Case Study
Multifaceted Strategy Inspires Leaders to See Business Value of Employee Engagement
Client
Senior leader assigned to oversee creation of employee engagement strategy at Fortune 500 entertainment company with ~5,000 employees
What We Did
Conducted culture assessment, identified engagement drivers, and developed comprehensive strategy and business case for investing in employee engagement
Outcome
Gained buy-in from leadership team, established strong foundation for new employee engagement function, and armed team with go-forward recommendations for programs and initiatives
Fortune 500 Company Invests in New Resources for Employee Engagement
THE SITUATION
A senior leader at a global Fortune 500 company was tasked with a new assignment: create an employee engagement strategy that will boost engagement levels across the organization. She embraced the challenge and knew that in order to truly accomplish the goal it would require a dedicated team and resources. She turned to Blue Beyond to help create a high-impact engagement strategy as well as a business case that would compel company leaders to invest in it.
WHAT WE DID
Blue Beyond partnered with the client to first develop a plan for gaining leadership alignment and agreement on the financial investment needed to establish a team and budget to support this work. We also needed to gain a deeper understanding of what was and wasn’t working inside the company’s current state culture in order to develop an engagement strategy and reach a desired future state where both leaders and teams felt engaged and valued.
We conducted extensive leadership interviews and employee focus groups that allowed participants to dig deep and feel comfortable sharing details about the underlying issues impacting company culture and what they’d like to see change in the future. With this insight, we were able to identify key themes and prioritize target areas to focus on as “engagement drivers”.
We recommended a multi-faceted strategy to address their biggest areas of opportunity and helped to position and deliver the strategy to leadership for consideration. We centered our engagement strategy on four key areas: facilitating communication among leaders, empowering managers with skills to balance workloads, shifting the internal narrative with compelling storytelling that focused on a company purpose everyone could identify with, and building greater employee recognition to ensure contributions were seen and valued. Each focus area included recommended strategies and programs for boosting engagement.
In addition, we proposed recommendations for optimizing the organizational structure to execute and deliver on the engagement strategy, including a governance plan and suggested resources to equip the team for success.
OUTCOME
Through direct feedback conversations, we established trust and helped leaders see the impact that an engaged workforce can have on company performance. Leaders began to fully appreciate and support the business value behind the engagement strategy, which led to approval for a healthy budget for a newly formed Employee Engagement function and the addition of new full-time staffing to support the delivery of the engagement strategy. The client had a solid foundation to build her engagement practice, as well as newfound insights on where to focus and prioritize the team’s efforts.
“Blue Beyond helped us build a strategic plan for an enterprise-wide engagement practice. Their understanding of the trends and their vast global experience provided us with sage guidance, which was invaluable.” — Senior Vice President
Following the work with Blue Beyond, the company began to roll out our proposed initiatives. They’ve experienced increased engagement in company events, established regular leadership team calls, and successfully launched an enterprise-wide global engagement council.
