By Debbie Bolla
The statistics around employee engagement have haunted HR leaders for years. According to Gallup, in 2023, only 31% of employees were engaged. The same research firm found this alarming number of dissatisfied workers is costing U.S. companies a staggering $1.9 trillion in lost productivity. It’s become so common new words are even popping up to describe it—like quiet quitting in recent years.
But statistics like reducing turnover by more than one-third and increasing employee promotions by 33% (see Celebrating Success below) also show how powerful employee engagement initiatives are. With all this in mind, HR leaders are working hard to put employee engagement efforts first. It takes a thoughtful strategy to build a productive and happy workforce that feels rewarded, cared for, and loyal to their employers.
“Employee engagement requires a constant, always-on effort and we give it just that,” explains Cindy Blendu, chief transformation officer and CHRO of Clearwater Analytics. “We focus on naming leaders across the organization to drive diversity and inclusion efforts, support volunteer efforts, and routinely engage local offices, each working with a hearty budget and creative team to make work more fun.”
Organizations are taking the time to ensure initiatives touch everyone. “Our approach to employee engagement is to incorporate it into everything we do as HR partners to the business,” says Dianne DeSevo, chief people officer for Dow Jones. “Whether through training, development opportunities, initiatives led by specific department leaders, company-wide communications, and global town halls, we ensure that people managers at all levels are encouraged to engage with their direct reports, and are well-equipped to do so.”
And for Melissa DiMuro, chief people, culture, and marketing officer of Limbach, it’s simply part of their company DNA. “At Limbach, our top core value is ‘WE CARE,” which means that we are committed to providing meaningful work, a great environment, development, and career opportunities,” she says.
When designing an employee engagement strategy, it’s important to consider that employees are multifaceted in life and in work, and what inspires them varies over time. There’s often not a one-size-fits-all solution. With this in mind, DeSevo says that Dow Jones has a multi-pronged approach, taking collaboration, leadership development, recognition, and wellness all into consideration.
An area they’ve recently been focusing on is office design and its impact. “Our physical environment and how we approach our workplace plays an important role in employee engagement, too,” she says. “We are always looking at opportunities for physical space modifications and enhancements that not only improve business workflow, but also employee interactions by offering an improved balance of ‘me’ spaces versus ‘we’ spaces.”
For example, many offices have wellness rooms for employees to use as needed—to get in a good mindfulness session or to step away for a break during the workday. The company also provides complimentary snacks and refreshments.
There’s also been a greater emphasis on bring employees together and fostering collaboration through in-person events. DeSevo says the company invites employees to view the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade from its New York City office each year and hosts holiday gatherings, lunches, and wine tastings with WSJ wine. These are the perfect environments for employees to socialize and remain connected to the organization.
With industry research showing that learning and development opportunities encourage both engagement and retention, Dow Jones is committed to upskilling employees. DeSevo says the company works with Hone, a people development platform, to help foster future executives with a leadership essentials training program. “We believe programs like these will support growth among our people leaders and ensure that we’re building effective and thoughtful managers,” she says.
DiMuro couldn’t agree more. “We offer an award-winning training program, including a full suite of leadership development programs, tailored onboarding, and robust functional training,” she says. Limbach also highly values leaders who understand that engagement begins at the top. Taking this into consideration, the organization has an intense process around the selection, promotion, and development of people leaders. “Our employees are the most important component of our business’ success, so encouraging their participation and voice is essential,” she says.
For Anne Buchanan, communication is a main priority for Guitar Center. “We have several town halls and other speaking engagements over the course of the year. We hold multiple engagement sessions related to our benefits and mental health offerings. We also provide cascade messaging materials for senior executives to roll down through the organization,” explains the SVP and CHRO.
Buchanan also sites recognition as an important pillar to engagement. Guitar Center honors employees who take strides to go above and beyond with an annual service awards program. Those honored are dedicated employees who deliver an exceptional level of service to both the organization and its clients.
Not surprisingly, Ramona H. Agrela, CHRO and vice chancellor – HR for University of California, Irvine, and Blendu of Clearwater Analytics report that they have similar building blocks to their programs. Both HR leaders shared an extensive amount of details surrounding their approaches. Learn more in the sidebars Employee Engagement at Clearwater Analytics and “Empowered to Make a Difference” program at University of California, Irvine.
In the infancy of employee engagement programs, HR leaders faced many challenges when it came to showing the effectiveness of their approaches. Enter employee surveys. These customized questionnaires help organizations get a pulse on their workforces. Technology has evolved over the years so they continue to be a mainstay in gauging and analyzing engagement through feedback and metrics. Agrela says the university measures engagement using a variety of surveys at different time periods during the employee lifecycle, including the following four examples.
1. Onboarding surveys are taken by new hires after 90 days of employment to focus on why they decided to join UCI and their level of engagement in their formative first three months.
2. Experience surveys are sent to a random sampling of employees with at least six months of service to help understand why employees stay at UCI and to keep a pulse on engagement levels between the larger biennial survey.
3. Exit surveys are hosted when turnover occurs to focus on the employee’s overall experience at UCI, including their decision to leave the organization.
4. A co-worker engagement survey is conducted every other year to measure overall satisfaction and engagement across the enterprise.
For Blendu, Clearwater Analytics opts for a biannual employee satisfaction survey to get a better understanding of employee engagement. The company also regularly surveys office leaders to ensure they have what is needed to keep their teams productive and engaged. Metrics also play a role, like attrition data, D&I metrics, and net promoter score from client organizations. “Our view is if we have engaged employees, that will have a direct impact on happy clients,” she explains.
Dissatisfied workers are costing U.S. companies a staggering $1.9 trillion in lost productivity.
Buchanan agrees that engagement is best tracked through a mix of feedback and data. “We created a quarterly dashboard to manage and track adoption of our communication tools so we understand what’s working, what people are interested in, and what to leave behind,” she says. “Success is largely defined by adoption however we also track sentiment in our annual culture survey.”
In addition to the yearly survey, Guitar Center distributes pulse culture surveys as well as new hire and exit surveys. All of this collective information provides a pulse on workforce sentiment around the business and culture. It also allows HR leaders to identify problem areas and pivot accordingly.
Dow Jones also leverages workforce dashboards through Tableau, that analyze data across multiple points including turnover, hiring metrics, and employees’ years of service. Its annual engagement survey paints an overall picture of trends to show both success and opportunities for improvement.
DeSevo also says part of their approach is to think about the end goal and work from there. “A core component to evaluating success is goal setting and performance evaluation, and our team plays a big role in arming leaders with the tools and resources they need to best set goals specific to their business and to effectively evaluate their employees.”
Implementing employee engagement strategies and the means to measure them are providing fruitful results. From decreased turnover to favorable return-to-work initiatives, these organizations are reaping the rewards of their thought-out efforts.
“Our employee engagement strategy is a critical component of our success as a company,” says DiMuro. “Since 2021, we have reduced our total attrition by 34% and increased our salaried employee promotions by 33% as a result of our employee engagement efforts.”
Limbach is in a customer-centric business and looks to empower its employees to help drive the best service possible. In an ever-changing marketplace and economy, DiMuro stresses the importance of agility.
“Leading a company through a transformation is complex. By engaging directly with employees of various segments throughout the year, we are able to quickly adapt as needed,” she explains. “As we scale our business, ensuring we have a robust pipeline of committed, qualified team members and a culture that enables growth is key.”
Blendu says Clearwater has been keeping a close eye on their scores and metrics as employees transition back into the office Monday through Thursday. “The results from our employee satisfaction survey are hitting above the tech benchmark and very close to our all-time high,” she reports. “We had low attrition in 2023, with levels back to pre-Covid and the highest net promoter score from our clients ever reported.”
UCI’s multiple survey approach provides them with a vast perspective, allowing them to take action. “Survey results are used to determine our greatest areas of opportunity for improvement, as well as identifying areas where we are doing well to ensure that we maintain momentum and engagement in those areas,” Agrela explains.
2023 was a positive year for UCI with results showing that the foundational needs of staff are being met and workers have the opportunity to succeed every day—major components critical to creating meaningful engagement. “When employees feel their basic needs are being met, they are more empowered to do their best work,” she says.
Other high-scoring factors include:
A takeaway from the feedback is to help enable UCI managers to lead for engagement. “An area of focus is to guide managers and supervisors to become more responsible for engagement since they have the greatest and most immediate impact on the engagement of individual staff members,” Agrela says.
By taking a closer look at the data and comments within employee engagement surveys, HR leaders can drive positive change. For example, DeSevo says the company has seen increased internal mobility within the organization, resulting in a year-over-year decrease in turnover. Dow Jones is also seeing larger candidate pipelines for open roles, attracting top talent through their culture and brand. “Together, these indicators signal to us that our efforts are working and having a direct impact on the business,” she says.
Buchanan says that empowering employees through feedback mechanisms can result in key changes voiced from their concerns. “Our people are vocal and we know when we get it right and when we get it wrong,” she says. One area of opportunity at Guitar Center was their benefits offerings. The company shifted from a PPO to an HDP benefits plan, which has garnered a sizeable increase in participation from 49% for PPO to 64% for HDP the last two plan years. “This migration results in a large cost savings for participants and the company,” says Buchanan.
And perhaps there’s nothing that proves the value of HR initiatives better than data-driven change.
Our Experts
Cindy Blendu Chief Transformation Officer, CHRO Clearwater Analytics
Dianne DeSevo Chief People Officer Dow Jones
Melissa DiMuro Chief People, Culture, and Marketing Officer Limbach
Anne Buchanan SVP, CHRO Guitar Center
Ramona H. Agrela CHRO, Vice Chancellor – HR University of California, Irvine,