficient, excel-based practices, unifying siloed solutions, and delivering a great employee experience.

About Mascaro Construction

Mascaro Construction is a Pittsburgh-based, family-owned construction company that’s been in business for nearly 40 years. Started by Jack Mascaro in 1988 on the founding principle of doing things right, the first time. Through his enterprising spirit & dedication, Mascaro has grown into one of the largest contracting firms in Western Pennsylvania.

Today, Mascaro serves a wide range of clients & markets in the Pittsburgh & surrounding regions, completing projects like Acrisure Stadium (Heinz Field), Dick’s Sporting Goods Headquarters, Pitt Biomedical Center and the State Archives Building. As of 2024, Mascaro is building a new terminal for the Pittsburgh International Airport & the north end expansion of ALCOSAN. 

“Jack Mascaro believed that ‘your people are your biggest asset.’” Jamie told us. “He didn’t have a magic plan. He just knew Mascaro had great people that deserve a great place to work to fulfill their need to build fantastic projects. Today, his sons are fully engaged in every part of the business, and not only buy-in to HR initiatives but are often the drivers of them.”

The Challenge 

In 2019, there was low utilization of the current HRIS, and the processes & procedures that managed the employee lifecycle were fragmented. This created siloes & inefficiencies. 

“When mom-and-pop establishments grow, the focus is often building the business & the systems become secondary. Then when there is substantial growth, the technology stack isn’t present or is extremely siloed. With HR, our problem was that our HRIS was underutilized and none of the independent systems talked to each other,” said Jamie. 

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Within the siloes, the individual HR solutions were cumbersome and clunky. Review templates were not standardized and were often far too lengthy. “The system wasn’t administrator friendly. As a department of one, I didn’t have time to do 38 clicks to move one question around for 58 position-specific review templates.” 

“That’s when I said, ‘This isn’t working for us.’ There was no fluidity, no flexibility.” 

“Let’s blow it up,” she said. “Let’s start from scratch.” 

The challenge, therefore, was to find a streamlined performance management platform that could:

• Be created, deployed, and automated by a small HR team
• Allow for a flexible review cadence 
• Align smaller meetings under formal reviews 
• Set corporate scorecards, department metrics, role KPIs, and individual goals
• Respond dynamically to the demands of managers and employees

Why PerformYard

At a large construction company like Mascaro, schedule changes are constant. Managers, often working directly on project sites, needed a system that gave them the freedom to set dates for their meetings and reviews instead of being held to inflexible dates. 

With the previous system, employees and managers felt that their work had to grind to a halt to complete performance reviews. The reviews were lengthy, multi-page questionnaires that happened twice a year. The questions were the same across all departments and didn’t allow for employee growth or goal-setting. 

In short, completing performance reviews was a burden on the Mascaro workforce. 

Jamie wanted to transition from the static, biannual review process to an annual review supported by smaller quarterly reviews. She also wanted to easily create standardized templates, set review cadences, and launch a review cycle. 

“We’re committed to employee experience,” Jamie told us. “As agile & adaptable our construction teams are on project sites, we needed a performance management tool to match that. PerformYard looked like a one-stop shop. It feels good, looks good and is easy to use.  Ever since we implemented it, I receive fewer questions on how to navigate the platform because it’s extremely user-friendly.”

The Process 

Through partnering with PerformYard, Mascaro synchronized their performance management process, focusing on new hire onboarding, goal setting, and a slimmed-down review cadence. 

Mascaro has shifted to a single, end-of-year review with self-evaluation and manager feedback. Leading up to this review are smaller, quarterly check-ins. 

Jamie walked us through these check-ins: “With PerformYard, we were able to create these new forms and set up a review cycle. It leads the manager through curated check-in points, a ‘social’ check, performance, obstacles, goal progress, and just-in-time feedback.” 

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Through PerformYard, managers can select when these quarterly reviews happen instead of being wedded to inflexible timelines. “PerformYard gives our managers the capability and freedom to set their review schedules,” Jamie added. 

These smaller quarterly reviews give Mascaro employees critical feedback without detracting from their work. 

“It’s a nice transition to the annual review. Now with the annual review, there are no surprises,” said Jamie.

Mascaro has revamped their onboarding process as well. Now, employees set goals through PerformYard within their first month at the company – both individual and role-specific.

“We push these standard goals based on employee positions,” Jamie mentioned. “This bridges the gap between performance and development.”

New hires are given pulse surveys at the 14, 45, and 90-day marks to drive engagement and solicit feedback. At the end of the 90-day onboarding, the HR manager will meet with the new hire, and then later calibrate with the employee’s manager. 

“This helps managers think critically about what they’re doing,” Jamie explained. “Not everybody knows how to be a manager instinctively, so this helps them develop their leadership skills.

The Results

PerformYard helped Mascaro streamline their performance management process. Employees have short but effective quarterly reviews that culminate in a transparent annual review. New hires onboard through goal-setting and pulse surveys that culminate in a 90-day calibration. 

Through PerformYard, Mascaro also rebuilt review templates and imported their HR documents, so that employees can find every file in one place.

HR can now easily visualize goal progress and performance data through PerformYard. “It’s a quick look. I don’t have to run a report. The visuals are so much better,” said Jamie.

PerformYard’s flexible, adaptable system helps Jamie respect employee time while providing meaningful development. Jamie has also seen a noticeable uptick in the number of completed reviews. 

“When we first rolled out quarterly reviews, maybe 16% of managers did it. Then it was 25%, then 37%, then 48%. They’re seeing the value.”